
Beating the Bounds
Excess and Restraint in Joyce's Later Works
Roy Benjamin(Author)
University Press of Florida
Published on 28. February 2023
Book
Hardback
266 pages
978-0-8130-6961-6 (ISBN)
Description
Exploring the role of boundaries and limits in the writing of James Joyce
Beating the Bounds examines the role of boundaries and limits in James Joyce's later works, primarily Finnegans Wake but also Ulyssesand other texts. Building on the ideas of philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche, Giordano Bruno, and scholar Fritz Senn, Roy Benjamin explains and reconciles Joyce's contrary tendencies to establish and transgress limits.
Benjamin begins by contrasting Joyce's exploration of the artificial impositions of ritual and political power with the writer's attention to natural boundaries of rivers and mountains. The next section considers sexual, spiritual, and interpersonal boundaries in the Wake. Benjamin then discusses how Joyce simultaneously affirms and undermines the limits of philosophy, geometry, and aesthetics. The final section covers Joyce's representation of the boundaries imposed in cosmogonic myths, the collision between the bounded medieval world and the boundless world of modern science, and the drive to escape from the boundaries of place.
In this detailed and original analysis, Benjamin demonstrates that in Joyce's writing, the tendency to disintegrate into chaos is countered by an urge to impose order. Benjamin's close readings put an abundance of subjects in conversation through the concept of limits, showing the Wake's relevance to many different fields of thought.
A volume in the Florida James Joyce Series, edited by Sebastian D. G. Knowles.
Beating the Bounds examines the role of boundaries and limits in James Joyce's later works, primarily Finnegans Wake but also Ulyssesand other texts. Building on the ideas of philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche, Giordano Bruno, and scholar Fritz Senn, Roy Benjamin explains and reconciles Joyce's contrary tendencies to establish and transgress limits.
Benjamin begins by contrasting Joyce's exploration of the artificial impositions of ritual and political power with the writer's attention to natural boundaries of rivers and mountains. The next section considers sexual, spiritual, and interpersonal boundaries in the Wake. Benjamin then discusses how Joyce simultaneously affirms and undermines the limits of philosophy, geometry, and aesthetics. The final section covers Joyce's representation of the boundaries imposed in cosmogonic myths, the collision between the bounded medieval world and the boundless world of modern science, and the drive to escape from the boundaries of place.
In this detailed and original analysis, Benjamin demonstrates that in Joyce's writing, the tendency to disintegrate into chaos is countered by an urge to impose order. Benjamin's close readings put an abundance of subjects in conversation through the concept of limits, showing the Wake's relevance to many different fields of thought.
A volume in the Florida James Joyce Series, edited by Sebastian D. G. Knowles.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Florida
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paper over boards
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
587 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8130-6961-6 (9780813069616)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
02/2023
1st Edition
University Press of Florida
€157.99
Available for download
Person
Roy Benjamin is associate professor of English at Borough of Manhattan Community College.