Ulysses: James Joyce's novel Ulysses is said to be one of the most important works in Modernist literature

James Joyce's novel Ulysses is said to be one of the most important works in Modernist literature. It details Leopold Bloom's passage through Dublin on an ordinary day: June 16, 1904. Causing controversy, obscenity trials and heated debates, Ulysses is a pioneering work that brims with puns, parodies, allusions, stream-of-consciousness writing and clever structuring. Modern Library ranked it as number one on its list of the twentieth century's 100 greatest English-language novels and Martin Amis called it one of the greatest novels ever written.

ULYSSES

Ulysses is a modernist novel by Irish writer James Joyce. It is considered to be one of the most important works of modernist literature, and has been called "a demonstration and summation of the entire movement". Ulysses chronicles the peripatetic appointments and encounters of Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. Ulysses is the Latinised name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's epic poem Odyssey, and the novel establishes a series of parallels between its characters and events and those of the poem (the correspondence of Leopold Bloom to Odysseus, Molly Bloom to Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus to Telemachus). Joyce divided Ulysses into 18 chapters or "episodes". At first glance much of the book may appear unstructured and chaotic; Joyce once said that he had "put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant", which would earn the novel "immortality". James Joyce (1882-1941) was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century. Joyce is best known for Ulysses, the short-story collection Dubliners, and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Finnegans Wake.

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As the day begins, Stephen Dedalus is displeased with his friend and remains aloof. A little later, he teaches history at Garrett Deasy’s boys’ school.

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Leopold Bloom begins his day by preparing breakfast for his wife, Molly Bloom. He serves it to her in bed along with the mail.

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As their day unfolds, Joyce paints for us a picture of not only what’s happening outside but also what’s happening inside their minds.

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Drawing on the characters, motifs and symbols of Homer’s Odyssey, James Joyce’s Ulysses is a remarkable modernist novel. It has lived through various criticisms and controversies and has undergone several theatre, film and television adaptations. It continues to remain a literary masterpiece.

ULYSSES