Talk:Ulysses (novel)/Archive 1: Difference between revisions
m change nav |
MalnadachBot (talk | contribs) m Fixed Lint errors. (Task 12) |
||
Line 130: | Line 130: | ||
The Roman Catholic Church has had a profound influence on recent Irish history. Ancient in this case being before the Church was formed and spread its influence to Ireland. Joyce represents this influence is by the Latinization, or Romanization, of the the Greek. |
The Roman Catholic Church has had a profound influence on recent Irish history. Ancient in this case being before the Church was formed and spread its influence to Ireland. Joyce represents this influence is by the Latinization, or Romanization, of the the Greek. |
||
</nowiki>--[[User:Tombeek|Tombeek]] 19:49, 18 May 2006 (UTC) |
</nowiki>--[[User:Tombeek|Tombeek]] 19:49, 18 May 2006 (UTC) |
||
:I'm not sure what part of the article this comment is meant to refer to, but according to Ellmann the principle reason Joyce used the Latin versions is that they were far more popular in translation in the 19th C.; fewer people in Joyce's time would've been familiar with the Greek names. - [[User:Dharmabum420|dharm]][[Wikipedia:Esperanza|< |
:I'm not sure what part of the article this comment is meant to refer to, but according to Ellmann the principle reason Joyce used the Latin versions is that they were far more popular in translation in the 19th C.; fewer people in Joyce's time would've been familiar with the Greek names. - [[User:Dharmabum420|dharm]][[Wikipedia:Esperanza|<span style="color:green;">a</span>]][[User:Dharmabum420|bum]] 00:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC) |
||
== Soliloquy == |
== Soliloquy == |
||
Line 164: | Line 164: | ||
:More notably, since I first read it, I'm still amused and impressed that such a simple, human and, very often, exceedingly funny story gets overshadowed by the academia which has grown around it. "Iron Nails Ran In" still makes me laugh aloud, and "Love loves to love love" still gives me a shiver. |
:More notably, since I first read it, I'm still amused and impressed that such a simple, human and, very often, exceedingly funny story gets overshadowed by the academia which has grown around it. "Iron Nails Ran In" still makes me laugh aloud, and "Love loves to love love" still gives me a shiver. |
||
:You may feel it trivial to your own life and experiences, but there is an enormous volume of evidence that its impact on English literature to the present day is anything but trivial; even ignoring Joyce's contemporaries (such as Pound) and later devotees (such as Burgess), its influence is crucial to media as diverse as [[Illuminatus! Trilogy|the greatest and funniest (anti-)conspiracy novel ever written]], [[The Satanic Verses|a novel which nearly got a man killed]], [[Kate Bush|one of the most unique singer/songwriters of the last 40 years]] and even [[The Producers|Marx Brothers-style film and stage comedy]]. - [[User:Dharmabum420|dharm]][[Wikipedia:Esperanza|< |
:You may feel it trivial to your own life and experiences, but there is an enormous volume of evidence that its impact on English literature to the present day is anything but trivial; even ignoring Joyce's contemporaries (such as Pound) and later devotees (such as Burgess), its influence is crucial to media as diverse as [[Illuminatus! Trilogy|the greatest and funniest (anti-)conspiracy novel ever written]], [[The Satanic Verses|a novel which nearly got a man killed]], [[Kate Bush|one of the most unique singer/songwriters of the last 40 years]] and even [[The Producers|Marx Brothers-style film and stage comedy]]. - [[User:Dharmabum420|dharm]][[Wikipedia:Esperanza|<span style="color:green;">a</span>]][[User:Dharmabum420|bum]] 13:10, 24 May 2006 (UTC) |
||
I think Ulysses is a great novel. I am eighteen, but I don't listen to Europe, haha, had to take the shot. I agree that its influence is so vast it's just... stupid. I would go as far to say that Joyce's works has inspired so much that he's been ripped off without acknowledgment... look at Woolf and I still believe that Salinger ripped off Portrait (not necessarily the story, but elements and events, etc). His influence is massive and stupifying. And he's really unrecognized to be honest. If it is trivial, it's only because of writers ripping it off and dumbing it down and the collegiate scholars making such a to-do over it. It is... for the common man. Yep, but that's my opinion. [[user:willsy|willsy]] May 24 2006 10:25 |
I think Ulysses is a great novel. I am eighteen, but I don't listen to Europe, haha, had to take the shot. I agree that its influence is so vast it's just... stupid. I would go as far to say that Joyce's works has inspired so much that he's been ripped off without acknowledgment... look at Woolf and I still believe that Salinger ripped off Portrait (not necessarily the story, but elements and events, etc). His influence is massive and stupifying. And he's really unrecognized to be honest. If it is trivial, it's only because of writers ripping it off and dumbing it down and the collegiate scholars making such a to-do over it. It is... for the common man. Yep, but that's my opinion. [[user:willsy|willsy]] May 24 2006 10:25 |
Latest revision as of 20:19, 3 February 2023
This is an archive of past discussions about Ulysses (novel). Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
Biased sentence removed
I deleted this sentence The point that is most frequently missed is that it is a hugely enjoyable and rewarding novel. because it is not NPOV. Though most appreciate the immense originality of Ulysses, "enjoyable read" is not something that would come to the minds of everyone. If you can rephrase it, put it back, but be sure to keep neutral point of view paramount in your Wikipedia editing. - Kricxjo 10:04 Mar 15, 2003 (UTC)
"Points To Consider"?
