James Joyce and Cultural Genetics: The Joycean Genome

As a genetic study, this book uncovers the creative DNA of James Joyce's oeuvre by looking at the cultural forces that shaped him and that he in turn shaped in the creation of his books, developing a two-way relationship with history, memory and national identity. Following his development as an author, it revisits and redirects Joyce's attitudes towards the Irish Revival. From Chamber Music, through Ulyssesto Finnegans WakeJoyce sought to define a cultural identity that went, in many respects, against the mainstream, but that nonetheless belonged to the wider Revivalist project with which it shared certain characteristics and aspirations.

Joyce's historical and genealogical imagination is read through a careful investigation of the cultural materials that went into his work. Based on evidence from his personal library and the extensive archive of reading notes, ideas, sketches and drafts, this book investigates how Joyce used, absorbed and repurposed these materials creatively in his writing; it does so by bringing for the first time the methods of genetic criticism into the domain of cultural memory and the sociology of the text. Thus this books defines "cultural genetics" as an exploration of the textual material that are Joyce's sources interacts with the culture that produced and received them.

Author: Wim Van Mierlo
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published: 10/19/2023
Pages: 248
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.14lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.56d
ISBN13: 9781350169883
ISBN10: 1350169889
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
- Literary Criticism | Subjects & Themes | Nature
- Literary Criticism | Modern | 20th Century