Joyce's Ulysses

By: James A. W. Heffernan, The Great Courses

Narrated by: James A. W. Heffernan

Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Ulysses depicts a world that is as fully conceived and vibrant as anything in Homer or Shakespeare. It has been delighting and puzzling readers since it was first published on Joyce's 40th birthday in 1922. And here, Professor Heffernan maps the brilliance, passion, humanity, and humor of Joyce's modern Odyssey in these 24 lectures that finally make a beguiling literary masterpiece accessible for anyone willing to give it a chance. Although they discuss selected points from the enormous body of critical scholarship on Ulysses, these lectures presuppose no special knowledge of literature or of James Joyce. Whether or not you've read Ulysses, you'll find they make an excellent guide to the many-layered pleasures of this modern epic. Illuminating the dramatic and artistic integrity behind the novel's most notoriously challenging passages, they explain why this frank, path-breaking novel was praised as a landmark and damned as obscene - even banned - as soon as it first appeared. You'll come to see Ulysses as many books at once: an inspired modern reweaving of the fabric of Homer's mighty Odyssey; a supreme synthesis of realism and symbolism; a grandly comic and at times bawdy work - a seriocomic parable about art and experience; a symphonic, kaleidoscopic portrayal of the sights, sounds, and voices of Dublin and every city; and a dazzling work of masterfully handled prose styles and narrative devices.

Above all, you'll learn to read Ulysses as an unsentimental but deeply felt story that uses concrete facts of mundane life in a particular time and place to say something truly extraordinary and universal that speaks to all that is human in us.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2001 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2001 The Great Courses

Great content; annoying lecturer

What did you love best about Joyce's Ulysses?

Professor Heffernan's analysis is cogent and concise. He obviously understands the work, but has very little that is positive to say about Molly Bloom; beyond saying that she is one of the most remarkable characters in literature, he seems to buy into the same whore or angel dichotomy that Stephen Dedalus espouses when it comes to all women.

There are also a dozen other themes of Ulysses, and for a lecture series that purports to analyze the whole work, he devotes nearly all of his time to the parallels with the Odyssey. That leaves out Joyce's commentary on Irish history; on colonialism, imperialism, and the Victorian age's scientific and technological breakthroughs; on Catholicism; on the life of the mind; on Irish literature....Joyce had so many things to say, and to talk about a handful only is to do a great disservice to anyone who listens to this course.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Professor James A. W. Heffernan?

I would listen to anyone who did not sing-song his way through, anyone who didn't think he was a skilled impressionist who could do justice to any character (if you are not a trained Joycean reader, please leave the stereotypical accents at home), any accent, and anyone who didn't have the bizarre habit of leaving out one digit when saying a year (Professor Heffernan says 1904 "19-4" and it is crazy-making to me).

Great Adjunct to Ulysses

Ulysses seems to be able to be interpreted in as many ways as there are people that have read it. This was a great adjunct to the book, but it is by no means a complete guide. It may be impossible to ever have that. I used this course as well as The Bloomsday book and they were both very different but helpful.

A great way to experience Ulysses

Would you listen to Joyce's Ulysses again? Why?

To pick up on things I may have missed first time through

Who was your favorite character and why?

L. Bloom

Have you listened to any of Professor James A. W. Heffernan’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Any additional comments?

To get a better understand the book you really need to read the Odyssey along side. I was not willing to do that much work, so this course was the perfect solution. The professor does all the heavy lifting and points out the parallels for you. Thanks!

Phenomenal Guide

This course exceeded my expectations, and made my navigation of Ulysses a joy.
I enjoy the lively narration, and the insights presented are invaluable.
Just as Ulysses "cannot be read, only re-read," so has this course been a resource to which I have frequently returned.

Thorough analysis and Fantastic narration

My favorite of all the Great Courses series. Heffernan invites the listener to join him on an odyssey of discovery with the requisite level of enthusiasm that the adventure demands, and without which it might have failed. The depth of analysis is thorough, and the structure, a comparison of the modern classic to Homer's original, is enlightening. This is the ideal of the college class you wish you had taken, taught by a professor whose wit, extensive knowledge, and contagious joy makes you want to stay for more long after the class has ended. The length to which Heffernan goes to elucidate pertinent details of Irish history, Joyce's personal history, the context in which Ulysses was written, so much more, makes this one of those gems that start off about one thing and end up about everything, as a great work should. In this way, this series of lectures mimics the book itself. It goes without saying that this is not the ultimate analysis, there a other interpretations of key aspects of the book that are not touched on here. However, so many analyses are synthesized here that it makes one feel as though any unmentioned must not be credible. I have listened to this more times than I can count, and will again, in pursuit of a thorough understanding of this iconic work.

Was not just enlightening, but fun.

Heffernan was a great guide through this usual bear of a book. Highly recommend this course!

Understand Ulysses For the First Time

If you too have yearned to read James Joyce's Ulysses and derive some meaning, if not actual understanding, from the words your eyes are passing over, you are going to love this Great Courses offering by Professor James A. W. Hefferman as much as I did. Professor Hefferman doesn't lecture, he performs and animates Ulysses such that you long to go back and reread each chapter over and over as the veil of opacity is slowly lifted and suddenly Joyce's humor, depth, humanity and understanding of the writings of the ancients that inspired this work become fully visible. I could not have anticipated how much I would enjoy and derive from this course. It is truly one of the best I have ever taken.

For Inquiring Minds

IF you are going to read the book itself, you might as well know what you are getting. This course helped me navigate and gain far more insight than I could ever have had by just reading the book. They say you have to read Ulysses twice to get anything out of it. For the rest of us mere mortals, just read it once along with this course.

Excellent guide to Ulysses - kept me motivated!

Presenter keeps it interesting and provides context for a challenging book. I higly recommend this course to any serious student of great literature.

Detailed overview & commentary

Although I prefer the book itself, Prof. Heffernan's commentary kept me locked in. He educates, entertains, and gives the listener so much that he provides the audio equivalent of a page-turner. Now, when I eventually get to read the book itself, Prof. Heffernan will have given the experience so much more value.