The reception of James Joyce's Ulysses in Greece

Thesis

This thesis explores the trajectory of James Joyce’s Ulysses in Greece by examining events of critical reception and translation. Drawing from theoretical models of world literature such as those suggested by Pascale Casanova (2004), Franco Moretti (2000), and David Porter (2011), this thesis proposes an alternative view of Joyce’s reception focusing on its more fluid dynamics. Considering also the arguments of Francesca Orsini (2015), this thesis examines the practices through which circulation and dissemination are achieved to discuss peripheral modernism, modernist translation, and reading Joyce in the periphery. By examining acts of translation and critical responses, I argue that the circulation of Ulysses in Greece is achieved through strategies characterized by what I call ‘unfinishingness’: the text is received through readings and translations that do not hide—and often thematize—their unfinishedness. At the same time, these readings correspond to broader issues and debates of the Greek literary space.

Responding to local debates about interior monologue and modernist writing practices, the early readings of the novel consist of fragmentary translations, short notes, and articles in the 1930s-1950s. In the 1960s-1980s, Manto Aravantinou, a poet and translator, shifts the focus to issues of archive and transnational authorship through her critical work on Joyce’s Greek notes. Finally, the three existing full-length translations (1969-1976, 1990, 2014) foreground the translator’s struggle and raise issues of translation theory and discourse. Each response introduces modes of reading Ulysses such as the fragmentary, the weird, the agonistic, and the prismatic, that are directly linked to the unfinishing and the peripheral. The Greek trajectory of Ulysses can show us, I suggest, how productive peripheral responses can become as they lead, not only to new modes of reading the novel, but also to revisiting the issue of Joyce in the periphery and in translation.

Authors: Bilia, T

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-noxo1nyy7
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English and Greek, Modern (1453- )
• Keywords: James Joyce; Greece; critical reception; modernism; Ulysses; unfinishing; translation
• Subjects: reception; Modernism (Literature); Joyce, James, 1882-1941--Characters; Greek literature, Modern; Cultural translation; Literature