I have changed sentence of the first chapter of the novel as, according to Blyton's boigraphy of Joyce, he chose what was to be known as Bloomsday (the 16th) because of his first formal meeting with Barnacle, not because he made love to her on that day. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.100.38.226 (talk) 01:24, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
- What's the reason for "Points To Consider"? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not Cliffs' Notes. - Kricxjo 00:30 27 Jun 2003 (UT)
- I did not create the heading, as it was a simple correction i did not feel it needed its own subtitle. For simplicity, i chose this one and whatever information was there before my comment is now deleted by some coward. What the f*** is Cliff's Notes? added 03:15, 4 January 2008 by User:89.100.38.226
Schema formatting
Although the schema is very enlightening, it forces the page width on my browser to an uncomfortable width. Might it be an idea to move the schema to (say) Ulysses (novel) schemata, with a link, to make the main article more readable?
- Done. Moved to Linati schema for Ulysses. -- 212.229.115.84 19:21 27 Jun 2003
Roman name versus Greek
I would be so pleased to see something in this entry on why Joyce chose the Roman Ulysses over the Greek Odysseus for his title. I can't find anything elsewhere on the net. Is it purely the aural aesthetic?
- Interesting question! I'd guess because at the time Latin was more widespread in Britain and Ireland than Greek, but I'll look into it a bit more. Markalexander100 13:52, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- My understanding is that until the mid-20th century or so, Greek mythological figures were usually referred to by their Roman names, when they had them. Thus, Ulysses, rather than Odysseus, was the normal English usage. Not so much that Greek was less known than Latin (which was certainly true, but remains true today), but just a different convention in terms of name translation vs. transliteration. john k 06:18, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- Yes, but why? Referring to Greek figures by Roman names is an odd thing to do. There must be a reason. Markalexander100 06:27, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Well, it was just the standard way of doing things. Going back to the time when Greek was hardly known, and Greek myths were mostly known through Ovid. The real question should be - why and when did this convention change? john k 16:46, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- And I finally found the answer to the Ulysses/Odysseus question- nothing so elevated as Ovid. ;( Markalexander100 09:41, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
And why do you think Lamb used Ulysses? john k 11:50, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Joyce had little or no ancient Greek. His (school) experience of the Odyssey came through Lamb's "The adventures of Ulysses". Are we talking about Joyce or Lamb's use of Latin here? The latter was writing in 1800...
Er, hi, I'm trying to post to the above, about Joyce's use of the Roman form of the name rather than the Greek. I can't seem to find a way to do this (an edit button seems lacking), so I'm putting it here.
- If everyone followed the talk page guidelines, this wouldn't happen. I fixed it up. —Keenan Pepper 22:42, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
The reason for the prevalance of Roman names over Greek is British public-school education, in which Latin was favored far above Greek (it's easier). So most folks educated by these systems were far more familiar with Latin that with Greek: hence, the prevalance of the former over the latter. The shift toward Greek names seems to coincide with twentieth-century popular translations of Greek texts and their wide readership, although I can't give you a source for this. But think about it: most of us have read English translations of Greek texts, not Latin ones, in school. Translations like Fitzgerald's, Lattimore's, and Fagles's various Homers are central cultural book events that were lacking in the nineteenth and earlier centuries.
