Abstract
This chapter tracks how the form and content of Ulysses demands we move through and beyond the text. Bringing together many aspects of earlier chapters, it begins with one sentence of ‘Calypso’ – before developing a questioning of how authority functions within the role of the author, reader, and critic, and how the intertextuality and styles of Ulysses provoke such questions. Looking at how we read Ulysses and, by focusing then on the narrative of ‘Wandering Rocks’, the effects of the novel’s ‘difficulties’, this chapter asks what we mean by and what we can do with a Barthesian dead author, a deified genius author, and our own authority as readers of texts. It thus brings readings of Ulysses to bear upon readings of how authority is formed in Joycean criticism, playfully testing a tenuous comparative reading of Ulysses with Stella Gibbons’ 1932 novel Cold Comfort Farm and Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play Arcadia: how do we authorise such a link? This chapter shows how a freedom of author-less reading and a god-like genius author co-exist within the text we create while reading Ulysses – and how we might derive authority from this fecund instability.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.