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Abstract
This essay focuses on the figure of Molly Bloom as she appears both inside and outside of the “Penelope” episode. Bénéjam sees Molly’s book-body as being represented, from “Calypso” in parts and by fetishistic associations with her discarded clothing and possessions, intriguingly suggesting that her discarded book may establish a certain link between her body and literature. Finding analogies for her “optics of seduction” in Flaubert and Marilyn Monroe, she proceeds to define Molly's body by its deferral and absence, an absence that ensures the reader's desire at the same time as it ensures that all that desire can hope to attain is not the represented bodily object but the body of the book.
Abstract
This essay examines the elliptic narrative strategy surrounding the adulterous encounter between Molly Bloom and Blazes Boylan in Ulysses. While the event lies at the centre of Bloomsday, it is not reliably narrated at the moment when it takes place and seems calculated to trigger the readers’ obsession and curiosity. As my argument will show, Joyce’s narrative and commercial strategies are complementary, and I identify his inspiration in the presentation of adultery and sexual intercourse in Flaubert’s work, with particular emphasis on the legal and critical history of Madame Bovary.
This essay has its starting point in a phrase from a 1922 letter where Joyce regretted the time when he was “a writer dans le temps.” Probing what he may have meant by these words makes it possible to understand how his oeuvre articulated itself around a reflection on time that determined his aesthetics. The essay examines the young Joyce’s questioning of the temporal anchorage of writing and the goal of realism; the aesthetics of epiphanies that pluck and save moments out of realism; time and the inclusion of the double timing of colonial Dublin (torn between Dunsink and Greenwich mean times); and the relation between time in Joyce’s fiction and timing in drama. It considers how the tension between diachronicity and synchronicity (nebeneinander and nacheinander), incorporated linguistically, makes it possible to recreate the sense of dramatic crisis within language itself.
Abstract
In this paper, I elaborate on Lynch’s remark on the Venus of Praxiteles in the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Looking back to the context which produced and worshipped it, the sculpture appears as a revolution in classical aesthetics. For all his apparent vulgarity, Lynch shows a better understanding of the sculptor’s intentions as well as a closer affinity to the classical tradition around the statue, than Stephen with all his Hegelian theorizing about art. In Ulysses, Bloom is another fervent worshipper of the Venus’s backside, which is in keeping with his roundabout ways, and with Joyce’s new treatment of the classics. Overall, I believe that the development of Joyce’s modernist aesthetics in his later works was better heralded by Lynch’s instinctive admiration than by Stephen’s aloof speculations.
Abstract
In this paper, I elaborate on Lynch’s remark on the Venus of Praxiteles in the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Looking back to the context which produced and worshipped it, the sculpture appears as a revolution in classical aesthetics. For all his apparent vulgarity, Lynch shows a better understanding of the sculptor’s intentions as well as a closer affinity to the classical tradition around the statue, than Stephen with all his Hegelian theorizing about art. In Ulysses, Bloom is another fervent worshipper of the Venus’s backside, which is in keeping with his roundabout ways, and with Joyce’s new treatment of the classics. Overall, I believe that the development of Joyce’s modernist aesthetics in his later works was better heralded by Lynch’s instinctive admiration than by Stephen’s aloof speculations.
Abstract
This essay examines the elliptic narrative strategy surrounding the adulterous encounter between Molly Bloom and Blazes Boylan in Ulysses. While the event lies at the centre of Bloomsday, it is not reliably narrated at the moment when it takes place and seems calculated to trigger the readers’ obsession and curiosity. As my argument will show, Joyce’s narrative and commercial strategies are complementary, and I identify his inspiration in the presentation of adultery and sexual intercourse in Flaubert’s work, with particular emphasis on the legal and critical history of Madame Bovary.
Abstract
This essay focuses on the figure of Molly Bloom as she appears both inside and outside of the “Penelope” episode. Bénéjam sees Molly’s book-body as being represented, from “Calypso” in parts and by fetishistic associations with her discarded clothing and possessions, intriguingly suggesting that her discarded book may establish a certain link between her body and literature. Finding analogies for her “optics of seduction” in Flaubert and Marilyn Monroe, she proceeds to define Molly's body by its deferral and absence, an absence that ensures the reader's desire at the same time as it ensures that all that desire can hope to attain is not the represented bodily object but the body of the book.
This essay has its starting point in a phrase from a 1922 letter where Joyce regretted the time when he was “a writer dans le temps.” Probing what he may have meant by these words makes it possible to understand how his oeuvre articulated itself around a reflection on time that determined his aesthetics. The essay examines the young Joyce’s questioning of the temporal anchorage of writing and the goal of realism; the aesthetics of epiphanies that pluck and save moments out of realism; time and the inclusion of the double timing of colonial Dublin (torn between Dunsink and Greenwich mean times); and the relation between time in Joyce’s fiction and timing in drama. It considers how the tension between diachronicity and synchronicity (nebeneinander and nacheinander), incorporated linguistically, makes it possible to recreate the sense of dramatic crisis within language itself.
No other modernist writer in English has attracted more or broader international attention than James Joyce. Translations, adaptations, and imitations as well as works of criticism are being published in increasing numbers and frequency, and show a proliferating diversity of approaches and perspectives on the work, life, and influence of Joyce.
In view of the internationalism of Joyce studies, and the current dissemination of literary-critical pluralism, this peer-reviewed series hopes to offer a platform for specifically "European" perspectives on Joyce's works, their adaptations, annotation, and translation, studies in biography, the history of and current debates in Joyce criticism, Joyce's place in literary history, matters of influence and the transmission of ideas etc.
In calling this series "European" in the broadest sense, we aim at soliciting not only the submission of articles by European contributors, but more generally all essays and research focusing on issues of European concern such as language, nationality and culture, literary-historical movements, ideology, politics, and distribution, as well as literary-critical perspectives with European roots.
Authors are cordially invited to submit proposals and/or full manuscripts to the publisher at BRILL, Masja Horn.
The series published an average of one volume per year over the last 5 years.
In view of the internationalism of Joyce studies, and the current dissemination of literary-critical pluralism, this peer-reviewed series hopes to offer a platform for specifically "European" perspectives on Joyce's works, their adaptations, annotation, and translation, studies in biography, the history of and current debates in Joyce criticism, Joyce's place in literary history, matters of influence and the transmission of ideas etc.
In calling this series "European" in the broadest sense, we aim at soliciting not only the submission of articles by European contributors, but more generally all essays and research focusing on issues of European concern such as language, nationality and culture, literary-historical movements, ideology, politics, and distribution, as well as literary-critical perspectives with European roots.
Authors are cordially invited to submit proposals and/or full manuscripts to the publisher at BRILL, Masja Horn.