Chapter 1 Sartor Resartus Reanimatus: The “Reversionary” Art of James Joyce, the Re-tailor
In: James Joyce and the ArtsPurchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Abstract
This article uncovers Joyce’s substantial debt to Thomas Carlyle. It reveals the fundamental importance the latter’s only published work of fiction, Sartor Resartus (1833–34), held for Joyce’s development of his own art. Shifting the focus from the letter(s) and fables of Finnegans Wake to progenitors, milk, mackintoshes, and Nietzsche in Ulysses, the article zooms in on hitherto overlooked instances of intertextuality and striking imitations of “Carlylese” strewn cunningly, and tellingly, into Joyce’s most revised opuses. Highlighting the instrumental role Sartor Resartus and its philosophico-editorial kernel played in swaying the development of Joyce’s “reversionary” and intertextual aesthetic technique, the article’s argument is twofold: firstly, that Sartor Resartus be accredited with planting the idea of a revised Homeric epic of Ulysses’s calibre into young Joyce’s imagination; and, secondly, that the textual clues underpinning this argument are woven into his later works.