Shaw and Shea are lorning obsen

• George Bernard Shaw: whose the Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891) was an influential book championing teh Norwegian playwright Hemrik Ibsen. Shaw considered Joyce's work to be obscene if admirable. Of Ulysses he wrote: "I have read several fragments of Ulysses … It is a revolting record of a disgusting phase of civilization; but it is a truthful one."

• Shaun and Shem
• learning obscene: reading pornography, or Ibsen (widely considered obscene in its day), or perhaps reading Ulysses, which was attacked and tried in court for obscenity

• lorn: forsaken, lonely, bereft, forlorn

• learning Ibsen: Joyce studied Danish to read Ibsen in the original