«Circé» est le quinzième chapitre d'Ulysse. Il reprend, très vite, c'est-à-dire de façon compacte, condensée, tous les événements et personnages rencontrés précédemment, parfois d'un mot, d'un fragment de mot; tout fonctionne par références et allusions.

A la fin de son introduction à ce chapitre dans la Pléiade, Daniel Ferrer souligne le paradoxe qu'il y a à ralentir la lecture par des notes à chaque alors que le principe du chapitre est justement l'inverse, la condensation et la rapidité:

Cette autographie étant donc la caractéristique principale de l'épisode, une grande part des notes ci-dessous va être consacrée à signaler les récurrences. Bien que nos renvois soient nécessairement très incomplets (puisque, nous l'avons vu, pratiquement chaque mot peut être considéré comme un revenant, ramenant avec lui quelque chose du ou des contextes où il a figuré dans les chapitres antérieurs), ils pourront paraître fastidieux, ralentissant la lecture à l'excès, alourdissant inutilement un des chapitres les plus comiques d'Ulysse; mais cette méthode rétrograde est la seule qui permette de pénétrer dans «Circé», car le lecteur est devant ce texte comme devant un miroir; il découvre qu'il y figure déjà, mais qu'il ne peut s'y enfoncer qu'à condition de s'en éloigner à reculons.

Daniel Ferrer, notes à Ulysse dans l'édition la Pléiade, p.1663-1664

Two fellows that would suck whisky off a sore leg.

James Joyce, Ulysses, p.228, Penguin student's edition - 1992

All the odd things people pick up for food. Out of shells, periwinkles with a pin, off trees, snails out of the ground the French eat, out of the sea with bait on a hook. Silly fish learn nothing in a thousand years. If you didn't know risky putting anything into your mouth. Poisonous berries. Johnny Magories. Roundness you think good. Gaudy colour warns you off. One fellow told another and so on. Try it on the dog first. Led on by the smell or the look. Tempting fruit. Ice cones. Cream. Instinct. Orangegroves for instance. Need artificial irrigation. Bleibtreustrasse. Yes but what about oysters? Unsightly like a clot of phlegm. Filthy shells. Devil to open them too. Who found them out?

James Joyce, Ulysses, p.222, Penguin student's edition 1992

Well up : it splashed yellow near his boot. A diner, knife and fork upright, elbows on table, ready for a second helping stared towards the foodlift across his stained square of newspaper. Other chap telling him something with his mouthfull. Sympathetic listener. Table talk. I munched hum un thu Unchster Bunk un Munchday. Ha? Did you, faith?
Mr Bloom raised two fingers doubtfully to his lips. His eyes said.
— Not here. Don't see him.
Out. I hate dirty eaters.

James Joyce, Ulysses, p.216, Penguin student's edition, 1992

— There can be no reconciliation, Stephen said, if there has not been a sundering.

James Joyce, ''Ulysses'', chap.9, Penguin Student's Edition, 1992

He murmured then with blonde delight for all:

Between the acres of the rye
These pretty countryfolk would lie.

James Joyce, Ulysses, chap.9, Penguin Student's Edition, 1992

— Bosh! Stephen said rudely. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

James Joyce, Ulysses, chap.9, p.243 Penguin Student's Edition, 1992

Here he ponders things that were not: what Caesar would have live to do he believed the soothsayer: possibilities of the possible as possible: things not known: what name Achilles bore when he lived among women.

James Joyce, Ulysses, chap.9, Penguin Student's Edition, 1992

The images of other males of his blood will repel him. He will see in them grotesque attempts of nature to foretell or repeat himself.

James Joyce, Ulysses, chap.9, Penguin Student's Edition, 1992

Will any man love the daughter if he has not loved the mother ?

James Joyce, Ulysses, chap.9, Penguin Student's Edition, 1992

Or Hughie Wills. Mr William Himself. W. H.: who am I ?

James Joyce, Ulysses, chap.9

Love that dare not speak its name.

James Joyce, Ulysses, chap.9

Wait before a door sometimes it will open.

James Joyces, Ulysses, p.82 (Penguin 1992)

I have often thought since on looking back over that strange time that it was that small act, trivial in itself, that striking of that match, that determined the whole aftercourse of both our lives.

James Joyce, Ulysses, p.177 (chapitre 7) - Penguin 1992

Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.

James Joyce, Ulysses p.148 (Penguin annotated student's edition - 1992)

Books you were going to write with letters for titles. Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is wonderful. O yes, W.

James Joyces, Ulysses, p.50 (Penguin 1992)

Il [Valery Larbaud] a joué un rôle très important dans la publication d'Ulysses, par exemple. Il était très riche, c'était l'héritier des eaux de Vichy. Il a beaucoup voyagé, sa poésie est pleine de lieux, de noms de lieux, de pays traversés. Quand il avait seize ou dix-sept ans il est allé en Russie, j'aimais beaucoup ces vers:

J'ai connu pour la première fois toute la douceur de vivre
Dans un wagon du Nord-Express, entre Wirballen et Pskow.

Renaud Camus, Journal de Travers, p.1098