Ulysses (novel)

Ulysses is a modernist novel by Irish author James Joyce. It first appeared in serialized installments in the American journal *The Little Review* between March 1918 and December 1920, and was published in full in Paris by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, Joyce’s fortieth birthday. The book is regarded as a landmark of modernist literature, often described as both a demonstration and a summation of the entire movement.

The novel follows three Dubliners over a single day, 16 June 1904—a date now celebrated annually by fans as Bloomsday. Its title is the Latinized form of Odysseus, the hero of Homer’s *Odyssey*, and Joyce draws parallels between Leopold Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus. The work also contains correspondences with Shakespeare’s *Hamlet* and figures such as Jesus, Elijah, Moses, Dante Alighieri, and Don Juan. Themes include antisemitism, human sexuality, British rule in Ireland, Catholicism, and Irish nationalism, all set against early-20th-century Dublin. The novel is highly allusive and employs a wide range of styles.

Joyce told writer Djuna Barnes, “The pity is … the public will demand and find a moral in my book—or worse they may take it in some more serious way, and on the honour of a gentleman, there is not one single serious line in it. … In *Ulysses* I have recorded, simultaneously, what a man says, sees, thinks, and what such seeing, thinking, saying does, to what you Freudians call the subconscious.” According to writer Declan Kiberd, “Before Joyce, no writer of fiction had so foregrounded the process of thinking.” The novel’s stream-of-consciousness technique, careful structure, experimental prose—full of puns, parodies, epiphanies, and allusions—along with its rich characterization and broad humor, have made it one of the greatest literary works. Since publication, it has sparked controversy and scrutiny, including an obscenity trial in the United States in 1921 and ongoing disputes over the authoritative text.

**Background**

Joyce first encountered Odysseus through Charles Lamb’s *Adventures of Ulysses*, a children’s adaptation, which likely fixed the Latin name in his mind. At school, he wrote an essay on the character titled “My Favourite Hero.” He told Frank Budgen that Ulysses was the only all-round character in literature. Joyce considered writing another story for *Dubliners*, called “Ulysses,” based on a Jewish Dubliner named Alfred H. Hunter, a suspected cuckold. The idea grew from a story in 1906, to a “short book” in 1907, and finally to the large novel he began in 1914.

**Locations**

The action moves across Dublin Bay, opening in Sandycove (south) and closing on Howth Head (north). The first three chapters and chapter 12 (“Nausicaa”) take place on the bay’s shores, off the map. Key settings include: Leopold Bloom’s home at 7 Eccles Street (episodes 4, 17, 18); the post office on Westland Row and Sweny’s Pharmacy on Lincoln Place (episode 5); the *Freeman’s Journal* on Prince’s Street North (episode 7); Davy Byrne’s pub (episode 8); the National Library of Ireland (episode 9); Ormond Hotel on Ormond Quay (episode 11); Barney Kiernan’s pub (episode 12); Holles Street Maternity Hospital (episode 14); Bella Cohen’s brothel at 82 Tyrone Street Lower (episode 15); and a cabman’s shelter at Butt Bridge (episode 16). The map shows Paddy Dignam’s carriage route (episode 6) in orange, the Viceroy’s journey (episode 10) in blue, and Bloom and Stephen’s route (episode 18) in red.

**Structure**

*Ulysses* is divided into three books (I, II, III) and 18 episodes. The episodes lack chapter headings or titles and are numbered only in Gabler’s edition. Breaks between episodes vary by edition; in the Modern Library edition, each episode starts on a new page. Joyce enjoyed the book’s obscurity, saying he had “put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.” American judge John M. Woolsey, who ruled the book not obscene, admitted it “is not an easy book to read or to understand” and advised reading “a number of other books which have now become its satellites.” One such book was Herbert Gorman’s first study of Joyce, which included a list of correspondences with the *Odyssey*. Another was Stuart Gilbert’s study, which featured a schema Joyce created; Gilbert was later quoted in the obscenity trial’s legal brief. Joyce had also sent a different schema to Carlo Linati. Both schemata clarified the links to Homer and explained the novel’s structure.

**Joyce and Homer**

The 18 episodes roughly correspond to episodes in Homer’s *Odyssey*. In Homer’s epic, Odysseus, a Greek hero of the Trojan War, took ten years to find his way from Troy to his home on the island of Ithaca.