Time and Identity in Ulysses and the Odyssey

A comparative study of two classic literary works, from a specialist in Joyce and Homer Time and Identity in Ulysses and the Odyssey offers a unique in-depth comparative study of two classic literary works, examining essential themes such as change, the self, and humans dependence on and isolation from others. Stephanie Nelson shows that in these texts, both Joyce and Homer address identity by looking at the paradox of timethat people are constantly changing yet remain the same across the years. In Nelsons analysis, both Ulysses and the Odyssey explore dichotomies such as the permanence of names and shifting of stories, independence and connection, and linear and cyclical narrative. Nelson discusses Homers contrast of ordinary to mythic time alongside Joyces contrast of clocktime to experienced time. She analyzes the characters Odysseus and Leopold Bloom, alienated from their previous selves; Telemachus and Stephen Dedalus, trapped by the past; and Penelope and Molly Bloom, able to recast time through weaving, storytelling, and memory. These concepts are also explored through Joyces radically different narrative styles and Homers timeless world of the gods. Nelsons thorough knowledge of ancient Greece, Joyce, narratology, oral tradition, and translation results in a volume that speaks across literary specializations. This book makes the case that Ulysses and the Odyssey should be read together and that each work highlights and clarifies aspects of the other. As Joyces characters are portrayed as both flux and fixity, readers will see Homers hero fight his way out of myth and back into the constant changes of human existence.