Overview

James Joyce’s Ulysses is a modern version of Homer’s Odyssey, but Joyce—who was a better scholar of Latin than of Greek—also was deeply influenced by the Aeneid, Virgil’s epic poem about the journey of Aeneas and the foundation of Rome. Joyce wrote Ulysses during the Irish War of Independence, when militants, politicians, and intellectuals were attempting to create a new Irish nation. Virgil wrote the Aeneid when, in the wake of decades of civil war, Augustus was founding what we now call the Roman Empire. Randall Pogorzelski applies modern theories of nationalism, intertextuality, and reception studies to illuminate how both writers confronted issues of nationalism, colonialism, political violence, and freedom during times of crisis.

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Joyce emerges here as a literary reader who rethinks Virgil s <i>Aeneid</i> as a post-imperial epic, a poem about colonialism and national identity. Phiroze Vasunia, author of <i>The Classics and Colonial India</i>

Finally . . . . a work on Joyce and a classical author that does equal justice to both. . . . Pogorzelski works with a deeply nuanced view of both Ulysses and the Aeneid and, intriguingly, uses Joyce as a way to gain insight into Virgil just as he uses Virgil to shed light on Joyce. -Classical Review Demonstrates not only that ancient texts are `enriched by a long tradition of reception,' but that cultural works speak through voices of the past and the future, and that cultural, geographical, and political borders are often only imagined. -Phoenix Engagement with and interrogation of Pogorzelski's provocative contribution will advance the comparative study of ancient and modern literature, as indeed of antiquity and modernity. -Vergilius [Adds] a valuable treatise to the body of scholarship highlighting the links between Joyce's semi-colonial novel and the epics of both Homer and Virgil. -Books Ireland

Joyce emerges here as a literary reader who rethinks Virgil s Aeneid as a post-imperial epic, a poem about colonialism and national identity. Phiroze Vasunia, author of The Classics and Colonial India

Author Information

Randall J. Pogorzelski is an assistant professor of classical studies at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.

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