Ulysses in Critical Perspective

by Michael Patrick Gillespie (Editor), A. Nicholas Fargnoli (Editor)

This collection of essays is the first in 15 years to review the current state of theory on James Joyce’s Ulysses , and this volume comes more than 100 years after the fictitious Leopold Bloom steps into the novel, a day Joyceans celebrate as Bloomsday. The contributors—well known for their work in James Joyce studies—each provide three assessments in their areas of  a history of the best criticism to date, a timely updating of critical positions, and an agenda for future examination. In clear, accessible language, the collection examines the insights readers can expect from particular modes of inquiry and offers an informed view of theoretical approaches and interpretive trends. For new Joyce scholars, the book provides a highly readable summary of existing criticism. For seasoned Joyceans, it offers a timely and important review of the methodologies that have made significant contributions to understanding the novel. In addition, it surveys an array of feminist scholarship on Ulysses and will stimulate new projects for feminist criticism on the issues of choice and agency. 

240 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 2006

About the author

Michael Patrick Gillespie is Professor of English at Florida International University. He is the author of Oscar Wilde and the Poetics of Ambiguity, Branding Oscar Wilde, The Aesthetics of Chaos: Nonlinear Thinking and Contemporary Literary Criticism, Inverted Volumes Improperly Arranged: James Joyce and His Trieste Library, Reading the Book Himself: Narrative Strategies in the Works of James Joyce, The Aesthetics of Chaos, The Myth of an Irish Cinema, James Joyce and the Exilic Imagination, Reading William Kennedy, and Film Appreciation through Genres. His other edited works include the Norton Critical Edition of The Importance of Being Earnest, James Joyce and the Fabrication of an Irish Identity, and Joyce through the Ages: A Non-Linear View.