|
Occult Joyce: The Hidden in Ulysses
Author: Enrico Terrinoni
Date Of Publication: Jun 2007
Isbn13: 9781847182104
Isbn: 1-84718-210-0
Ulysses is in many ways an occult text, in that it deliberately hides meanings and significances from sight, and compels the reader to unveil its secrets by reading it backwards, from deceiving surfaces to underlying truths. To discuss the occult in Joyce is to analyse “the hidden” in the text. Ulysses is a “human” book. Its most profound meanings are encrypted beneath the surface of its “body.” To discover what’s concealed behind it implies an effort of anthropological archaeology. Accordingly, readers become really interpreters of the occult. Only by following the traces and signs left on the textual surface will they eventually dig out what lies dormant beneath. Joyce was extremely well-read in the occult. The variety of texts on the subject he possessed shows that his position was very eclectic, as if the occult were a kind of amalgam of different traditions, all marked by the signature of secrecy. In his own view, theosophy, mysticism, magic, spiritism, and the so-called occult science blend together to form a cluster of obscure erudition where he finds provocative ideas, helpful in building up his own cryptic system. To read Ulysses hermetically is also a way to show that the act of reading itself is always an experiment. The good thing about readings is that they are always provisional. Reading as a creative process implies the awareness that one will always be quite uncertain as to what lies hidden behind those concatenations of syllables and words we call texts. Interpretation is in fact a mark of our freedom, and all original readings are always subversive and provocative. Criticism to some extent implies often some kind of a subversive attitude, and the game of literature is a useful working ground for attempting to change its possible worlds. To see through surface inanity, in Ulysses, helps us understand that to read is often an act of revolt and resistance to past authoritative interpretations. Excavating the occult in Joyce’s masterpiece is a way to face more canonical readings that preferred not to acknowledge fully the author’s fondness for, and deep knowledge of, the subject. "This is a book which has the gift of explanation rather than simplification - and it will help to move Joyce Studies into new and exciting areas of investigation." Prof. Declan Kiberd, UCD Dublin School of English and Drama "Dr. Terrinoni's work is a very well researched and penetrating study of the occult and hidden in 'Ulysses' finding connections and meanings ignored or misunderstood by other scholars. It is a real contribution to Joyce Studies." Prof. Clive Bloom, Middlesex University
Enrico Terrinoni is a graduate of the University of Rome 3, and holds a doctorate from University College Dublin. He has been “Government of Ireland Research Scholar in the Humanities and Social Sciences” at UCD, and “Research Scholar in Comparative Literatures” at the University of Rome 3. He has written mainly on English and Anglo-Irish Literature, and Journalism. He has translated books by Brendan Behan, Muriel Spark, and Gerard Mannix Flynn into Italian. He is currently co-editor of the Internationalist Review of Irish Culture. He lectures in English at the University of Rome 3 and the University for Foreigners, Perugia.
Price Uk Gbp: 34.99
Price Us Usd: 52.99
Sample pdf (including Table of Contents)
|
| |
|
|
From Kerouac Ascending: Memorabilia of the Decade of On the Road
“Katherine Burkman, best known for her contributions to Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, and modern drama studies in general, now provides an essential reference for students of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and the beats through this memoir by Elbert Lenrow. A beloved teacher at the New School for Social Research, Lenrow met and taught Jack Kerouac in the late forties, befriending him and Allen Ginsberg as well. The book offers unprecedented insight into the beats in general and Kerouac’s development as a writer, thinker, and cultural force in American literature. Howard Cunnell, who introduces the book, notes that through his friendship with Kerouac, ‘Lenrow got to ride in what would become the most famous car in modern American literature.’ And thanks to this book, now readers of Kerouac Ascending do, too.”
—Ann C. Hall, Professor, Ohio Dominican University; President, Harold Pinter Society
“The larger significance of the sustained and sustaining friendship between Elbert Lenrow and Kerouac and Ginsberg in this book is that it exhibits Jack and Allen in ways that are seldom, if ever, represented in accounts of their lives. As a bonus, from this fine, small book, the reader can acquire an enriched and enhanced understanding of the multifarious political, literary, and artistic relationships of virtually all the principal players in the cultural scene in the mid- to late 20th century.”
—James L. Battersby, Professor Emeritus of English, Ohio State University
“Always their affectionate elder, Lenrow presents Kerouac and Ginsberg mostly in their own words, making no broad claim or judgments beyond the recognition that both writers spoke for their time as Walt Whitman did for his and that they have become iconic figures for a literary movement. It is a modest but important work presenting original materials saved by a gentle, sensitive, and literate man.”
—Mark S. Auburn, Professor Emeritus of English, former Senior Vice President and Provost at the University of Akron
|
|
Read more...
|
|
| |
|
