<p>Ulysses was written and proofread when James Joyce's vision was seriously blurred and impaired by iritis. The illness required him to use a magnifying glass to enlarge words, separating them out of context and distorting the simple letters in them. This book considers the effects of Joyce's iritis on the text of Ulysses.</p>

Joyce's Iritis and the Irritated Text: The Dis-lexic Ulysses (Florida James Joyce)

Literature & Fiction

Gottfried, Roy K.

History & Criticism

University Press of Florida

In the first book-length study of the comedic in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Roy Gottfried argues that, far from being a solemn work, Joyce’s early masterpiece is covertly but determinedly comic. Specifically, he looks at the Portrait’s narrative structure, the protagonist Stephen’s conscious disavowal of humor, and Joyce’s comic use of word-play, vulgarity, and gendered language to establish the work’s doubled nature.

Joyce's Comic Portrait (Florida James Joyce)

Roy Gottfried takes a different and somewhat controversial approach to the study of James Joyce's relation to religion by examining the author's misbelief rather than the disbelief so many scholars claim he professed. Gottfried argues that Joyce in fact had a great deal of respect for the Catholic Church though he did not accept the orthodox dogma he learned as a youth. Instead, Joyce was most interested in actual schisms that challenged the authority and universality of Catholic dogma. This focus on schism is most readily evident in Gottfried's analysis of Joyce's use of key Christian, though not Catholic, texts. He explores Joyce's interest in the Eastern Orthodox Church and in Protestantism, two influences usually ignored in discussions of Joyce and religion. Gottfried offers new readings of Joyce's work including his puzzling use of the term "epicleti" to describe Dubliners and his interest in heterodox ideas in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Joyce's use of the Protestant Bible and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer enabled Joyce to articulate ideas that the Catholic Church of his time suppressed and to challenge Catholic doctrine, power, and hegemony, according to Gottfried.

Joyce's Misbelief (Florida James Joyce)

British & Irish

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Books by Gottfried, Roy K.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gottfried, Roy K.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Joyce's Iritis and the Irritated Text: The Dis-lexic Ulysses (Florida James Joyce)

Joyce's Comic Portrait (Florida James Joyce)

Joyce's Misbelief (Florida James Joyce)