Good Vibrations: "Sirens," Soundscapes, and Physiology

This article establishes Joyce's ongoing interest in psychoacoustics and illustrates how much he drew, in the writing of the "Sirens" episode, on nineteenth-century sound experiments that were developed by the German physician Hermann von Helmholtz. It argues that Joyce consciously referenced nineteenth-century sound theories to explore the link between the emotional and sensory experience of music and the physical and physiological components of sound perception.