Sign-In
Cart
Reading Joyce Politically
Hardcover
Series: Florida James Joyce (Hardcover)
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN13: 9780813015132
Publisher: Univ Pr Of Florida
Pages: 272
Weight: 1.27
Height: 1.06 Width: 6.35 Depth: 9.34
Language: English
For most Joyce readers being Irish means being anti-British, anti-capitalist, anti-upper class, and occasionally even anti-clerical, so we need to be reminded just how political the concerns of Joyce's characters really were. . . . [This] study goes a long way in debunking the old critical shibboleth, fostered by Joyce himself, that he was not a 'political' writer, a notion that his character/surrogate, Stephen Dedalus, belies with his pledge to write 'the uncreated conscience of his race.' --Zack Bowen, University of Miami
Provocative, wide-ranging, and gracefully written . . . glows with intelligence. It is the work of a socially responsible critic without a shred of showiness or self-indulgence. . . . I think this book will help change the way we read Joyce, for good.--R. Brandon Kershner, University of Florida
In the first book-length study of a Marxist Joyce, Trevor Williams takes as his starting point Joyce's assertion that Dublin was a paralysed city. He identifies those power structures within its civil society and private relationships--so clearly drawn by Joyce in Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses--that lie at the heart of that paralysis. More importantly, however, Williams shows how in Joyce the paralysis is always provisional, and explores the ways in which Joyce's characters do indeed demonstrate means of resistance to the British state, to class distinctions, to clerical hegemony, and to power imbalances in familial and sexual relationships.
In the process, Williams reviews the early criticism leveled against Joyce by the left, in particular by the First Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934. He also engages contemporary Joyce critics, including Fredric Jameson, Franco Moretti, and Terry Eagleton, many of whom have attempted to redress the leftist attacks on Joyce and to demonstrate his relevance to a postcolonial critical approach.
Throughout, Williams asserts the constant need to make literature relevant. In part, this book was inspired by his students, who in 1991, at the outset of the Gulf War, demanded to know how they could justify reading Joyce when, simultaneously, people were being killed. Williams's answer, formulated in the first chapter, is to argue that reading Joyce, who was keenly aware of the impact of unequal power relations, is not only justifiable but relevant, legitimate, and necessary.
Unusually free of the dogmatism and economism so frequently associated with Marxist literary criticism, Williams's reading of Joyce draws from the humanist tradition of Marxism and from contemporary feminist theory in what is ultimately a blend of provocative theory and close textual reading. It will be of interest to Joyceans, literary theorists, and anyone who still believes that to read Joyce is not only justifiable but relevant, legitimate, and necessary.
Trevor L. Williams is professor of English at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, and the author of numerous articles on Joyce's work.
Also in
Literary Criticism
Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times
Sachs, Aaron
Hardcover
Queer Faith: Reading Promiscuity and Race in the Secular Love Tradition
Sanchez, Melissa E.
Paperback
Ancient Rome at the Cinema: Story and Spectacle in Hollywood and Rome
Theodorakopoulos, Elena
Paperback
How to Be a Cat: (Cat Books for Kids, Cat Gifts for Kids, Cat Picture Book)
Swerling, Lisa
Lazar, Ralph
Hardcover
Hidden Hemingway: Inside the Ernest Hemingway Archives of Oak Park
Cirino, Mark
Elder
Vetch, Aaron
Hardcover
Dante's Vita Nuova, New Edition: A Translation and an Essay
Alighieri, Dante
Pitavy, Francois
Paperback
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines (Large Print Edition)
Foster, Thomas C.
Paperback
Much ADO about Nothing: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
Twelfth Night: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World Through the Women Written Out of It
Hauser, Emily
Paperback
Romeo and Juliet: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
Saunders, George
Paperback
Mythology (75th Anniversary Illustrated Edition): Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
Hamilton, Edith
Hardcover
Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise
Rundell, Katherine
Hardcover
Mean Dads for a Better America: The Generous Rewards of an Old-Fashioned Childhood
Shillue, Tom
Paperback
The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy
Le Guin, Ursula K.
Paperback
But Have You Read the Book? Romance Edition: 40 Love Stories That Inspired Our Favorite Films
Lopez, Kristen
Hardcover
Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend
Romney, Rebecca
Paperback
Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance: The Forgotten Founding Mothers of the Fairy Tale and the Stories That They Spun
Harrington, Jane
Hardcover
Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear: A. A. Milne and the Creation of Winnie-The-Pooh
Brandreth, Gyles
Hardcover
A Midsummer Night's Dream: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Shakespeare, William
Sparknotes
Paperback
Julius Caesar: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
The Odyssey: An Illustrated Guide: A Character-By-Character Guide to the Story of Odysseus
Metzger, Doug
Hardcover
The Jane Austen Insult Guide for Well-Bred Women: Serving Tea with a Side of Scorn
Reed, Emily
Hardcover
The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to World Literature, Revised and Expanded
Fadiman, Clifton
Major, John S.
Paperback
The Dream Factory: London's First Playhouse and the Making of William Shakespeare
Swift, Daniel
Hardcover
The Greek Tragedies: Seventeen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
Euripides
Aeschylus
Sophocles
Paperback
Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe
Ogden, Emily
Hardcover
A Treacherous Secret Agent: How Literature Spoke Truth to Power During the Red Scare
Garber, Marjorie
Hardcover
Trace Elements: Conversations on the Project of Science Fiction and Fantasy
Walton, Jo
Palmer, Ada
Hardcover