Circe in the arts famous name indicates a whore and any who loves such a one loses his reason'. His English imitator Geoffrey Whitney used a variation of Alciato's illustration in his own "Choice of Emblemes" (1586) but gave it the new title of "Homines voluptatibus transformantur", men are transformed by their passions. This explains her appearance in the Nighttown section named after her in James Joyce's novel "Ulysses". Written in the form of a stage script, it makes of Circe the brothel madam, Bella Cohen. Bloom, the book's protagonist, fantasizes that she turns into a cruel man-tamer named Mr Bello who makes him
Bloomsday the novel by Enrique Vila-Matas "Dublinesca" (2010), part of the action takes place in Dublin for the Bloomsday. The book's main protagonist, Riba, a retired Spanish editor, moves to this city with several writer friends to officiate a "funeral" for the Gutenberg era. In Mel Brooks' 1968 film "The Producers", Gene Wilder's character is called Leo Bloom, an homage to Joyce's character. In the musical 2005 version, in the evening scene at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, Leo asks, "When will it be Bloom's day?". However, in the earlier scene in which Bloom first meets Max Bialystock, the office