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, 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 ¿Capricciö, 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....