The reasons for Joyce preferring Latin over Greek for the title are to be found in the book. First, Ulysses is a "translation" of Homer: not a literal, word-for-word translation, but a "bringing across" (the literal meaning of translation) from Homer's time to ours. Modernism generally stressed the discontinutities of earlier times with Modernity: hence, the use of the Latin tag: it's our Homer, not Homer's Homer. Joyce includes lots of references to Latin culture triumphing over Mediterranean culture: witness Professor MacHugh's comment that "the masters of the Mediterranean are fellaheen today," and his profession of "the blatant Latin language," or Stephen's comment that he enjoys reading Thomas Aquinas "in the original [Latin]." So Joyce continually highlights Latin at the expense of Greek (he knew the former perfectly, the latter badly). Finally, the etymology of "Ulysses" is often given as being from Latin "ulixes": "wounded in the thigh." This refers to Odysseus' wounding by the boar in the Odyssesy (don't remember the passage, but it's on Ithaca, when his nurse is bathing him and discovers the scar). Bloom has a small scar from a beesting that he got the week previous to June 16. Also, Bloom is "scarred" by the loss of his father and son, and by his wife's cuckolding: Joyce ties the latter into Shakespeare's sadness over his cuckolding by Anne Hathaway, via Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis": "The tusk of the boar has wounded him there-where love lies ableeding. If the shrew is worsted yet there remains to her woman's invisible weapon. There is, I feel in the words, some goad of the flesh driving him into a new passion, a darker shadow of the first, darkening even his own understanding of himself. A life fate awaits him and the two rages commingle in a whirlpool" (this is in chap. 9, the Library episode). Other instances might be adduced. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.161.239.220 (talk • contribs) .
The reason given by Professor James Heffernan of Dartmouth is that Joyce was literate in Latin, not Greek. He read the Odyssey in Latin. Joyce spoke several other languages and was upset about not knowing Greek (according to Heffernan). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.192.239.115 (talk) 00:22, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Strange ISBN
Why does the article refer to ISBN # 0590425994 at the End?
- Deleted. Markalexander100 04:04, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Inappropriate sentence
It seems to me that the sentence 'Parts of the final sentence were used by Kate Bush as lyrics to her song "The Sensual World"' doesn't really belong in the plot summary of Molly's soliloquy--it is, after all, merely another piece of art quoting Ulysses. How about including things that actually happen during the chapter in the plot summary (i.e. Molly menstruating)? --18.243.2.24 02:59, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- I tend to agree. That sentence is information about the song, not about the book. Mark1 04:32, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Censorship
My understanding is that Ulysses was never banned in Ireland, although the film version was for a time. If I'm right, this canard is repeared in the Censorship in Ireland article. Maybe someone sould double-check and correct if needed. Try googling "Ulysses was never banned in Ireland" for starters. 194.129.118.250 09:55, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
Ulysses was never banned in Ireland.
As far as I can tell "Ulysses" was never banned in Britain. Official book censorship did not exist in Britain - instead it was very much publish and be damned (a more insidious system than upfront censorship). Due to the fact that printers could face criminal charges for publishing "obscene" material (and whether it was "obscene" would be decided retrospectively), no printer was willing to take on the task. Customs seized copies but this was never challenged in court (the result of the case in the USA where the same standard applied probably made this pointless). Overall the book was not openly available but probably not banned.
The book was not banned in Ireland - which had an official censorship board. It certainly met all the criteria for being banned but I believe was probably ignored because it was not widely available. Badtypist 21:57, 22 November 2006 (UTC)badtypist
Questions on introduction...
I concerned about the introduction on this article. Many of the paragraphs seem to start in one place and end in another. For example, the second paragraph starts with desribing Bloom's journey but it ends with saying why Joyce picked June 16th. The fourth paragraph is less about the novel, and more about how it is indecipherable without Gilbert and Gorman, though this is not the case. I can see mentioning them as a defense for the obsenity charge, but not as the people who presented the rosetta stone for the novel. Various other minor "stylistic" problems seem to need adressing.
