TELEMACHUS - An Analysis of the First Chapter of James Joyce's 'Ulysses'

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Paderborn, 24 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: At first sight, Ulysses might appear intimidating. The reader's reaction might vary from confusion to excitement to enthusiasm or even resignation. F. Scott Fitzgerald said the novel made him feel a "hollow, cheerful pain" and remarked: "The book makes me feel appallingly naked." To Stephan Zweig Ulysses is not just a novel, to him it is a "witches Sabbath of the spirit, a gigantic 'Capriccio', a phenomenal cerebral Walpurgisnacht. [...] Something evil is its root." Ulysses is not a novel, it's an epic. Inspired by Homer's adventures of the voyager hero Odysseus Joyce expanded a short story to almost a thousand pages and created a one-of-a-kind portrait of Dublin, at the start of the twentieth century. Hence, Ulysses does not actually mirror the ancient epic, neither does it recall Irish history as presented in a history book, solely in terms of social and political events and changes....