14
votes
Accepted
Has there ever been a stage production of Chapter 15 of Ulysses?
From A Critical Companion to James Joyce by Fargnoli and Gillespie I learnt the fascinating tidbit that the Circe episode not only was adapted to a play entitled Ulysses in Night-town (directed by ...
- 7,876
11
votes
Accepted
Where and how did James Joyce condemn Hamlet as a failure?
TL;DR: Joyce criticized dramatic flaws in Hamlet, but never condemned the play as a “failure”.
Summary
Richard Ellman’s biography of Joyce makes it clear that Joyce thought Henrik Ibsen a better ...
- 51.8k
10
votes
Accepted
In Ulysses, why does Stephen finally decide not to stay with Bloom?
This question has been well discussed. See for example Kenner Chapter 13. Here is my take. All the quotes are from the penultimate chapter.
That is the ending Bloom desires. Bloom gets the son he lost....
- 1,903
10
votes
Accepted
Who is “our greatest living phonetic expert” in “Ulysses”?
The passage quoted in the question continues as follows:
Our greatest living phonetic expert (wild horses shall not drag it from us!) has left no stone unturned in his efforts to delucidate and ...
- 51.8k
8
votes
Accepted
Does Joyce, in Finnegans Wake or Ulysses, link the sound form "hoe" to "whore"?
Most of these aren't saying "whore". The one that does is "Hohore", which according to this page is actually "ho whore"; "ho" here is the exclamation. Also, note the r in "hore".
The Oxford English ...
- 1,751
8
votes
Accepted
Why is there so much stream of consciousness in Ulysses?
You are correct to point out that Joyce's use of the stream of consciousness technique developed over his career. While there are only inklings of it in his early work, there is quite a bit of it in ...
- 1,104
7
votes
What is the purpose of all the lists in chapter 12 of Joyce's Ulysses?
To add to andejons' answer regarding the Gilbert schema's technique of "gigantism", I'd suggest Joyce may also have been referencing, parodying or even honouring the 16th century Gargantua and ...
6
votes
What is the purpose of all the lists in chapter 12 of Joyce's Ulysses?
According to the Gilbert schema for understanding Ulysses, created by Joyce for his friend Stuart Gilbert, the technique that is used in the "Cyclops chapter" (a designation that also comes from the ...
- 3,403
5
votes
What is Leopold doing in the chapter Aeolus in Ulysses?
Bloom is an ad salesman. He is trying to broker a business deal, in which the Telegraph will run an ad for his client, “Alexander Keyes, tea, wine and spirit merchant.” Bloom brings a clipping of an ...
- 1,884
5
votes
Accepted
Why do we see so little mention of Leopold Bloom's social isolation in his internal monologue?
Because the statement "A key theme of the novel is Bloom's relative social isolation" is false.
Answering this in the negative, when no evidence to the positive has been presented whatsoever, is ...
- 1,903
5
votes
Accepted
How did Ibsen's writing in A Doll's House influence the James Joyce character Molly Bloom?
While Ibsen was indeed a great influence on Joyce in many ways,
there is no evidence that Ibsen's writing in A Doll's House influenced Joyce's character Molly Bloom from Ulysses.
While the onus really ...
- 1,903
4
votes
Accepted
What does Stephen Dedalus mean: "History is the nightmare from which I’m trying to awake”?
To understand this, once needs to know a little Irish history. Essentially Ireland has been an island riven by violence almost continually for over a thousand years. First it was the Vikings, raiding, ...
- 20.8k
3
votes
Accepted
Is the impenetrability of Chapter 14 of Ulysses deliberate, or a consequence of its stylistic pastiches?
To respond to what I think is the core of your question, yes, it is possible to translate the style of old forms of literature while still being quite readable for a present day audience.
However, ...
- 564
2
votes
What is the reference to the sixth month of pregnancy in Ulysses?
According to literary critic Micheal Groden, it's because the paragraph count in the chapter, from the beginning of its stylistic pastiches to the end, consists of 40 paragraphs to correspond with the ...
- 20.8k
2
votes
Accepted
How do we know that Bloom was never circumcised?
When I put ulysses bloom circumcised into Google, the top result was this Jstor page for the academic article Erwin R. Steinberg, "James Joyce and the Critics Notwithstanding, Leopold Bloom Is ...
- 70.6k
2
votes
What is the purpose of all the lists in chapter 12 of Joyce's Ulysses?
Parody of long lists in the original Odyssey or in epic poetry in general?
The Odyssey grinds to a halt when the travelers arrive in Hades and see all the most beautiful women in history, both real ...
- 303
1
vote
What is the purpose of all the lists in chapter 12 of Joyce's Ulysses?
According to my professor, lists are common in epic poetry, and in that form they are not truly meant to be comprehended. They are meant to impress, to fill one with the sense that even if they read ...
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible