Research Thesis on Ulysses by James Joyce: Historical Background and Critical References -- englit.in

1. Introduction of Ulysses 

The novel parallels Homer's "The Odyssey" through the motif of Odysseus' journey. In "Ulysses", Leopold takes a similar journey in a day; his adventures mirror the various incidents that Odysseus experienced on his way home to Penelope and Telemachus. "Ulysses" is divided into three parts: The Telemachiad, the Odyssey, and The Nostos; it has eighteen episodes. The novel mirrors Homer's "The Odyssey" and is a stream-of-consciousness text with each chapter written in a different style.

2. More Information of Ulysses 

"Ulysses" by James Joyce was published in 1922. The novel is a parallel to Homer's "The Odyssey". Set in Dublin, Ireland, all in one day (June 16, 1904), the novel revolves around three main characters: Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom, and his wife, Molly. The novel was banned immediately after publication "for being prurient and obscene." Until the court cases of 1934 in the United States and 1936 in England, "Ulysses" was identified as pornography. The novel's protagonist, Bloom, is a Jewish advertising salesman in his forties. Due to his faith, he is viewed as an outsider in Dublin as he is a pacifist. He faces much anti-Semitic behavior as he hears Dedalus's speech on Shakespeare being a Jewish manipulator, is called a "wandering Jew," and then is called an intelligent, pacifist Jew in the pub with Martin Cunningham.

3. Publication Theory of Ulysses 

"Ulysses" is a modernist novel by the Irish writer James Joyce. Parts of it were first serialized in the American journal "The Little Review" from March 1918 to December 1920, and the entire work was published in Paris by Sylvia Beach on February 2, 1922, Joyce's fortieth birthday. It is considered one of the most important works of modernist literature and has been called "a demonstration and summation of the entire movement." Joyce first encountered the figure of Odysseus/Ulysses in Charles Lamb's "Adventures of Ulysses", an adaptation of "The Odyssey" for children, which seems to have established the Latin name in Joyce's mind. At school, he wrote an essay on the character, titled "My Favourite Hero." Joyce told Frank Budgen that he considered Ulysses the only all-round character in literature. He considered writing another short story for "Dubliners", to be titled "Ulysses" and based on a Dublin Jew named Alfred H. Hunter, a putative cuckold. The idea grew from a story in 1906 to a "short book" in 1907, to the vast novel he began in 1914.

4. Historical Background of Ulysses 

"Ulysses" is divided into three books (marked I, II, and III) and 18 episodes. The episodes do not have chapter headings or titles, and are numbered only in Gabler's edition. In the various editions, the breaks between episodes are indicated in different ways; in the Modern Library edition, for example, each episode begins at the top of a new page. Joyce seems to have relished his book's obscurity, saying he had "put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of ensuring one's immortality." The judge who decided that "Ulysses" was not obscene admitted that it "is not an easy book to read or to understand," and advised reading "a number of other books which have now become its satellites." One such book available at the time was Herbert Gorman's first book on Joyce, which included his own brief list of correspondences between "Ulysses" and "The Odyssey". Another was Stuart Gilbert's study of "Ulysses", which included a schema of the novel Joyce created. Gilbert was later quoted in the legal brief prepared for the obscenity trial. Joyce had already sent Carlo Linati a different schema. The Gilbert and Linati schemata made the links to "The Odyssey" clearer and also explained the work's structure.

5. Critical Comments on Ulysses 

The 18 episodes of "Ulysses" "roughly correspond to the episodes in Homer's "Odyssey." In Homer's epic, Odysseus, "a Greek hero of the Trojan War ... took ten years to find his way from Troy to his home on the island of Ithaca." Homer's poem includes violent storms and a shipwreck, giants, monsters, gods, and goddesses, while Joyce's novel takes place during an ordinary day in early 20th-century Dublin. Leopold Bloom, "a Jewish advertisement canvasser," corresponds to Odysseus in Homer's epic; Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist of Joyce's earlier, largely autobiographical "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", corresponds to Odysseus's son Telemachus; and Bloom's wife Molly corresponds to Penelope, Odysseus's wife, who waited 20 years for him to return.

6. Text Reference

The Odyssey is divided into 24 books, which are divided into three parts of 4, 8, and 12 books. Although "Ulysses" has fewer episodes, their division into three parts of 3, 12, and 3 episodes is determined by the tripartite division of "The Odyssey". Joyce referred to the episodes by their Homeric titles in his letters. The novel's text does not include the episode titles used below, which originate from the Linati and Gilbert schemata. Joyce scholars have drawn upon both to identify and explain the parallels between "Ulysses" and "The Odyssey". Scholars have argued that Victor Berard's "Les Phéniciens et l'Odyssée", which Joyce discovered in Zurich while writing "Ulysses", influenced his creation of the novel's Homeric parallels. Berard's theory that "The Odyssey"  had Semitic roots accords with Joyce's reincarnation of Odysseus as the Jewish Leopold Bloom. Ezra Pound regarded the Homeric correspondences as "a scaffold, a means of construction, justified by the result, and justifiable by it only. The result is a triumph in form, in balance, a main schema with continuous weaving and arabesque." For T. S. Eliot, the Homeric correspondences had "the importance of a scientific discovery". He wrote, "In manipulating a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity ... Mr. Joyce is pursuing a method which others must pursue after him." This method "is simply a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history".

7. Conclusion of Ulysses 

Besides the Homeric parallels, the Gilbert and the Linati schemata identify other aspects of the episodes. The latter lists "Hamlet" and Shakespeare. Stephen Dedalus sets forth a theory of "Hamlet" based on 12 lectures, now lost, that Joyce gave in Trieste in 1912. Scholars have explained the "Hamlet" parallels in considerable detail. There are also correspondences with other figures, including Christ, Elijah, Moses, Dante, and Don Giovanni. Like Shakespeare, Dante was a major influence on Joyce. It has been argued that the interrelationship of Joyce, Dedalus, and Bloom is defined in the Incarnation doctrines the novel cites. The publication history of "Ulysses" is complex. There have been at least 18 editions, and variations among different impressions of each edition.

According to Joyce scholar Jack Dalton, the first edition of "Ulysses" contained over 2,000 errors. As subsequent editions attempted to correct these mistakes, they would often add more, due in part to the difficulty of separating non-authorial errors from Joyce's deliberate "errors" devised to challenge the reader. 

Notable editions:

- Paris: Shakespeare and Company, 1922: The private, first edition published in Paris on February 2, 1922 (Joyce's 40th birthday) by Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Company. Beach commissioned Darantiere in Dijon to print 1,000 numbered copies consisting of 100 signed copies on Dutch handmade paper (350 francs), 150 numbered copies on vergé d'Arches paper (250 francs), and 750 copies on handmade paper (150 francs), plus an extra 20 unnumbered copies on mixed paper for libraries and press.

- London: Egoist Press, 1922: The first English edition published by Harriet Shaw Weaver's Egoist Press in October 1922. For legal reasons, the book was printed on behalf of Egoist Press by John Rodker using the same printer, Darantiere, and plates as the first edition. This edition consisted of 2,000 numbered copies on handmade paper for sale plus 100 unnumbered copies for press, publicity, and legal deposit libraries. A seven-page errata list compiled by Joyce, Weaver, and Rodker was loosely inserted and contained 201 corrections. The U.S. Post Office reportedly burned up to 500 copies, as noted in later Shakespeare and Company editions.

- New York: Two Worlds Publishing Company, 1929: The first U.S. edition of the novel was pirated by Samuel Roth without Joyce's authorization and first published serially in Roth's *Two Worlds Monthly*, then later in a single volume in 1929. It was designed to closely mimic the 1927 Shakespeare and Company 9th printing but many errors and corruptions occurred during reproduction. Reportedly 2,000–3,000 copies were printed but the majority were seized and destroyed by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice after a raid on Roth's offices on October 4, 1929.