The Cracked Lookingglass: James Joyce and the Nightmare of HistorySusquehanna University Press, 1992 - 172 páginas There are basic problems, and if we can't solve them we should hold off on theorizing. To begin at the beginning, what was Father Flynn's "great wish" for the boy in "The Sisters"? The uncle thinks he knows, but is he right? Can we be sure? How? And how about the beginning and end of "An Encounter"? How do they fit together? What is the specific import to the boy in "Araby" of the shards of conversation between the salesgirl and the Britishers? Can we (or Eveline) be certain of Frank's motives in her story? If not, what relevance do they have? And how in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man do Stephen's use and understanding of art evolve? In what crucial respects do they fall short of the understanding a careful reader of the novel can attain? What in Ulysses does Buck Mulligan have in mind when he demands "twopence for a pint" (of what!)? And in what ways are Bloom's ruminations about things like "mity cheese" that "digests all but itself" and saltwater fish ("Why is it that [they] are not...") crucial to the novel? There are bigger questions. What roles do all the accidental occurrences play? Do they heighten or diminish causality and probability? What are the functions of allusion and stylistic experimentation? Is/are there any overriding significance/s to the whole? Is there a didactic component in Joyce's writing? If so, is the didactic element a flaw in his art? What is the relationship between art and instruction--in Joyce and in general? Is good didactic art a contradiction in terms? These latter questions are enticing, but to speculate, theorize, deconstruct, or decontextualize Joyce's works with regard to them without a firm understanding, and perhaps even answers to, the vital though sometimes seemingly trivial former questions is to abrogate critical responsibility and relinquish what one of the formative giants of the twentieth century has to say to us. When relevant, the former are almost always answerable, and the mundane answers, often surprising, are frequently crucial not only for answering the latter questions but for fresh insight into both Joyce's world and our own. By mapping routes to the revelations such mundane "facts" yield, The Cracked Lookingglass establishes a firm base for future interpretations of Joyce's stories from Dubliners through Ulysses. It approaches his works as "fictional histories," grounding its "examplary" readings in relationships among the underlying facts of Joyce's created worlds. The study presents both a method of inquiry and, as examples of its fruit, some of the ways in which the apparent undiscoverables of Joyce's fiction disclose new and indisputable insights into his characters and stories, and through them our world. The approach opens avenues of access to the depths of Dubliners; to the assessments of art, religion, and human relationships in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; to the necessitous underpinnings of Joyce's experimentation in Ulysses, the ground and justification of his uses of "psychocasual chance," the "mythical method," and the seemingly gratuitous stylistic experiments that mirror our lives and suggest new directions for them. |
Contenido
Preface | 9 |
Fictional History and the Priority of the True | 15 |
The First Trinity | 23 |
Victims and Mighthavebeens | 38 |
Against Symbolism Gabriel Conroy and the Living Dead | 53 |
Stephen Dedalus and the Chain of Command | 63 |
Two Versions of Art False Grace and Defective Muses | 79 |
Limits of the Will Stephen Dedalus and the Facts of History | 97 |
Conquering Memory | 120 |
Salvation History and the Microcosmic Worm | 129 |
From Factual Base to Psychocasuality | 142 |
Appendix | 147 |
Notes | 149 |
Works Cited | 162 |
167 | |
Paradigm of Paradigms | 109 |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
The Cracked Lookingglass: James Joyce and the Nightmare of History Albert Wachtel Vista de fragmentos - 1992 |
Términos y frases comunes
actual Aegisthus allusion apparent Araby Aristotle artist attitude awareness beauty Bloom boy's Buck Buck Mulligan chapter claims context convey Criticism crucial dead Dubliners Duffy Duffy's Edited Ellmann escape Eveline experience eyes factual base fails failure Father Dolan Father Flynn feels fictional history Frank Gabriel Gallaher girl gnomon Gretta Hugh Kenner human imagines implicature insight James Joyce James Joyce Quarterly James Joyce's Joyce's fiction Kenner Leo Dillon Leopold Bloom Lestrygonian lives Mangan's sister meaning memory Molly mother Mulligan mundane narrative narrator Odyssey Orestes pain paralysis paralyzed phen's physical poem poetic Portrait present priest priesthood problem protagonist proves rage of Caliban reader relationship Richard Ellmann sermons sexual significance Simon Dedalus Sinico soul spiritual Stephen Dedalus story style stylistic suggests symbolic takes Telemachus tells things thinks thought tion tries truth Ulysses uncle understanding University Press verbal Viking Viking Press vision woman words York young