Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-8r8nv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-10T13:55:22.061Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Decomposing Form of Joyce's Ulysses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Henry Staten
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Every aspect of organic life, including sexuality and death, is comprehended in Ulysses as a moment or aspect of a general circulation whose primary figure is eating and the digestive process. But the digestive process is a form of decomposition, and in one sense Ulysses is a stomach or tomb in which language breaks down into its constituent units—ultimately, letters, the elements of an onomatopoeic notation for human speech. Ulysses works between the figure of onomatopoeia (as the limit of mimesis) and that of infidelity (as an image for the undermining of all ontological security at the sexual-gastronomic level) to reconceive mimesis as the isomorphism between two decompositional series, one involving language and the other the body.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 112 , Issue 3 , May 1997 , pp. 380 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Works Cited

Anderson, Chester G “On the Sublime and Its Anal-Urethral Sources in Pope, Eliot, and Joyce.” Essays in Honor of William York Tindall. Ed. Porter, Raymond J. and Brophy, James D. New York: Iona Coll. P, 1972. 235–49.Google Scholar
Anspaugh, Kelly “Powers of Ordure: James Joyce and the Excremental Vision(s).” Mosaic 27.1 (1994): 73–100.Google Scholar
Aristotle On the Soul. Ed. and trans. Hett, W. S. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1964.Google Scholar
Attridge, Derek Peculiar Language: Literature as Difference from the Renaissance to James Joyce. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1988.Google Scholar
Aubert, Jacques The Aesthetics of James Joyce. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1992.Google Scholar
Brown, Richard James Joyce and Sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derrida, Jacques “Plato's Pharmacy.” Dissemination. Trans. Johnson, Barbara. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1981. 61–171.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques “Ulysses Gramophone.” Amended trans. by Shari Benstock. James Joyce: The Augmented Ninth. Ed. Benstock, Bernard. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1988. 27–75.Google Scholar
Hart, Clive “The Sexual Perversions of Leopold Bloom.” Ulysses: Cinquante ans après. Ed. Bonnerot, Louis, with Aubert, J. and Jaquet, C. Paris: Didier, 1974. 131–13.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. Miller, A. V. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1979.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin Being and Time. Trans. Macquarrie, John and Robinson, Edward. Oxford: Blackwell, 1980.Google Scholar
Herdt, Gilbert, and Stoller, Robert J. Intimate Communications. New York: Columbia UP, 1990.Google Scholar
Hocquenhem, Guy Homosexual Desire. Trans. Danghoor, Daniella. Durham: Duke UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Joyce, James “The Dead.” Dubliners. Introd. Terence Brown. London: Penguin, 1992. 175–225.Google Scholar
Joyce, James Ulysses. Ed. Gabler, Hans Walter. New York: Vintage-Random, 1986.Google Scholar
Lacan, Jacques “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter.‘ ” Trans. Jeffrey Mehlman. Yale French Studies 48 (1972): 38–72.10.2307/2929622CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, Karen “Legal Fiction or Pulp Fiction in ‘Lestrygonians.‘” Ulysses: Engendered Perspectives. Ed. Kim Devlin and Marilyn Reizbaum. Austin: U of Texas P, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Lawrence, Karen The Odyssey of Style in Joyce's Ulysses. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981.Google Scholar
Lukacher, Ned Primal Scenes: Literature, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1986.Google Scholar
McGee, Patrick Paperspace: Style as Ideology in Ulysses. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1988.Google Scholar
McMichaels, James. Ulysses and Justice. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearce, Richard “How Does Molly Bloom Look through the Male Gaze?” Pearce, Molly Blooms 40–60.Google Scholar
Pearce, Richard, ed Molly Blooms: A Polylogue on “Penelope” and Cultural Studies. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1994.Google Scholar
Plato The Theaetetus. Ed. Campbell, Lewis. New York: Arno, 1973.Google Scholar
Plato Theaetetus. Trans. F. M. Cornford. The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Ed. Hamilton, Edith and Cairns, Huntington. New York: Pantheon, 1961. 845–919.Google Scholar
Rabaté, Jean-Michel “Fathers, Dead or Alive, in Ulysses.” James Joyce's Ulysses. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea, 1987. 81–98.Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand The Philosophy of Logical Atomism. Ed. Pears, David. La Salle: Open Court, 1985.Google Scholar
Shakespeare, William Hamlet. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. Evans, G. Blakemore. Boston: Houghton, 1974. 1141–11.Google Scholar
Staten, Henry Eros in Mourning: Homer to Lacan. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994.Google Scholar
Staten, Henry Wittgenstein and Derrida. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1984.Google Scholar
van Boheemen, Christine The Novel as Family Romance: Language, Gender, and Authority from Fielding to Joyce. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1987.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig Philosophical Investigations. Trans. Anscombe, G. E. M. New York: Macmillan, 1958.Google Scholar
Ziarek, Ewa “The Female Body, Technology, and Memory in ‘Penelope.‘” Pearce, Molly Blooms 264–84.Google Scholar