Poking the Bear (SOLD OUT)
Location
The Celtic Club @ The Wild Geese
About
The impact of censorship and the Obscenity Trial on Joyce’s revisions of Ulysses
James Joyce was notoriously resistant to bending to censorship, even when it was demanded by friendly patrons like Ezra Pound, and much more so when he was institutionally punished. Ulysses’ publication in 1922 in Paris, following the high-stakes affray in the US courts which started in 1921, was a miracle. This presentation looks at Joyce’s response to his critics as he revised the novel, and argues that censorship delivered a radically different, and more daring, novel from what we might have had.
James Joyce was notoriously resistant to bending to censorship, even when it was demanded by friendly patrons like Ezra Pound, and much more so when he was institutionally punished. Ulysses’ publication in 1922 in Paris, following the high-stakes affray in the US courts which started in 1921, was a miracle. This presentation looks at Joyce’s response to his critics as he revised the novel, and argues that censorship delivered a radically different, and more daring, novel from what we might have had.