...do you consider it a modernist or postmodernist novel?

I like to think of it as modernist, in spite of ontological incertainties (in Stephen/Bloom/the text itself)...

"a voiceless song sang from within singing"

Eep! I've been out of school for too long. I'm no longer clear on what the differences are between modern and post-modern. My dictionary doesn't have a listing for "ontological" either...

Jeff
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ye gods and little fishes!

quote:

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Originally posted by Manxom Vroom:
Eep! I've been out of school for too long. I'm no longer clear on what the differences are between modern and post-modern. My dictionary doesn't have a listing for "ontological" either...

Jeff
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ye gods and little fishes!

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Ontological = concerned with Being. The difference between modernism and postmodernism is quite vague (also, is postmodernism necessarily Post-(as in after) modernism? or is it a move from modernism?). The answer to the question would depend on how you define modernism and postmodernism and where you draw the line. Most literature in both 'isms' has ontological or epistomological (concerned with knowing) anxieties, a lot of metafiction, fear, fragmentation, exile, non-linear time, desillusion etc.

I think what distinguishes postmodernism from modernism is that modernism tends to be concerned more with epistomological anxieties and postmodernism with ontological anxieties (and... ontological determintation [being determined by a force outside you, as in Being John Malkovich])...this is Brain MacHale's distinction. Also it seems that Modernism tries to unify, whereas postmodernism doesn't...



"a voiceless song sang from within singing"

Ah...then my answer to your question is yes.

Jeff
______________________________
ye gods and little fishes!

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Originally posted by Manxom Vroom:
Ah...then my answer to your question is yes.

Jeff
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ye gods and little fishes!

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you need to choose, silly

"a voiceless song sang from within singing"

Ulysses was published in 1922, which is considered historically part of the period of Modernism. also its use of stream-of-consciousness is a Modernist convention (although it wasn't actually a convention until Joyce started using it, so that complicates things a bit). but it also has a lot of Post-Modern conventions (which, again, weren't really conventions yet because Joyce more or less invented them right there) -- such as mutation/metamorphosis, self-reflexivity, and higher/lower levels of reality functioning simultaneously.

i've always said that Joyce invented both Modernism and Post-Modernism in that one novel...but then again, the same thing could probably be said about Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" which was published in like 1767 or something.

so in answer to your question, i don't know. or perhaps there is no answer, since the boundaries between Modernism and Post-Modernism are pretty fuzzy. the easiest way to go if you really must categorize it is to say that it's Modernism, because it was published in 1922, and Post-Modernism started probably somewhere between 1945 and 1968.

quote:

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Originally posted by Cobalt:
it's Modernism, because it was published in 1922, and Post-Modernism started probably somewhere between 1945 and 1968.

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not really a satisfactory answer (as you said yourself)...

furthermore postmodernity is not really the issue here, just postmodernism... ideas are more important. Categories never fully work.

I think in Ulysses, Stephen tries to explain his ontological anxiety in epistomology. He tries to create himself in art. He knows history is constructed but he doesn't break free from it (although he tries) and he doesn't see the way out. As if he can only explain himself epistomologically.... :/

I mostly compare with Beckett's unnamable or work of Jeanette Winterson, these are so obvious postmodernist... still too many levels. :/

"a voiceless song sang from within singing"

...that if Joyce were here to be asked that same question, he would just smile, slightly and mysteriously...

I read a couple of interesting things from Joyce...first was that he said he wanted to keep the critics busy with Ulysses, and that certainly is the case. In another instance though, he said that he was afraid people would take this book seriously.

I'd give you an answer if I could, Miss Alabama, but unfortunately I'm not steeped enough in literary criticism to give you a decent answer. I did finish the book though, which I feel very happy about.

Jeff
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ye gods and little fishes!

quote:

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Originally posted by Manxom Vroom:
I read a couple of interesting things from Joyce...first was that he said he wanted to keep the critics busy with Ulysses, and that certainly is the case. In another instance though, he said that he was afraid people would take this book seriously.

I did finish the book though, which I feel very happy about.

Jeff
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ye gods and little fishes!

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yeah, for one thing the mix up of different prints. There is no "correct" version for Ulysses!

I am almost finished now too... in "Penelope".

Next week I'll have to give a presentation on Joyce and Philosophy and submit the essay a week after...

I feel confident about the presentation (personally, I think it is quite smart ...seriously) but not about the essay. I need to work on my ideas...The assignment was to focus on the critics, but most i have read can be summarised in a few lines... so what then? what then?

"a voiceless song sang from within singing"

quote:

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Originally posted by Epistrophy:
...that if Joyce were here to be asked that same question, he would just smile, slightly and mysteriously...

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it's like him never mentioning his meetings with nabokov or eisenstein...

"a voiceless song sang from within singing"

Good luck with your presentation, Miss Alabama. I think "Penelope" may be my favorite chapter in the book. I freaked the first time I looked at it and saw no paragraph breaks or even periods, but I found that if I forced myself to read it slowly I could get into the rhythm of it.

Jeff
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strange but not a stranger

quote:

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Originally posted by Manxom Vroom:
Good luck with your presentation, Miss Alabama. I think "Penelope" may be my favorite chapter in the book. I freaked the first time I looked at it and saw no paragraph breaks or even periods,

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really? that's funny...cos, in a way, the story would end with "Ithaca" (though, if Ulysses is a retelling of the Odyssea [there is a lot of evidence for and against], there should be a Penelope chapter, ...hmmm). My favourite chapter is "Circe" I think. It reads (a lot) like Symbolist drama. I like that. After that probably "Sirens", and that's because of music

"a voiceless song sang from within singing"

Circe is my favourite chapter too...i was giggling maniacally through the whole thing. :P

Yes, the story does end in "Ithaca." What I liked about "Penelope" was finally getting to hear Molly's side of the story after hearing so much about her through the course of the book. This chapter is also the most sexually graphic. I'm not proud, but I can admit that I liked the sexy bits.

Jeff
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strange but not a stranger

quote:

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Originally posted by Manxom Vroom:
Yes, the story does end in "Ithaca." What I liked about "Penelope" was finally getting to hear Molly's side of the story after hearing so much about her

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can imagine I can't judge as far as I am (i think 6 pages from the start of penelope)... still it has got to be circe

"a voiceless song sang from within singing"

wow... this thread is OLD

favorite chapter, bar none, is Proteus. i LOVE the language and how everything is filtered through Stephen's perceptions. I have a nice essay i wrote about it somewhere that i'm rather proud of, and i can quote bits of it...

the course that i read it in talked about it in terms of Modernism

This thread is indeed old, but also amusing. The term "post-modern" makes no sense when you apply it.