Reading Joyce's Ulysses - by Daniel R Schwarz (Paperback)

About the Book

New!
A centenary reissue of a classic Joyce text!

Book Synopsis

Reissued to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday, Reading Joyce's 'Ulysses' includes a new preface taking account of scholarly and critical development since its original publication. It shows how the now important issues of post-colonialism, feminism, Irish Studies and urban culture are addressed within the text, as well as a discussion of how the book can be used by both beginners and seasoned readers. Schwarz not only presents a powerful and original reading of Joyce's great epic novel, but discusses it in terms of a dialogue between recent and more traditional theory. Focusing on what he calls the odyssean reader, Schwarz demonstrates how the experience of reading Ulysses involves responding both to traditional plot and character, and to the novel's stylistic experiments.

From the Back Cover

In this major study of Ulysses, Daniel R. Schwarz not only presents a powerful and original reading of Joyce's great epic novel, but discusses it in terms of a dialogue between recent and more traditional literary theory. He takes full account of Gabler's Ulysses: A Critical and Synoptic Edition. Focusing on what he calls the odyssean reader, Schwarz demonstrates how the experience of reading Ulysses involves responding to traditional plot and character as well as to the novel's Stylistic experiment.

Review Quotes

'This is a thoughtful interpretation that serious students of Ulysses will welcome.' - Keith Cushman, Library Journal

'...Reading Joyce's Ulysses will no doubt be useful to the student stalled in confusion when reading Ulysses for the first time...' - A.D. Perls, Choice

'Instead of adding further chips to that mountain of critical apparatus which unfortunately frightens so many readers away, Schwarz emphasizes the joys that even a first reading of Ulysses can yield, and the ways in which the novel itself suggests how it should be read...' - Graham Bradshaw, English Studies

Reviews of Hardback edition:

'Schwarz is very effective in mounting evidence of the staggering number of mythical and literary echoes sounded in its pages...Reading Joyce's 'Ulysses' is a stimulating, suggestive book.' - Melvin J. Friedman, James Joyce Quarterly

'...Schwarz moves easily and thoughtfully among wide ranges of critical thought...' - Sanford Pinsker, ELT

'Reading Joyce's 'Ulysses' is filled with instances of Schwarz's careful, erudite understanding of Joyce's metaphoric and allusive intentions...' - Rosemarie Battaglia, Studies in the Novel

'A good first critical book to consult after a reading of the novel; as an interpreter, Schwarz is reasonable, lucid and very well read in Joycean criticism.' - Professor Jefferson Hunter

About the Author

DANIEL. R. SCHWARZ is Professor of English and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell University, where he has taught since 1968. He has received Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences Russell award for distinguished teaching. He is the author of the widely read Imagining the Holocaust (1999). His most recent book is Rereading Conrad (2001). His prior books include Reconfiguring Modernism: Explorations in the Relationship Between Modern Art and Modern Literature (1997), Narrative and Representation in Wallace Stevens (1993), The Case for a Humanistic Poetics (1991), The Transformation of the English Novel, 1890-1930 (1989; revised 1995); The Humanistic Heritage: Critical Theories of the English Novel from James to Hillis Miller (1986); Conrad: The Later Fiction (1982); Conrad: 'Almayer's Folly' through 'Under Western Eyes' (1980); and Disraeli's Fiction (1979). He has edited The Dead (1994) and The Secret Sharer (1997) in the Bedford Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism Series, and is co-editor of Narrative and Culture (1994).