Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses/Oxen of the Sun/401

Annotations

flair     (French) intuition, perspicacity, instinctive understanding. The word is, of course, also an English expression, but I am assuming that Joyce's use of italics implies that this is a foreign term. Walter Pater, whose style is being parodied in this section, was fond of including numerous italicized foreign words in his prose, especially in his early work.

piazzetta     (Italian) a small veranda. Properly, piazzetta means a small square in a city, being a diminutive of piazza. The latter, however, can refer to the veranda of a house, which seems to be what is required here.

alles vergängliche     (German) all that is transitory. These are the opening words of the final chorus in Goethe's drama Faust, Part II (1832):

Chorus Mysticus	Mystical Chorus
Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis; das Unzulängliche, hier wird's Ereignis; das Unbeschreibliche, hier ist es getan; das Ewigweibliche zieht uns hinan.	All that is transitory Is only a parable; The insufficient, Here it comes to pass; The indescribable, Here it is accomplished; The Eternal Feminine Draws us upwards.