How to Read «Ulysses», and Why / Edition 1

by Dr. Jefferson Hunter

Overview

This short guidebook, written specifically for first-time readers of Ulysses by a veteran teacher of Joyce’s novel, offers a way in to one of the most pleasure-giving books ever created. After an introduction surveying Joyce’s techniques, both traditional (the creation of plausible characters and a fully realized Dublin setting) and modern (interior monologue, the Homeric parallels, stylistic experimentation), an episode-by-episode commentary leads readers through the fictional events of June 16, 1904, explaining obscurities, identifying main themes, translating foreign phrases – in short, making understandable the world of Stephen Dedalus and Leopold and Molly Bloom. An afterword looks at Ulysses as a whole, arguing that like all comic masterpieces it applies a sophisticated treatment to ordinary materials. An annotated bibliography suggests further resources for studying the novel.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820456683
Publisher:	Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
Publication date:	01/29/2002
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	118
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

The Author: Jefferson Hunter, Professor of English at Smith College, received his Ph.D. in English literature from Yale University and has taught there as well as at Amherst and Middlebury colleges. In addition to numerous reviews and articles on modern literature and film, he is the author of Edwardian Fiction and Image and Word: The Interaction of Twentieth-Century Photographs and Texts. He has taught Ulysses for more than twenty-five years.

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	Introduction	1
	Preparations	1
	Gerty MacDowell as a character in a novel	2
	Joyce and Homer	6
	Interior monologue	10
	World versus word	14
	Outline of Ulysses	19
	Guide to the Events of June 16, 1904	23
	Telemachus	23
	Nestor	28
	Proteus	31
	Calypso	37
	Lotus Eaters	41
	Hades	44
	Aeolus	48
	Lestrygonians	52
	Scylla and Charybdis	55
	Wandering Rocks	60
	Sirens	65
	Cyclops	69
	Nausicaa	73
	Oxen of the Sun	78
	Circe	83
	Eumaeus	91
	Ithaca	95
	Penelope	99
	Afterword	105
	Suggestions for Further Reading	113