Abstract
Discussing the works of James Joyce (1882–1941), the essay delineates a process of increasing reader involvement that is controlled by a thematization of sense perception. Taking examples from Dubliners, the article explores perceptual links between readers and protagonists. In A Portrait, it is shown how the protagonist creatively develops his sense perception that includes an idiosyncratic perception of time and space. Similar strategies of questioning sense perception can be found in Ulysses, where the reader is asked to activate not only his intellectual capacities, but also his sensory apparatus in order to understand the text. Finnegans Wake thematizes sense perception on levels below the sentence structure, and the essay closes with the argument that what the reader was trained to do in the earlier texts, will now contribute to an understanding of Joyce's last major work.
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