Course Description – Fall 2010

Study of James Joyce’s Ulysses in relation to three precursor texts: Homer’s Odyssey, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Topics include Joyce’s experiments in form and representation, literary and historical context, and critical approaches to Ulysses.

Pedagogical Goals

If you take this class, you should expect the following:

To gain a good understanding of Joyce’s Ulysses;
To learn about the relationship of Joyce’s work to the works of Homer and Shakespeare;
To develop familiarity with the methods of literary criticism and digital scholarship.

English majors taking the course should also expect to undertake a major research project (senior seminar essay).

Texts

Primary:
Homer, The Odyssey, trans. Fitzgerald (Farrar Strauss)
James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin)
James Joyce, Ulysses, ed. Gabler (Vintage)
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, ed. Edwards (New Cambridge Shakespeare)
Note: other editions of Hamlet are also acceptable.

Secondary:
Don Gifford, Ulysses Annotated (recommended)
Harry Blamires, The New Bloomsday Book

Texts are available at Labyrinth Books, 290 York St.

Class Time

TTh 11:35-12:50. Please come on time and turn off cell phones before class starts.

Office Hours

T2:30-3:45 and other times by appointment.
I encourage all students to come meet with me during the process of writing papers for the course. In order to be sure of having enough time to talk, please schedule an appointment by calling Angelika Schriever at 432-2760 or emailing her at angelika.schriever at yale.edu.

Course Website

Students will contribute to the Modernism Lab website at https://campuspress.yale.edu/ulysses. Every student will receive a password to contribute to the site wiki. As part of a group project, you may either write an introduction to one episode of Ulysses (Proteus, Calypso, Cyclops, Oxen of the Sun, Circe, Eumaeus, or Penelope) or collaborate in the creation of an interactive map of Bloom’s and Stephen’s wanderings in Dublin. Each student will also give a brief presentation on that episode in class (the write-up is optional for senior essay writers). In addition, each student should post comments or questions on one or more of the episode introductions at least three times during the semester. Students writing the episode introductions can draw on the comments or questions of their classmates in revising the introductions. In addition, students are invited to make use of and contribute to a database of information on Joyce’s life and works.

Assignments, grades, and due dates

For all students: participation in class and contributions to wiki: 25%

For English majors and senior seminar essay writers in the Literature Major:

Bibliography and proposal, due September 30, and rough draft, due November 8: 15%
Final essay, due December 3: 60%
Senior essay writers have the option of also participating in one of the group projects, which will be worth 20% of their grades; the final version will be due December 10.
I will ask the authors of excellent senior essays if they would like to post their essays on the featured research section of the website.

For other studentss:

2 short essays (6-8 pages), due October 13 and November 19: 25% each
Group project (up to 2000 words), due on-line in draft form at least 24 hours before the episode is discussed in class (for episode introductions), with final version due December 10: 25%

Papers can be submitted at the drop-box outside the English department office (room 109, Linsly-Chittenden Hall), with my name clearly indicated on the front page, or at the Comparative Literature office (room 102, 451 College Street). Late papers will be penalized unless accompanied by a Dean’s excuse.

Format of Papers; Plagiarism

Consult “Some Matters of Form” for guidelines about how to format your papers. This document is available in the English department office. Your assignments must be typed in 12-point font, with margins of one inch. We will discuss plagiarism before you hand in your first papers. You should document all your sources for any ideas or information if you are unsure whether they originated with you. (This includes any information you find on the web). Yale College regulations require that I report all cases of plagiarism to the Yale College Executive Committee. You can find further information in a pamphlet entitled “Sources: Their Use and Acknowledgment,” which you should have received from the Yale College Dean’s Office. You may also wish to consult either the MLA Handbook or the Chicago Manual of Style.

Readings

In addition to the assigned readings, you should read through the notes relevant to each episode of Ulysses in Gifford’s Ulysses Annotated. Some people prefer to read the relevant section of Blamires’ New Bloomsday Book before reading the corresponding episode in Ulysses; others prefer to read Joyce first, then Blamires. Readings are listed on the next page.

September

Th 2 Ulysses, episode 1

T 7 Class cancelled
Th 9 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

T 14 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Th 16Ulysses, episode 1; brief introduction to course website

T 21 Hamlet; Ulysses, episode 2
Th 23 Hamlet; Ulysses, episode 3

T 28 Odyssey, books 1 to 8; Ulysses, episode 4
Th 30 Odyssey, books 9 and 10; Ulysses, episode 5; Proposal and outline for senior seminar essay due

October

T 5 Odyssey, book 11; Ulysses, episode 6
Th 7 Ulysses, episode 7; review Odyssey, book 10

T   12  Ulysses, episode 8
W 13 First short paper due
Th 14 Class cancelled

T 19 Odyssey, book 12; Ulysses, episode 9
Th 21 Ulysses, episode 10

T 26 Ulysses, episode 11
Th 28 Ulysses, episode 12; review Odyssey, book 9

November

T 2 Ulysses, episode 13; review Odyssey, book 5
Th 4 Ulysses, episode 14-15; review Odyssey, book 10

M 8 Rough draft of senior seminar essay due
T 9 Ulysses, episode 15, continued; T. S. Eliot, “Ulysses, Order, and Myth”
Th 11 Class cancelled

T 16 Odyssey, books 13 to 18
Th 18 Odyssey, books 19 to 24
F 19 Second short paper due

T 30 Ulysses, episode 16

December

Th 2 Ulysses, episode 17
F 3 Final senior seminar essay due

T 7 Ulysses, episode 17, continued
Th 9 11:35-2:00 Reading of Ulysses, episode 18
(Note: the last two classes take place during reading period)
F 10 Final Versions of group projects should be posted online