- The introduction needs much work. Agreed If you are not introducing the novel you should move down and contribute to the sections, not in the lead proper. Mandel 11:15, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
The reason I edited it to reflect a more NPOV is that Ulysses is a book that academics love and everyone else despises. Frequent criticisms of it include that nothing ever happens in the book and that Joyce gets bogged down in over-complex symbolism.
- ÇI don't know of anyone who has read it who "despises" it. Mark1 17:15, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
- I do find the article neglects the objections (other than the obscenity charges). Objections seem to be hinted at in the introduction but there isn't a follow up. Most of the objections that I have heard apply more to the "modern" novel than to Ulysses in particular, but there should probably be discussion of it here. I don't think it needs to be a substantial part of "the lead," but it should probably be discussed in a section below. "Reaction" or something. John (Jwy) 20:24, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
- I'm not entirely sure why all this attention on the difficulty of the book needs to be mentioned, other than to assuage people who couldn't make it through or object to its prominent placement on "best novels" lists. With Finnegans Wake, I can understand it, since it abandons plot, narrative, conventional structure and language, but Ulysses isn't THAT inaccessible. Many chapters, such as "Kalypso" or "Nausicaa", are easy to read, but its detractors just focus on the difficulties of "Oxen of the Sun" or "Circe". There are many difficult books, such as Rushdie's Satanic Verses, Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, or Saramago's The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis whose articles in the wikipedia never mention that they can be difficult and frustrating books that many people give up on.
- Perhaps it's worth mentioning that its high placement on academic lists of great novels is debated due to its challenges, but it seems to me that opinions about that belong in articles about such lists rather than on the individual pages of the books involved. I certainly don't see it mentioned on the pages for Atlas Shrugged or Battlefield Earth that their high placement on reader-voted lists is due to their readers fanaticism and involvement with organized movements to get them high on the lists rather than widespread readership. Dharmabum420 22:58, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
Influences?
The section on influences for Ulysses is ridiculous. We know that Joyce mined myriad texts for verbal sources or textual allusions (everything from titilating softporn to Dante). To name only one of these sources is to present that one as being of some especial importance. Either this section should be expanded, perhaps with a discussion of how Ulysses was written, or the reference to influences excised altogether.
- It does need expansion, so... go for it. :) I don't think excising it is the answer, though, as that just guarantees that editors won't notice the problem and a potentially useful section never gets expanded upon. - dharmabum 23:57, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
- I think excising it completely might be the better idea since major influences on the structure of the novel are to some extent (and could be further) dealt with in other parts of the article, and a list of minor influences could go on for quite a long time and end up just being a list of questionable usefulness in an encyclopedia article... Gracehoper 03:01, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
- I personally found the Doyle thing interesting the first time I read it, already familiar the well-known influences like Dante and Ibsen. It could be incorporated in tighter language elsewhere. There's no doubt that the influences of the novel needs better treatment in the article as a whole, though, in a novel where you could take up a whole sub-heading just listing the writers satirized in "Oxen of the Sun". - dharmabum 07:38, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
- I think excising it completely might be the better idea since major influences on the structure of the novel are to some extent (and could be further) dealt with in other parts of the article, and a list of minor influences could go on for quite a long time and end up just being a list of questionable usefulness in an encyclopedia article... Gracehoper 03:01, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Facelift
This article is really messy, really here and there. Needs some major work. To a person who knows nothing of Ulysses it's almost useless because of the sloppiness. Some things I prose are:
A 'History' heading be made as the first header. With this, all the following can be discussed and included:
Genesis Publication history (Maybe even put 'The corrected text' in with this part.) Obscenity trial
Structure be section #2. Stripping the structure of the Odyssey links, and instead having like the book itself, Part I, II, III and the chapters. This way a reader of this article understands that Ulysses and Odyssey correspond, but does not take this as Joyce ripping off Homer. I say this because Joyce never openly, that I know of I could be wrong, acknowledged the names of the parts were as the article describes. He described the connection to the Odyssey to friends and acquintances. It says it in the section itself that two other men named them directly for the obscenity trial.
Film and Audio adaptations be put both under a heading called "Other Adaptations" and explain both and be fuller paragraph or two.
