James Joyce - Ulysses, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica James Joyce - Ulysses e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! JAMES JOYCE Modernism is a new movement of the beginning of the XX century. According to this movement, there is no unifyng element that can explain human life and the world: no religion, no science, no philosophy. Not having a single element that unifies everything leaves the man free but also lost, standed, insicure and confused. The Modernism expressed the reaction against 19th-century ideas and conventions. One of its most important characteristics is surely the use of myth. Authors looked back to the classics to show the importance of values and heroes in the past and the lack of them in the present. They looked back to greek and latin literature to find examples them that modern man was not able to imitate. Influences The first years of the 20th century presentes an explosion of new ideas that change man's view of himself and of the universe. These new ideas have a fundamental influence on artists and intellectuals. At first, the publication of the "Theory of relativity" published in 1905 by Albert Einstein, in which the physicist shows that there is no objective reality, the only reality we can know is in relation with another reality. He called into question the idea of science as a substitute for religion in giving a satisfactory explanation of universe and human life. British artists and intellectuals were deeply influenced by Sigmun Freud, founder of the psychoanalysis. He published "The interpretation of dreams" in which expose his teory about examining the signification of dreams through symbols taken from the ancient myths (Symbolisme was one of the main point of psycho-analysis). Also the ideas of Nietzsche influenced modernists. The philosopher declaired that the abstract values ( for example "the good", "the true", "the beautiful") were decadent. He was also particularly afraid of the leveling of the society: the masses had taken power, lowering the general cultural level. Also during the Post modernism man will be confused and insicure but he will not be afraid of the fact that there's not an unifyng element. Post modernists, in fact, will use irony to talk about this theme. ULYSSES is one of the most important novel of modernism. It first came out in Paris in 1922 and then banned for obscenity until 1936. The epic method Ulysses is one of the greatest examples of the reworking of myth in modern literature. In fact, the wanderings and the adventures of Homer' epic heroe are used by Joyce to create a parallel to the events in the life of common men and women in modern Dublin. However Joyce used it to stress the lack of heroism, ideals, love and trust in the modern society. Ulysses was the protagonist of the Odissey, the greatest heroe of the ancient greece. He was intelligent, rational, cunning, curious; he was celebreted as the best heroe because he was the protagonist of many heroic actions. The long trip of Ulysses was the occasion of knowledge and he was completely in charge of his life. Technique The technical innovation is the adoption of the stream of consciousness (or interior monologue or train of thoughts). It is a technique borrowed by psychology in which thoughts are recorded the way they cross the mind. It's a difficult prose style which refuse syntactical and grammatical connectives, it justaxposes apparently incongruous imagines in order to show the chaotic flow of thoughts in the human mind.Joyce was the maximum experimenter of this style but he didn't invented it. Language experimentation Joyce uses many styles and, being one day in the life of Leopold Bloom, the author records the 24h moment to moment, by writing it with the stream- of-consciousness technique so by giving not only the minutest details of the actions but also the characters' process of thinking. Even punctuation becomes experimental: only the last 40 pages (Molly's monologue) has totally no punctuation and in them there is the longest sentence in English literature. Grammar and syntax are not usual so that the reading of Joyce is quite demanding and difficult. Moreover, according to the fact that Modernism broke the conventions of the previous literatures, the book Ulysses is divided into chapters which do not have title or number. Characters Ulysses narrates one day - 16 June 1904 - of the life of three characters and the 24 hours of the narration corresponds to the 24 chapters of the Odissey. In the book there are three main points of view plus many other point of view of minor characters and this fregmented seen of many points of view creates a distorted vision of the world. The three main characters of Joyce's Ulysses are: Leopold Bloom: is a Dubliner with jewish origin (Joyce choses a Jewish character against the predominance of Catholics as a sort of rebellion). He corresponds to the Ulysses of the title because while Homer's Ulysses roams the mediterranean, Leopold roams the streets of Dublin. However what happens to Bloom is far less heroic: banal and common actions which reflects how unimportant is the life of modern men. Leopold is an antihero because he's an ordinary modern man, he's a loser when compared to Ulysses. Stephen Dedalus: Sthepen is the name of the first Christian martyr while Dedalus is the name of the engineer who built the labyrinth in Crete and the wings to fly away. Stephen Dedalus is a sensitive young man who wants to become a writer, he's abituous but doesn't know how to fulfill his dream and he feel frustated by Irish provincial life. He's confused and he has a mental labyrinth in his mind. He's not only homeless and pennyless but also in search of a father figure (which he eventually finds in Bloom). For these reasons he corresponds to Telemachus, Ulysses' son. Molly Bloom: she's a very sensual woman who is unfaithful to her husband. In her youth she had many affairs; from the moment their son dies she starts to betray Leopold in particular with the director of the chorus where she sings. She's the opposite of Penelope who was patient, loyal and took care of the house. The novel ends with her famous stream-of-consciousness monologue in which she reflects about the present and the past.