Joyce's Revenge: History, Politics, and Aesthetics in Ulysses

by Andrew Gibson

Overview

The Ireland of Ulysses was still a part of Britain. This book is the first comprehensive, historical study of Joyce's great novel in the context of Anglo-Irish political and cultural relations in the period 1880-1920. The first forty years of Joyce's life also witnessed the emergence of what historians now call English cultural nationalism. This formation was perceptible in a wide range of different discourses. Ulysses engages with many of them. In doing so, it resists, transforms and works to transcend the effects of British rule in Ireland. The novel was written in the years leading up to Irish independence. It is powered by both a will to freedom and a will to justice. But the two do not always coincide, and Joyce does not place his art in the service of any extant political cause. His struggle for independence has its own distinctive mode. The result is a unique work of liberation—and revenge.

This eminently learned but lucidly written book transforms our understanding of Joyce's Ulysses. It does so by placing the novel firmly in the historical context of Anglo-Irish political and cultural relations in the period 1880-1920. Gibson argues that Ulysses is a great work of liberation that also takes a complex form of revenge on the colonizer's culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199282036
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/07/2005
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

Royal Holloway, University of London

Table of Contents

Introduction1. ‘Patiens Ingemiscit': Stephen Dedalus, Ireland and History2. ‘Only A Foreigner Would Do': Leopold Bloom, Ireland and Jews3. ‘Gentle Will is Being Roughly Handled': "Scylla and Charybdis"4. ‘A Look Around': "Wandering Rocks"5. ‘History, All That': "Sirens", "Cyclops"6. ‘Waking Up in Ireland': "Nausicaa"7. ‘An Irish Bull in an English Chinashop': "Oxen of the Sun"8. ‘Strangers in My House, Bad Manners to Them!': "Circe"9. ‘Mingle Mangle or Gallimaufry': "Eumaeus"10. ‘An Aberration of the Light of Reason': "Ithaca"11. ‘The End of All Resistance': "Penenlope"BibliographyIndex

Editorial Reviews

"This thought-provoking study makes a significant and highly original contribution to scholarship on Ulysses.... A particular strength of this book is the way in which it seeks to interpret the aesthetic of Ulysses as a whole, rather than focusing on a few key features or episodes."—Times Literary Supplement

"Joyce's Revenge makes a significant and distinctive contribution to Joyce studies, and it deserves a wide readership.... The author is impressively well read in English and Irish cultural history, and the book identifies and explores an aspect of this history about which most Joyceans, perhaps, know less than they might.... The sheer number of distinct contexts that Gibson has developed for Ulysses, all subsumed by the controlling theme of English nationalism, is extremely impressive. Among the books on Joyce I've studied recently this is perhaps the most absorbing 'read,' cover to cover, of all of them.... This book—certainly individual chapters of this book—will probably be reread much more frequently than most recent books on Joyce."—Timothy Martin, James Joyce Literary Supplement

"[A] thoroughly researched and documented study.... The consequence of this unique contribution to Joyce studies (and to English literary studies more broadly) cannot be overstated.... The book signifies an important contribution to Joyce scholarship, to post-colonial (or semi-colonial) studies, and to cultural-historical assessments of English literature. In reading Joyce's Revenge, one embarks on a rich journey into cultural history, previous scholarship, and the delightful density of the text itself. Gibson presents contextual material in an engaging manner, transforming sometimes familiar ground into provocative new readings of Joyce's aesthetic, Irish politics, and the force of English cultural nationalism."—English Literature in Transition 1880-1920

"Gibson's historical research is scrupulous and his explanation of Ulysses as a 'semi-colonial' text usefully extends the postcolonial theorizing of Joyce begun by Vincent Cheng, Seamus Deane, and others."—Choice

"Gibson deftly combines many of these threads—notably Nationalism, colonialism, and cultural commodity—in subtle readings to offer some new understanding of Joyce's liberation from these issues as what constitutes revenge."—Clio

From the Publisher