How to read Joyce

Few writers have acquired a reputation for obscurity to equal that of James Joyce. The short stories of Dubliners and the semi-autobiographical narrative of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are as close to the man as many readers will dare to venture. But to stop at these earlier works is to deprive oneself of some of the most clever and funniest writing in the English language. From the revolutionary technique of Ulysses, to what Joyce considered to be his best work, Finnegans Wake, a whole world of language and imagination awaits the uninitiated. In this seminar, drawing on his contribution to The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce, Derek Attridge of the University of York, England, and Rutgers University in the US, offers a pathway to Joyce that attempts to bypass the intimidation.