Joyce's Revenge: History, Politics, and Aesthetics in Ulysses [Hardcover]

Andrew Gibson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 18, 2002

This eminently learned book transforms our understanding of Joyce's Ulysses by placing the novel firmly in the historical context of Anglo-Irish political and cultural relations in the period 1880-1920. Gibson argues that Ulysses is a great work of liberation that also takes a complex form of revenge on the colonizer's culture.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This thought-provoking study makes a significant and highly original contribution to scholarship on Ulysses.... A particular strength of this book is the way in which it seeks to interpret the aesthetic of Ulysses as a whole, rather than focusing on a few key features or episodes."--Times Literary Supplement

"Joyce's Revenge makes a significant and distinctive contribution to Joyce studies, and it deserves a wide readership.... The author is impressively well read in English and Irish cultural history, and the book identifies and explores an aspect of this history about which most Joyceans, perhaps, know less than they might.... The sheer number of distinct contexts that Gibson has developed for Ulysses, all subsumed by the controlling theme of English nationalism, is extremely impressive. Among the books on Joyce I've studied recently this is perhaps the most absorbing 'read,' cover to cover, of all of them.... This book--certainly individual chapters of this book--will probably be reread much more frequently than most recent books on Joyce."--Timothy Martin, James Joyce Literary Supplement

"[A] thoroughly researched and documented study.... The consequence of this unique contribution to Joyce studies (and to English literary studies more broadly) cannot be overstated.... The book signifies an important contribution to Joyce scholarship, to post-colonial (or semi-colonial) studies, and to cultural-historical assessments of English literature. In reading Joyce's Revenge, one embarks on a rich journey into cultural history, previous scholarship, and the delightful density of the text itself. Gibson presents contextual material in an engaging manner, transforming sometimes familiar ground into provocative new readings of Joyce's aesthetic, Irish politics, and the force of English cultural nationalism."--English Literature in Transition 1880-1920

"Gibson's historical research is scrupulous and his explanation of Ulysses as a 'semi-colonial' text usefully extends the postcolonial theorizing of Joyce begun by Vincent Cheng, Seamus Deane, and others."--Choice

"Gibson deftly combines many of these threads--notably Nationalism, colonialism, and cultural commodity--in subtle readings to offer some new understanding of Joyce's liberation from these issues as what constitutes revenge."--Clio

About the Author

Andrew Gibson is Professor of Modern Literature and Theory, Royal Holloway University of London

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (July 18, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198184956
• ISBN-13: 978-0198184959
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,273,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ALL RIGHT, SO, I WAS WRONG, BUT LISTEN TO ME NOW: THIS IS THE BEST JAMES JOYCE COMMENTARY, November 26, 2006

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C. Scanlon "least helpful reviewer" (among us humans) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Joyce's Revenge: History, Politics, and Aesthetics in Ulysses (Paperback)

Okay, so I was wrong before. Get THIS one at a reasonable price here. In fact get two, one to mark up extensively and the other to keep on the shelf for reading with no pen in hand ever, or as back up, like that extra copy of Gabler's definitive edition of Ulysses, the one with the delicate spine but solid scholarly editting.

THere are several books out there about James Joyce and Ulysses of varying value, sort of like Shakespeare commentaries. A lot of Shakespeare commentaries are, to quote Bernard SHaw in his preface to Plays for Puritans "bardology" or BRitish cultural imperialism (by the way I learned all of that and more from the chapter here in Joyce's REvenge which discusses the famous SHakespeare debate in the library, and the true significance of just what is going on there) Just so with Joyce. A lot of what is sold as comentary for Joyce is junk, professors or adjunct assistant professors who must publish or perish no matter who has to get hurt. Much of what is published as commentary is quickly outdated or completed in the next generation, and thus disposable. But THIS book IS the best.

Each page I find myself agreeing with Gibson's observations, expressed more fully and eloquently that I had yet formulated. And my own insight is greatly increased by many magnitudes by Gibson's condensed yet comprehensive treatment. I am finding much ground for further research here.

I truly recommend this book for anyone who wants to get a good grasp of just what is going on in Joyce's Ulysses. Basically Joyce's revenge is grabbing the anglo-saxon tongue by the throat (am I mixing metaphors yet?), that tongue that was shoved down our lyrical Irish throat (gross) at the point of a sword and rifle and cannon, kiling off our own ancient language and imposing the imperialist oppressor's tongue upon us, and JOyce throttles it and beats it into submission and exposes its shortcomings as a means of communication. THus we have all of the virtuoso stylistic extravagances throughout Ulysses, and parodies of the most earnest and popular BRitish literature of the day, and the destruction of the British imperialist claim to SHakespeare above mentioned.

Please get this book. Great for those new to Ulysses in order to open up this fatholmless novel, and excellent for people like myself who re-listen to it constantly (on Donnelly's excellent unabridged recording) and whose bedroom bookshelf is dedicated to Joyce alone, as there is no other.

Kindly get this book. I'm going back for another one to leave virgin and unmarked for later reading, because of all the underlining and highlighting and marginalia I insert helplessly into the present copy.

Just one formatting note: I love the way footnotes are at the bottom of the SAME PAGE they are referred to, rather than searching at the end of the book or at the end of chapters (this is the WORST!). I just wish the print were bigger!

Get this book. There are only four books in the whole history of western European literature: Homer's Odyssey, The Bible, Dante, and James Joyce's Ulysses. All else is elaboration of or commentary on the above. This present commentary is the key to opening your eyes (is that a mixed metaphor? Perhaps as in King Lear one's eyes want not be opened with key nor thumb) to this dazzling and incomprehensible jewel, just as the Reverend Father John Dear opens up the Bible, or Dorothy L. Sayers Dante.


In order of involvement with Ulysses, begin for a surface reading only with the GIfford Annotation, which presents merely the accidents of geographical and some literary references, etc. Then try Schwartz`s Reading Joyce`s Ulysses, and Sicari`s Modern Allegory and perhaps Bell`s Jocoserious Joyce. Read as much of Hugh Kenner as you can get, and see the curiously superficial analysis by Joseph Campbell. Then get this as a fountainhead and a summary of most of the latest criticism. It will point you in all of the right directions.

And when you are fully able to contemplate, to meditate, to wordlessly adore in the intricate and infinite temple of Joyce`s Ulysses, get Joyce`s MEssianism, whose terms must remain ever undefined as the author weaves and carves and filigrees the upper unseen vaults, collonades, capitals, buttresses and elaborations of Mr. Joyce. The commentary in Joyce`s Messianism is truly a Book of Kells, full of breathtaking and somehow brilliantly illuminating while incomprehensible wonders. A must have for any complete Joyce commentary shelf, along with Chen and Semicolonial Joyce, Batkhin and Lacan, etc., etc.

It is a lifetime of study of which I begin far too late.