Symmetic themes be removed. Add a Themes section. Symmetic and Catholic themes can be discussed along with the connection with the Odyssey and the schemas can be linked and discussed.
This article can get great, like the book, but it needs a lot of work, and I'm beginning asap. willsy 9:52, 22 April 2006
Never having read it before, I found this article quite useful in the past, and am saddened by what's been done to ruin it. WHY HAVE ALL THE HEADINGS BEEN REPLACED WITH "Chapter I" etc? Why ruin the best article on Wikipedia? It doesn't make sense. --62.255.232.30 10:09, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
The themes are still there... just scroll down, as is the entire article the last time I did anything, they're just rearranged and made a lot neater. This was definately not (and probably still isn't) the best article on Wikiepdia, sorry to say, but it wasn't. Thanks to other people who've helped improve much of this article. willsy 15:36 May 1 2006
Trivia
To user Henry Flower, who removed the trivia section with the comment: (→Trivia - encyclopedias do not contain trivia): I can see your point, but you have also arbitrarily deleted the content of that section, which was relevant to the article. If you believe it should not be under Trivia, then please move content to a different section or create one if necessary. Then we could get rid of the Trivia section. Ron g 13:18 May 8 2006
- Thanks for moving the relevant content to another section. Ron g 12:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
New intro
Okay, sorry I'm not trying to hurt anyones feelings, or discourage editing of the page, but I reverted back to the last edition of the older introduction. I'll explain why: 1) The first sentence said everything that was already in a paragraph just a little below it. 2) Mostly all the novels after it were influenced... or stole a lot from Ulysses (i.e. Virginia Woolf). 3) Background... There's already a History, and i think History can be considered a background of a book, just have to scroll down a little. willsy May 15 2006 17:19
Why Did Joyce Use Latinized Greek Names?
The Roman Catholic Church has had a profound influence on recent Irish history. Ancient in this case being before the Church was formed and spread its influence to Ireland. Joyce represents this influence is by the Latinization, or Romanization, of the the Greek. --Tombeek 19:49, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
- I'm not sure what part of the article this comment is meant to refer to, but according to Ellmann the principle reason Joyce used the Latin versions is that they were far more popular in translation in the 19th C.; fewer people in Joyce's time would've been familiar with the Greek names. - dharmabum 00:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Soliloquy
I believe that during Molly's whole soliloquy Leopold's asleep and she's reflecting on past partners etc. I could be wrong, so I'm asking for some help with it, thanks. willsy May 22 2006 21:43
- I completely agree, and was a bit surprised by the claim that they were engaged in sex during the whole thing. For one thing, Molly repeatedly mentions that Bloom is sleeping. A few pages before the end, when describing the sex she wishes to have with Bloom, she explicitly uses the subjunctive case (I will, I would like to), indicating that they are not currently having sex. In the last few lines, Molly clearly uses the past tense to describe the first time that Bloom and her had sex. I would like to change the description accordingly. Folkor 04:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
- While I have heard some academics argue in favour of interpreting Molly and Bloom having sex in her soliloquy, I think to include it in this article would require a terrific source. Her final "Yes" is in memory of that first sexual experience, her answer to his desire to marry her, her ultimate surrender to her love for Leopold, her reconnection with her husband... many things, but reducing it to an orgasm is, IMO, rather tasteless and simplistic. I'd love to see it changed. - dharmabum 07:03, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Why not separate Legacy and Influence sections?
Willsy, it seems to me that the two sections ought to be divided, for a quite simple reason: Clarity. I had no idea Kate Bush had lifted material from the soliloquy — good get. But as more and more material such as this is added on, in both the Influences on Ulysses and the Legacy of Ulysses, if it's all one grab bag it'll become more and more confusing over time. Precisely in order to allow for future editors to add good material, such as your Kate Bush get, and add it in a systematic and orderly fashion, I for one think that Influence and Legacy ought to be separated. It'll make it clearer now, and allow subcategorization in the future as well.
Just a thought. It's your call.
Incidentally, Leopold does indeed start to snore, but he wakes up, though Molly never quite says when it is that he does. And they in fact do wind up making love, not only confirmed tacitly by the text, but also confirmed by Stuart Gilbert in the exegesis. Cheers, --MILH 04:34, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone feel the same?
