About the Book
James Joyce's Ulysses is filled with all sorts of references that can get in the way of many of its readers. This volume, with over 12,000 individual annotations (and more than double the word count of Ulysses itself), explains these references and allusions in a clear and compact manner and is designed to be accessible to novices and scholars alike.
The annotations cover the full range of information referenced in Ulysses: a vast array of literary allusions, such as Shakespeare, Aristotle, Dante, Aquinas, slang from various eras and areas, foreign language words and phrases, Hiberno-English expressions, Catholic ritual and theology, Irish histories, Theosophy, Freemasonry, cricket, astronomy, fashion, boxing, heraldry, the symbolism of tattoos, horse racing, advertising slogans, nursery rhymes, superstitions, music-hall songs, references to Dublin topography precise enough for a city directory, and much more besides.
The annotations reflect the latest scholarship and have been thoroughly reviewed by an international team of experts. They are designed to be accessible to first-time readers and college students and will also serve as a resource for Joycean specialists. The volume includes contemporaneous maps of Dublin to illustrate the cityscape's relevance to Joyce's novel. Unlike previous volumes of annotations, almost every note includes documentation about sources.
Table of Contents:
Abbreviations
On the Uses and Disadvantages of Annotations for Ulysses
A Note on Dublin Topography and Toponyms
A Note on Irish History since 1800
A Note on Currency
A Note on Annotations Past
A Note on Editions of Ulysses
A Note on Joyce's Notes and Manuscripts
A Note on the Ulysses Schemata
A Note on the Title Ulysses
A Note on the Present Project and Acknowledgements
1: 'Telemachus'
2: 'Nestor'
3: 'Proteus'
4: 'Calypso'
5: 'Lotus Eaters'
6: 'Hades'
7: 'Aeolus'
8: 'Lestrygonians'
9: 'Scylla and Charybdis'
10: 'Wandering Rocks'
11: 'Sirens'
12: 'Cyclops'
13: 'Nausicaa'
14: 'Oxen of the Sun'
15: 'Circe'
16: 'Eumaeus'
17: 'Ithaca'
18: 'Penelope'
Appendix: Paraphrases of the Opening and Closing of 'Oxen of the Sun'
Bibliography
About the Author :
Like the eponymous Joyce scholar of the novel The Death of a Joyce Scholar, Sam Slote is a Professor at Trinity College Dublin and lives in Dublin. He is the author of Joyce's Nietzschean Ethics (Palgrave, 2013) and is the co-editor, with Luca Crispi, of How Joyce Wrote 'Finnegans Wake' (Wisconsin, 2007). In addition to Joyce and Beckett, he has written on Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Raymond Queneau, Antonin Artaud, Dante,
Mallarmé, and Elvis. Marc A. Mamigonian is the Director of Academic Affairs of the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research. He has served as the editor of the Journal of Armenian Studies and the volume The Armenians of New
England (Armenian Heritage Press, 2004), and is the co-author of annotations to Joyce's Stephen Hero (James Joyce Quarterly, 40.3 [2003], with John Turner), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Alma Classics, 2014; with John N. Turner) and Ulysses (Alma Classics, 2015, with John Turner and Sam Slote). His work has appeared in the James Joyce Quarterly, Genocide Studies, International, Armenian Review, and the Journal of the Society
for Armenian Studies, and elsewhere. John Turner holds a Ph.D. in English from Brandeis University. His articles on Joyce have been published by the James Joyce Quarterly and Philosophy and Literature. Together with Marc A. Mamigonian, he is co-author of
annotations to Stephen Hero and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Alma Classics, 2015). He works in communications in Boston, Mass.
Review :
comprehensive, incisive and indispensable
One of the best books ever devoted to the classic. This heroically researched [book] is twice as long as its subject text - and well worth it...here at last is a volume that not only explains places but directs the reader to hundreds of further sources. The result is a kind of short story behind most of the footnotes, of a kind which Joyce (I guess)would have approved...simply one of the best [books] ever devoted to Ulysses.
Among the flurry of publications celebrating the centenary of the publication of Joyce's classic novel, this massive, 1,420-page guide, though hardly portable, is an outstanding addition to the scholarship on Ulysses.
The range of cultural references, encompassing the gamut from popular forms like advertising and general knowledge to Irish history, religion, music and 'high-brow' literature, is as astonishing as the exactitude of urban details relating to Dublin's streets as they existed in 1904 and Annotations records them with intelligence and prudence.
...monumental, exhaustive and thoroughly engrossing volume, edited by an unsurpassed team of scholars...a towering, epochal achievement...
Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses by Sam Slote, Marc Mamigonian and John Turner takes on board all the research and scholarship done since Don Gifford's groundbreaking Notes for Joyce. ... Joyce the untiring chronicler of detail has met his match in the compilers of these annotations
The new Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses has a great deal to teach to this Joyce buff. The scholarly work here offers insights into Joyce's intentions and tracks the precise movements of his supple, monumentally well-stocked mind. [...] I offer thanks to these gifted scholars for their meticulous research and concise writing.
Even after scores of readings and minute research, I have found that no other literary evocation rewards me as much as Ulysses does... And thank you, informed, insightful, tireless trio-Sam Slote, Marc A. Mamigonian, and John Turner-for the richness of your work.
