James Joyce

Raffaele Nardella

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James JoyceImpersonality of the Artist

Raffaele Nardella

• Influence from Baudelaire, Flaubert

• Artist’s task:

• Describing life objectively -> True image -> Detachment from society -> No writer’s point of view (p.o.v.) -> Different p.o.v. and narrative techniques for the characters

James JoyceImpersonality of the Artist

Raffaele Nardella

Style – Technique – Language

• realism and disciplined prose

• exploration of characters’ impressions and p.o.v.

• free direct speech and epiphany

• interior monologue with 2 levels of narration

• succession of words with no punctuation, grammar rules

James JoyceSubjective perception of Time

Raffaele Nardella

• modernist writer

• narrative more important than themes

• different p.o.v. simultaneously

• no omniscent narrator

• geographical and sociological details

• impressions and thoughts caused by an outer event

• opening “in media res”

• introspection rather than description

• time as subjective

James JoyceUlysses - Plot

Raffaele Nardella

On Thursday June 16, 1904 (18 hours) -> fist date with Nora

3 characters:

• Leopold Bloom: Jew adv canvasser, alienated common man, in the streets, funeral, meeting Dedalus

• Stephen Dedalus: alienated artist, saved from a brothel

• Molly Bloom: Leopold’s wife, singer, adultery

James JoyceUlysses - Odyssey

Raffaele Nardella

Odyssey as structural framework for “Ulysses”:

• Leopold as Ulysses

• Stephen as Telemachus

• Molly as Penepole

“Ulysses” in 3 parts (as in the Odyssey) – 18 episodes:

• Telemachiad (ch. 1-3)

• Odyssey (ch. 4-15)

• Nostos (ch. 15-18)

Homeric parallels -> important structural devices in the novel

Episodes -> hour, colour, organ of the body, sense, symbol

James JoyceUlysses - Setting

Raffaele Nardella

Climax of creativity

Detailed account of ordinary life

Like a play of chess

Dublin as a character of the novel

James JoyceUlysses – Mythical Method

Raffaele Nardella

Prose based on mythical method:

• Psychology

• Ethnology

• Anthropology

Parallel with the Odyssey: symbolic meaning - another dimension - universal in the particular

Modern epic in prose -> a new form of realism

James JoyceUlysses – Human Nature

Raffaele Nardella

Leopold, Molly, Stephen -> 2 aspects of human nature

Stephen: intellect, young looking for maturity

Molly: flesh, sensual nature, fecundity

Leopold: everybody, uniting the extremes

Moral Theme (quest/journey) -> human life:

• Suffering

• Struggling to rise

• Looking for good

James JoyceUlysses – Prose

Raffaele Nardella

Revolutionary Prose -> several methods for lots of matters:

• Stream of consciousness

• Cinematic technique

• Question and answer

• Dramatic dialogue

• Juxtaposition of events -> collage technique (cubist artists – a scene from all perspectives)

• Interior monologue -> 2 levels of narrration:

1. External to character’s mind

2. Internal to character’s mind

• Language: puns, images, contrasts, paradoxes, false clues, symbols, slang, nicknames, slogans, foreign words, literary quotations

James JoyceThe Interior Monologue

Raffaele Nardella

William James -> stream of consciousness – inner process

Introspection in the 18th century novels (Defoe)

20th century fiction -> subjective consciousness – difficulty to reproduce the human mind through traditional techniques – interior monologue to represent the unspoken activity of the mind

Interior Monologue: verbal expression of a psychic phenomenon

Stream of consciousness: psychic phenomenon

James JoyceThe Interior Monologue

Raffaele Nardella

Main features:

• verbal expression of a psychic phenomenon

• immediate

• free from introductory expressions

• 2 levels of narration (external – internal)

• no chronological order

• subjective time

• no rules of punctuation

• no formal logical order