I haven't read Ulysses since I was in college, which was the third time I'd read it, having come across it at 16 and having read it again the summer before I went to school. As I was looking around Wikipedia, I came across the article, read it, and was intrigued enough to go get the novel off my shelf. Dust a half-inch thick on the top of the spine, I had not opened it in 12 or 13 years. I'd left a computer printout (remember those?) of my class schedule as a book marker — when I looked at the classes I'd be taking that Spring, I'd completely forgotten I'd taken them at all.
Anyway, my point: Rereading Ulysses now, in my mid-thirties, I was decidedly....underwhelmed. When I was a kid I thought it was cool, all the references and secret information tucked away in its pages — sort of the same thrill you'd get as from being introduced to the Secret Handshake in Fourth Grade recess.
But now....I don't know. The prose seems annoyingly smug, and all the references seem more like look-at-me-I'm-so-clever gimmicks than truly insightful. The characters don't strike me as particularly human, even — it just seems....paltry. I was truly surprised by this feeling. What struck me the most was how trivial I found the book today. That feeling that it was a trivial novel and of little consequence is what has me positively shocked — after all, I'd read everything by Joyce (yes, including the Wake — twice) before I'd turned twenty. I'd even read, God help me, Stephen Hero! But now, paging through Ulysses as a bona fide adult, I was sort of reminded of when I was a kid, and of how I used to rock out to Europe — the memory makes me cringe today.
Does anyone feel the same?
Feeling more than just a little bit blue, --MILH 05:43, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
- This isn't exactly the place for this kind of conversation - talk pages are intended for discussion of the article, not general chat about the subject. But I can't resist a reply to your final question, which is very simply a flat "No". Roughly 3 read-throughs in my 20's and 30's, both raw and accompanied by the ideas and details of Kenner, Burgess and Gifford, I am still astonished by the layered symbolism, acrobatic and erudite use of the full compass of the English language, and references of the novel, and I can't think of another which has so many changes every time I read it based on what I've learned since the last time I read it.
- More notably, since I first read it, I'm still amused and impressed that such a simple, human and, very often, exceedingly funny story gets overshadowed by the academia which has grown around it. "Iron Nails Ran In" still makes me laugh aloud, and "Love loves to love love" still gives me a shiver.
- You may feel it trivial to your own life and experiences, but there is an enormous volume of evidence that its impact on English literature to the present day is anything but trivial; even ignoring Joyce's contemporaries (such as Pound) and later devotees (such as Burgess), its influence is crucial to media as diverse as the greatest and funniest (anti-)conspiracy novel ever written, a novel which nearly got a man killed, one of the most unique singer/songwriters of the last 40 years and even Marx Brothers-style film and stage comedy. - dharmabum 13:10, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I think Ulysses is a great novel. I am eighteen, but I don't listen to Europe, haha, had to take the shot. I agree that its influence is so vast it's just... stupid. I would go as far to say that Joyce's works has inspired so much that he's been ripped off without acknowledgment... look at Woolf and I still believe that Salinger ripped off Portrait (not necessarily the story, but elements and events, etc). His influence is massive and stupifying. And he's really unrecognized to be honest. If it is trivial, it's only because of writers ripping it off and dumbing it down and the collegiate scholars making such a to-do over it. It is... for the common man. Yep, but that's my opinion. willsy May 24 2006 10:25
- I agree with Willsy. There are parts of Testament of Youth and All Quiet On The Western Front that were originally moving and profound; but if you read them now they seem trite and cliched because of all the imitation and repitition. There's also the problem that if you first encounter something when you are young, it may seem like less of a soul-stirring experience when you re-visit it after you have grown older, grown wiser, or simply grown up. There's plenty of that in Ulysses! Sante Sangre 01:29, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Copyright status of Ulysses
According to this New Yorker article, Stephen James Joyce controls the copyright to Ulysses. Our article says that Ulysses in its entirety was published in 1922, but US public domain kicks in for all published pre-1923 works, so shouldn't Ulysses bein the public domain? --maru (talk) contribs 20:55, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
- I suspect, since you mention US public domain, you need to consider "the first official American edition of Random House, 1934." Stephen James Joyce doesn't seem to be one to screw around with, eh? John (Jwy) 21:28, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
- That was my first thought, but Wikipedia:Public domain says that In the U.S., any work published before 1 January 1923 anywhere in the world[1] is in the public domain. . (The footnote is interesting, but probably not relevant). HenryFlower 06:26, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
