Joyce on the Threshold

by Anne Fogarty

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Summary

This collection of fourteen essays explores Joyce’s work in relation to the theme of liminality, the tendency of Joyce’s writing to straddle borders and explore the margins of sexuality, genre, nationality, and language. The four sections of the book consider, in turn, the unusual power of peripheral or marginal elements in Joyce’s writing; Joyce’s liminal identity as an Irish writer, working from a position of exile and in uncertain relation to the English literary tradition; his engagement with developments that define the transition to modernity and modernism; and the special importance in Joyce studies of questions traditionally regarded as marginal in relation to the critic’s main task. The collective emphasis on liminality captures an important aspect of Joyce’s artistic signature, the dialectic between the center and the margins that is either explored by or embodied in Joyce’s writing, while the methodology of individual essays is diverse, drawing upon such theorists as Bakhtin, Foucault, de Certeau, and Benjamin and bringing critical tools like “transtextuality” and the “pendant-text” to Joyce studies for the first time. The collection is particularly strong in its use of historical and other contextual material to challenge established points of view.

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