Stephen's intention in fantasizing that his uncle Richie
works for "master Goff and master Shapland Tandy" is obscure,
but it seems both disrespectful and distinctly Irish (not an
unusual combination). A "goff" is an idiot. Napper Tandy was a hero of
the United Irishmen rebellion in the 1790s. The second name
may also involve an allusion to Tristram Shandy, hero of the
brilliantly digressive novel of that name written by the
Irishman Laurence Sterne.
"Goff" is an obsolete English word derived from the Middle
French goffe (clumsy, awkward, stupid). The OED
quotes uses from the 16th through the 19th centuries, with
synonyms like "a foolish clown." Where Stephen may have
encountered such a word, and why he should apply it to
Goulding's employers—it does not sound much like either Collis or Ward—are
questions not easily answered.
Napper Tandy was no foolish clown, but a determined patriot
who led troops in the cause of Irish independence. Stephen
thinks of him later in Proteus in connection with a
song about the revolt of
the 1790s, as he remembers meeting another exiled
revolutionary, Kevin Egan, in Paris. Perhaps he already has
the strains of the tune floating through his mind.
The introduction of "Sh" into the name makes Gifford hear an
allusion to Tristram Shandy (1759-67), and the
brainy comedy of Sterne's novel is so Joycean in spirit that
this inference seems natural, but if an allusion is involved
it is hard to know what to make of it. One might observe that
Tristram received his name by an unlucky accident: his father
thought that names were destiny, and that no name more
certainly doomed one to failure than Tristram, but the name he
chose for his son, Trismegistus ("thrice-great," after the
legendary mystical philosopher Hermes Trismegistus), became
garbled into Tristram when the maid miscommunicated it to the
priest. One might go on to note that in Finnegans Wake Joyce
played happily with Tristan/Tristian/Tristram and its root
meaning of "sad." But one would then be forced to
admit that this name does not actually appear in Stephen's
fantastic coinage... "Shapland" is an uncommon
English surname, possibly derived from Sheep-land or Chaplain,
but it offers little for a reader to work with. What's in a
name?
