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 'Capriccio', 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 ahistory book, solely in terms of social and political events and changes....