Ulysses

Ulysses is a modernist novel by Irish writer James Joyce. It was first serialized in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918-December 1920 and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach in February 1922 in Paris. It is considered to be one of the most important works of modernist literature, referred to as "a demonstration and summation of the entire movement.” According to Declan Kiberd, “Before Joyce, no writer of fiction had so foregrounded the process of thinking.”

    Ulysses chronicles the peripatetic appointments and encounters of Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, June 16, 1904. Ulysses is the Latinized name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, and the novel establishes a series of parallels between the poem and the novel with structural correspondences between the characters and experiences of Leopold Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus, in addition to events and themes of the early Twentieth Century context of modernism, Dublin, and Ireland’s relationship to Britain. The novel imitates registers of centuries of English Literature and is highly allusive.

    Ulysses is approximately 265,000 words in length and is divided into eighteen episodes. Since publication the book has attracted controversy and scrutiny, ranging from early obscenity trials to protracted textual “Joyce Wars.” Ulysses’ stream-of-consciousness technique, careful structuring, and experimental prose, full of puns, parodies, and allusions, as well as its rich characterization and broad humor, made the book a highly regarded novel in the modernist pantheon. Joyce fans worldwide now celebrate June 16 as “Bloomsday.”