Joyce's Ulysses

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

Narrated by: James A. W. Heffernan

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.

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.