Ulysses Explained: How Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare Inform Joyce’s Modernist Vision

In 1929, T. S. Eliot claimed that "Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them; there is no third." Ulysses Explained argues that James Joyce may now be numbered along with Dante and Shakespeare among the giants of Western literature whose stature and status as an artist of the modern world has been confirmed by tradition. But there is another who walks beside them, closer to Dante and Joyce, certainly, though he occasionally brushes up against Shakespeare as well: the ancient poet Homer. These three figures command attention in any reading of James Joyce's Ulysses: Homer because he provides the narrative, Shakespeare because he supplies the plot, and Dante because he inspires the structure. This book shows how Joyce adapts classical, medieval, and renaissance traditions in Ulysses to advance his own modernist agenda of fragmented narrative, experimental structure, and psychosexual complexity.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1. Homeric Narrative 2. Shakespearean Plot 3. Dantesque Design Afterword Appendix A: Synopsis of Ulysses Appendix B: Consolidated Schema Appendix C: The Odyssey and Ulysses: Episode and Chapter Comparison Appendix D: Modernist Sexuality in Exiles

About the Author :
David Weir is Professor of Comparative Literature at The Cooper Union, USA. He is the author of eight books, including James Joyce and the Art of Mediation and two books on the culture of decadence.

Review :
"David Weir's book speaks to the reader eager to encounter the many ways Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare serve James Joyce's Ulysses. Weir has an almost uncanny ability as a critic to make his points with crystal-clear and often ingenious examples from the texts under scrutiny. What he reveals is how Joyce adapts and undercuts key epic and dramatic elements in order to create a kind of cultural template for the modern writer." - Michael Seidel, Professor Emeritus, Columbia University, USA "Fortunately for us, the triads that fascinated Joyce so much intrigue David Weir as well. Homer and Ulysses' narrative, Shakespeare and its plot, Dante and its structure: each individual relationship comes alive in Ulysses Explained, but they particularly shine when Weir plays one off against another and especially when he triangulates them all to show Ulysses as an interlocking amalgamation of three very separate traditions. All readers - beginners, scholars, and those in between - will discover much that they didn't know before in this lucid and lively book." - Michael Groden, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, Western University, Canada and author of Ulysses in Progress and Ulysses in Focus