- Ulysses isn't just "a work" though, but has undergone considerable changes with every publication. The text, exactly as printed in 1922 by Shakespeare & Co., is probably public domain; but the 1934 Random House text, the Gabler text, etc. are likely under copyright. - dharmabum 10:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
- Well, our PD page says that "A work that is derived or adapted from a public domain work can itself be protected by copyright only to the extent that the derived work contains elements of originality contributed by the author of the derived work... A work that is merely a "slavish copy", or even a restoration of an original public domain work is not subject to copyright protection". There must be information on the effect of textual editing on copyright somewhere, but I would have though that it was non-creative and more of a restoration. This article, on the other hand, says that "Still other commentators have charged that Gabler's perhaps spurious changes were motivated by a desire to secure a fresh copyright and another seventy-five years of royalties beyond a looming expiration date." (though there's no mention of which commentators). HenryFlower 12:40, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
- If it were any other work, I'd say that the textual changes would probably fall into de minimis, since the changes don't appear to be semantically significant (we're not talking, for example, modernizing from Elizabethan English to quasi-modern English and prepending and appending commentaries, which would grant a new copyright- see all those editions of Shakespeare floating around), but Joyce? Man, I dunno. I imagine a good lawyer could make a decent case that trivial changes are significant to the work. --maru (talk) contribs 01:07, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
- Not to mention the fact that Joyce himself kept editing the text into the 1930s under various publishers; it's not like publishers were tweaking the typesetting and he wasn't involved. Gabler's revision in the 70s/80s was working mostly from margin notes on Joyce's handwritten manuscripts and significantly changed the text in some areas, drawing more complications. I know nothing about copyright law, but I do know that the history of the text of Ulysses is exceedingly complicated, and Joyce's family has been, to say the least, unbending about such issues, indicating that erring on the side of caution is for the best. - dharmabum 10:58, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Legacy
"Joyce is often quoted as saying that one could recreate the city of Dublin, piece by piece, from Ulysses. Many scholars have noted that although this rather bold statement may have been true at or around Joyce's time, so much of the city has changed that this claim is no longer viable."
Er, this makes no sense - if the city hadn't changed then it wouldn't need recreation, would it? Not that you really could recreate Dublin 1904 from Joyce's book. That's just a bit of Joycean self-mythologising. --Attlee 10:53, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
I do a guided tour in Oxford. Mere streets and buildings do not do not tell people what life was like. True enough, people are intrigued to hear about buildings that were public bath houses in the 1950s, streets built for people who walked everywhere and don't have enough car parking spaces, and whole estates built with electric lights but no power sockets.
But what people really respond to is imagining what it would be like to marry someone from their class at school; live 3 or 4 people to a room; have half their children die in infancy from cold, starvation or infection; spend most of the day at work, then doing housework; to have only 2 or 3 sets of clothes; having nothing to do on their one day off except go to church and wander round the park; spend most of their adult life pregnant, then die at 43. It takes a bit of storytelling, but people's lives give a far better picture of the past than maps and diagrams. Dickens and Austen did it for Victorian London and the Home Counties, Joyce did it for Dublin. Sante Sangre 01:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
The page looks great!
I know this is a little off subject, but it's still discussing the article. But considering what this article looked like a year ago it's come a long way! Everyone that's worked on it has done a great job at making it a great article. -willsy December 5th 2006, 8:04AM —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.153.125.101 (talk) 14:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC).
Other Themes/Devices
I'm adding this point based on memory, but I recall that Joyce also wove into each chapter a part/organ of the body. I think Gilbert's road-map made a point of this. My books are all in storage so I can't check this (and it's been 20 years), but it may deserve at least a sentence. I do think that this article does a good job providing a schematic of a very complicated novel. Leave the critical writing to the PhD's out there.Mattnad 03:15, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
- OK, so I now read Gilbert's schemata as published in Wikipedia. I think that covers it, but the value of both schemata may be lost on a casual reader of this entry who has no experience with the novel.Mattnad 03:20, 31 December 2006 (UTC)