An introduction to the fascinating world of Joyce's manuscripts
This book shows how the creative process of modernist writer James Joyce can be reconstructed from his manuscripts. Daniel Ferrer offers a practical demonstration of the theory of genetic criticism, the study of the manuscript and textual development of a literary text. Using a concrete approach focused on the materiality of Joyce's writing process, Ferrer demonstrates how to recover the process of invention and its internal dynamics.
Using specific, detailed examples, Ferrer analyzes the part played by chance in Joyce's creative process, the spatial dimension of writing, the genesis of the "Sirens" episode, and the transition from Ulysses to Finnegans Wake. The book includes a study of Joyce's mysterious Finnegans Wake notebooks, examining their strange form of intertextuality in light of Joyce's earlier forms of note-taking. Moving beyond the single author perspective, Ferrer contrasts Joyce's notes alluding to Virginia Woolf's criticism of Ulysses with Woolf's own notes on the novel's first episodes.
Throughout this book, Ferrer describes the logic of the creative process as seen in the record left by Joyce in notebooks, drafts, typescripts, proofs, correspondence, early printed versions, and other available documents. Each change detected reveals a movement from one state to another, a new direction, challenging readers to understand the reasons for each movement and to appreciate the wealth of information to be found in Joyce's manuscripts.
About the Author :
Daniel Ferrer, director of research emeritus at the Institut des Textes et Manuscrits Modernes in Paris, is the author or editor of many books, from Poststructuralist Joyce: Essays from the French and Virginia Woolf and the Madness of Language to Renascent Joyce and Genetic Criticism and its Logics: The Draft and the Text.
Review :
"There is no doubt in reading this book that Ferrer is one of the leading experts in the theory and practice of genetic criticism."--James Joyce Quarterly
"Forms an enticing introduction to budding genetic critics and provides an overview of the insights Ferrer has garnered throughout his career."--James Joyce Literary Supplement
"Paramount among Ferrer's achievements in this important new study of pivotal compositional moments in Joyce's manuscripts and notebooks . . . is his revelation of a vast documentary record testifying to how the published versions of Joyce's works reflect a creative vision that did not come into being fully formed but was continually evolving in response to external influences and circumstances."--Textual Cultures
