The pathos of Stephen's situation is clearly portrayed in the callous conversation that attends Russell's leavetaking to return to the office of The Irish Homestead, the farmers' periodical (the "pigs' paper," according to Stephen), that A.E. edits. The principals discuss a gathering of the Dublin literary intelligentsia to be held that evening at the residence of the novelist George Moore. Stephen has not been invited to it, although Mulligan has been and, in fact, Mulligan has been asked by Moore to bring Haines with him. Also, the men discuss a "sheaf of our younger poets' verses" that Russell is editing. Significantly, Stephen has not been asked to contribute to the collection. The sheaf, in actuality, was a 56-page compendium of poetry from such rising Irish Renaissance figures as Padraic Colurn and Seumas O'Sullivan and appeared under the title New Songs in 1904. Padraic Colum's 36-line poem "The Drover" is singled out by the discussants at the library; they hope that The Daily Express (for which Gabriel Conroy writes reviews in Joyce's short story "The Dead") will give the volume a boost.
Using all of this chatter, Joyce intends to demonstrate that Stephen is not considered an equal by the other men; he is as much of an outsider among his fellows as Bloom is among his. Thus, another point of similarity between the two men emerges: With neither Bloom nor Stephen are the protagonists' friends actively hostile; they simply do not feel that Bloom and Stephen are their equals. Russell, in a kindly but certainly patronizing way, promises to publish Deasy's letter, but only after reminding Stephen that "we have so much correspondence."
Again, the exchange surrounding Russell's parting demonstrates Joyce's brilliant alteration of background data to shape an artistic end. New Songs appeared in April of 1904, and Joyce changes the date to portray the publication as an impending one; and Stephen is excluded from New Songs (as was Joyce). Also, although Stephen testily derides Russell's magazine, Joyce did publish three short stories in The Irish Homestead in 1904.
In the first part of "Scylla and Charybdis," then, Stephen is definitely not a part of the Irish Literary Renaissance, a movement that Gaelic proponents hoped would restore Ireland's national image. His views are quite different from those of Douglas Hyde, who, in his Love Songs of Connacht, 1893, found inspiration in the untutored passions and language of the country people of western Ireland. Nor does Stephen overly admire John Millington Synge, even though his play In the Shadow of the Glen, 1903, provoked a great deal of discussion in Ireland because of its portrayal of a loveless Irish marriage, with the wife leaving her husband to follow a tinker.
