Joyce's Web
The Social Unraveling of Modernism
Published on 15. July 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
255 pages
978-0-292-72255-2 (ISBN)
Description
James Joyce has long been viewed as a literary modernist who helped define and uphold modernism's fundamental concepts of the artist as martyr to bourgeois sensibilities and of an idealistic faith in artistic freedom. In this revolutionary work, however, Margot Norris proposes that Joyce's art actually critiques these modernist tenets by revealing an awareness of the artist's connections to and constraints within bourgeois society.
In sections organized around three mythologized and aestheticized figures in Joyce's works-artist, woman, and child-Norris' readings "unravel the web" of Joyce's early and late stories, novels, and experimental texts. She shows how Joyce's texts employ multiple mechanisms to expose their own distortions, silences, and lies and reveal connections between art and politics, and art and society.
This ambitious new reading not only repositions Joyce within contemporary debates about the ideological assumptions behind modernism and postmodernism, but also urges reconsideration of the phenomenon of modernism itself. It will be of interest and importance to all literary scholars.
In sections organized around three mythologized and aestheticized figures in Joyce's works-artist, woman, and child-Norris' readings "unravel the web" of Joyce's early and late stories, novels, and experimental texts. She shows how Joyce's texts employ multiple mechanisms to expose their own distortions, silences, and lies and reveal connections between art and politics, and art and society.
This ambitious new reading not only repositions Joyce within contemporary debates about the ideological assumptions behind modernism and postmodernism, but also urges reconsideration of the phenomenon of modernism itself. It will be of interest and importance to all literary scholars.
Reviews / Votes
"There is no question that Professor Norris' book will constitute a significant contribution to the field...some of the finest, most politically sensitive and informed feminist criticism yet published on Joyce. ... it will have a major impact on the field of Joyce studies ... " Vicki Mahaffey, associate professor of English, University of PennsylvaniaMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Austin, TX
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
421 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-292-72255-2 (9780292722552)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Previous edition
Book
01/1993
University of Texas Press
€53.41
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Person
Margot Norris is a professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine.
Content
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Part I. The Artist
Chapter 1. Textual Raveling: A Critical and Theoretical Introduction
1. Joycean Canonization and Modernism
2. Joyce, Feminism, and the Ideologically Self-Critical Text
3. Intertexted Weavings
Chapter 2. Patronage and Censorship: The Production of Art in the Social Real
1. Patronage as Communist "Grace"
2. Ibsen, Censorship, and Art!'s Social Function in Stephen Hero
Chapter 3. Stephen Dedalus, Oscar Wilde, and the Art of Lying
Chapter 4. "Shem the Penman": Joyce's Tenemental Text
1. Cranly, Materialism, and Art
2. Shem as BEte Noire of Modernism
Part II. The Women
Chapter 5. "Who Killed Julia Morkan?": The Gender Politics of Art in "The Dead"
1. Stifled Back Answers
2. The Woman as Objet d'Art
3. Woman as the Other Woman
4. Songs, Romance, and the Social Real
5. The Silencing of Female Art
Chapter 6. Narration under a Blindfold: Reading the "Patch" of "Clay"
Chapter 7. The Work Song of the Washerwomen in "Anna 139 Livia Plurabelle"
1. Samuel Butler and the Desublimation of Myth
2. The Social Politics of Washerwomen in History
3. Washerwomen's Working Talk
4. Ablution and Absolution
Chapter 8. Modernism, Myth, and Desire in "Nausicaa"
Part III. The Children
Chapter 9. The Politics of Childhood in "The Mime of Mick, Nick, and the Maggies"
1. Tea Parties
2. Exile
3. Home
Notes
Works Consulted
Index
Abbreviations
Part I. The Artist
Chapter 1. Textual Raveling: A Critical and Theoretical Introduction
1. Joycean Canonization and Modernism
2. Joyce, Feminism, and the Ideologically Self-Critical Text
3. Intertexted Weavings
Chapter 2. Patronage and Censorship: The Production of Art in the Social Real
1. Patronage as Communist "Grace"
2. Ibsen, Censorship, and Art!'s Social Function in Stephen Hero
Chapter 3. Stephen Dedalus, Oscar Wilde, and the Art of Lying
Chapter 4. "Shem the Penman": Joyce's Tenemental Text
1. Cranly, Materialism, and Art
2. Shem as BEte Noire of Modernism
Part II. The Women
Chapter 5. "Who Killed Julia Morkan?": The Gender Politics of Art in "The Dead"
1. Stifled Back Answers
2. The Woman as Objet d'Art
3. Woman as the Other Woman
4. Songs, Romance, and the Social Real
5. The Silencing of Female Art
Chapter 6. Narration under a Blindfold: Reading the "Patch" of "Clay"
Chapter 7. The Work Song of the Washerwomen in "Anna 139 Livia Plurabelle"
1. Samuel Butler and the Desublimation of Myth
2. The Social Politics of Washerwomen in History
3. Washerwomen's Working Talk
4. Ablution and Absolution
Chapter 8. Modernism, Myth, and Desire in "Nausicaa"
Part III. The Children
Chapter 9. The Politics of Childhood in "The Mime of Mick, Nick, and the Maggies"
1. Tea Parties
2. Exile
3. Home
Notes
Works Consulted
Index