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Joyce’s great novel has nothing except the most tenuous and inessential connection with the Odyssey, despite the title. Joyce removed the chapter titles that ha
by leephillips 6y ago
Joyce’s great novel has nothing except the most tenuous and inessential connection with the Odyssey, despite the title. Joyce removed the chapter titles that had referred to the Odyssey after the first edition, and said that he regretted ever having put them in there, because they had misled readers and critics into imagining parallels to the Greek story that did not exist. The main character does wander around, though.
- CalChris 6y agoThanks. That's probably why I struggled with it. I guess I was looking for Aeneid like parallels which weren't there.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago> Joyce’s great novel has nothing except the most tenuous and inessential connection with the Odyssey Joyce’s own chart of the construction of the book[0] features the Odyssey chapter titles as prominently as any of the other issues. Certainly there is an "essential" connection to the Odyssey, though it is just one rich ingredient for this masterpiece among others. Joyce’s later regret can be chalked down to people imagining parallels that he didn’t intend, but I don’t think there’s a scholar around who doesn’t believe that Joyce wrote the barmaids as a parallel to the sirens, or the Citizen to the Cyclops. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_schema_for_Ulysses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_schema_for_Ulysses
- leephillips 6y agoSure, but those are the kinds of things that I was calling a tenuous connection. All I meant was that a scholarly familiarity with Homer is not necessary to appreciate Joyce’s book.