Hypercanonical Joyce: Ulysses, The Lonely Londoners, and Transcultural Influence
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Hypercanonical Joyce: Ulysses, The Lonely Londoners, and Transcultural Influence. / Ward, Kiron.
In: Textual Practice, Vol. 36, No. 2, 2022, p. 326-347.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Hypercanonical Joyce: Ulysses, The Lonely Londoners, and Transcultural Influence
AU - Ward, Kiron
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Roughly two-thirds of the way through Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners (1956), there is a section highly redolent of the ‘Penelope’ episode of Joyce’s Ulysses (1922): a block of text, without punctuation or paragraph breaks, describing the experiences of the novel’s main characters and their friends as they ‘coast’ Hyde Park for sexual encounters. Commonly referred to as the ‘Summer’ section, the similarity to ‘Penelope’ has not gone unnoticed among either Joyce or Selvon scholars; to date, however, only J. Dillon Brown (2013) has offered a substantive reading of the connection. This article seizes on the relative absence of critical discussion of Selvon in Joyce studies to consider what might be the particular responsibilities that Joyce studies bears when reading Joyce’s transcultural influence.Drawing on critical debates around the concept of global modernism, and considering the examples of Ezra Pound, Charles R. Larson, Franco Moretti, and Pascale Casanova, I trace the use of Joycean influence to advance ‘diffusionist’ models of literary history and propose that transcultural Joycean influence study should seek to avoid repeating such inevitably Eurocentric models. Building from Kandice Chuh’s (2019) analysis of hypercanonicity, I contend that transcultural Joycean influence study should aim rather to unsettle our understanding of Joyce, influence, and culture—and that, in ‘Summer,’ Selvon presents a creative disaffiliation from Joyce that makes for an exemplary model of Joycean influence through contestation.
AB - Roughly two-thirds of the way through Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners (1956), there is a section highly redolent of the ‘Penelope’ episode of Joyce’s Ulysses (1922): a block of text, without punctuation or paragraph breaks, describing the experiences of the novel’s main characters and their friends as they ‘coast’ Hyde Park for sexual encounters. Commonly referred to as the ‘Summer’ section, the similarity to ‘Penelope’ has not gone unnoticed among either Joyce or Selvon scholars; to date, however, only J. Dillon Brown (2013) has offered a substantive reading of the connection. This article seizes on the relative absence of critical discussion of Selvon in Joyce studies to consider what might be the particular responsibilities that Joyce studies bears when reading Joyce’s transcultural influence.Drawing on critical debates around the concept of global modernism, and considering the examples of Ezra Pound, Charles R. Larson, Franco Moretti, and Pascale Casanova, I trace the use of Joycean influence to advance ‘diffusionist’ models of literary history and propose that transcultural Joycean influence study should seek to avoid repeating such inevitably Eurocentric models. Building from Kandice Chuh’s (2019) analysis of hypercanonicity, I contend that transcultural Joycean influence study should aim rather to unsettle our understanding of Joyce, influence, and culture—and that, in ‘Summer,’ Selvon presents a creative disaffiliation from Joyce that makes for an exemplary model of Joycean influence through contestation.
U2 - 10.1080/0950236X.2022.2003088
DO - 10.1080/0950236X.2022.2003088
M3 - Journal article
VL - 36
SP - 326
EP - 347
JO - Textual Practice
JF - Textual Practice
SN - 0950-236X
IS - 2
ER -
ID: 249906393