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James Joyce Jeri Johnson Biography & Facts

Ulysses is a modernist novel by the Irish writer James Joyce. Parts of it were first serialized in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and the entire work was published in Paris by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, Joyce's fortieth birthday. It is considered one of the most important works of modernist literature and has been called "a demonstration and summation of the entire movement." According to the writer Declan Kiberd, "before Joyce, no writer of fiction had so foregrounded the process of thinking." The novel chronicles the experiences of three Dubliners over the course of a single day, 16 June 1904. Ulysses is the Latinised name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey, and the novel establishes a series of parallels between Leopold Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus. There are also correspondences with other literary and mythological figures, and such themes as antisemitism, human sexuality, British rule in Ireland, Catholicism, and Irish nationalism are treated in the context of early 20th-century Dublin. The novel is highly allusive and written in a variety of styles. Since its publication, the book has attracted controversy and scrutiny, ranging from an obscenity trial in the United States in 1921 to protracted textual "Joyce Wars". The novel's stream of consciousness technique, careful structuring, and experimental prose—replete with puns, parodies, epiphanies, and allusions—as well as its rich characterisation and broad humour have led it to be regarded as one of the greatest literary works; Joyce fans worldwide now celebrate 16 June as Bloomsday. Background Joyce first encountered the figure of Odysseus/Ulysses in Charles Lamb's Adventures of Ulysses, an adaptation of the Odyssey for children, which seems to have established the Latin name in Joyce's mind. At school he wrote an essay on the character, titled "My Favourite Hero." Joyce told Frank Budgen that he considered Ulysses the only all-round character in literature. He considered writing another short story for Dubliners, to be titled “Ulysses” and based on a Dublin Jew named Alfred H. Hunter, a putative cuckold. The idea grew from a story in 1906, to a "short book" in 1907, to the vast novel he began in 1914. Locations Leopold Bloom's home at 7 Eccles Street – Episode 4, Calypso; Episode 17, Ithaca; and Episode 18, Penelope Post office, Westland Row – Episode 5, Lotus Eaters Sweny's pharmacy, Lombard Street, Lincoln Place (where Bloom bought soap) – Episode 5, Lotus Eaters The Freeman's Journal, Prince's Street, off of O'Connell Street – Episode 7, Aeolus Davy Byrne's pub – Episode 8, Lestrygonians National Library of Ireland – Episode 9, Scylla and Charybdis Ormond Hotel on the banks of the Liffey – Episode 11, Sirens Barney Kiernan's pub – Episode 12, Cyclops Maternity hospital – Episode 14, Oxen of the Sun Bella Cohen's brothel – Episode 15, Circe Cabman's shelter, Butt Bridge – Episode 16, Eumaeus The action of the novel moves from one side of Dublin Bay to the other, opening in Sandycove to the South of the city and closing on Howth Head to the North. Structure Ulysses is divided into the three books (marked I, II, and III) and 18 episodes. The episodes do not have chapter headings or titles, and are numbered only in Gabler's edition. In the various editions the breaks between episodes are indicated in different ways; in the Modern Library edition, for example, each episode begins at the top of a new page. Joyce seems to have relished his book's obscurity, saying he had "put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality." The judge who decided that Ulysses was not obscene admitted that it "is not an easy book to read or to understand", and advised reading "a number of other books which have now become its satellites". One such book available at the time was Herbert Gorman's first book on Joyce, which included his own brief list of correspondences between Ulysses and the Odyssey. Another was Stuart Gilbert's study of Ulysses, which included a schema of the novel Joyce created. Gilbert was later quoted in the legal brief prepared for the obscenity trial. Joyce had already sent Carlo Linati a different schema. The Gilbert and Linati schemata made the links to the Odyssey clearer and also explained the work's structure. Joyce and Homer The 18 episodes of Ulysses "roughly correspond to the episodes in Homer's Odyssey." In Homer's epic, Odysseus, "a Greek hero of the Trojan War ... took ten years to find his way from Troy to his home on the island of Ithaca." Homer's poem includes violent storms and a shipwreck, giants, monsters, gods, and goddesses, while Joyce's novel takes place during an ordinary day in early 20th-century Dublin. Leopold Bloom, "a Jewish advertisement canvasser", corresponds to Odysseus in Homer's epic; Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist of Joyce's earlier, largely autobiographical A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, corresponds to Odysseus's son Telemachus; and Bloom's wife Molly corresponds to Penelope, Odysseus's wife, who waited 20 years for him to return. The Odyssey is divided into 24 books, which are divided into 3 parts of 4, 8, and 12 books. Although Ulysses has fewer episodes, their division into 3 parts of 3, 12, and 3 episodes is determined by the tripartite division of The Odyssey. Joyce referred to the episodes by their Homeric titles in his letters. The novel's text does not include the episode titles used below, which originate from the Linati and Gilbert schemata. Joyce scholars have drawn upon both to identify and explain the parallels between Ulysses and The Odyssey. Scholars have argued that Victor Berard's Les Phéniciens et l'Odyssée, which Joyce discovered in Zurich while writing Ulysses, influenced his creation of the novel's Homeric parallels. Berard's theory that The Odyssey had Semitic roots accords with Joyce's reincarnation of Odysseus as the Jewish Leopold Bloom. Ezra Pound regarded the Homeric correspondences as "a scaffold, a means of construction, justified by the result, and justifiable by it only. The result is a triumph in form, in balance, a main schema with continuous weaving and arabesque." For T. S. Eliot, the Homeric correspondences had "the importance of a scientific discovery". He wrote, "In manipulating a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity . . . Mr. Joyce is pursing a method which others must pursue after him." This method "is simply a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history." Besides the Homeric parallels, the Gilbert and the Linati schemata identify other aspects of the episodes. The latter lists Hamlet and Shakespeare. Stephen Dedalus sets forth a theory of Hamlet based on 12 lec.... Discover the James Joyce Jeri Johnson popular books. Find the top 100 most popular James Joyce Jeri Johnson books.