Joseph Brooker’s synthesis lucidly summarizes more than seventy years of Joyce criticism. This is the first broad study of how James Joyce’s work was received in the Anglophone world, accessibly written for both academic and lay readers. Brooker shows how the reading of Joyce's work has moved through different critical paradigms, periods, and places, and how Joyce’s writing has given generations of readers a way to discuss the major issues of the modern world.
Joseph Brooker’s synthesis lucidly summarizes more than seventy years of Joyce criticism. This is the first broad study of how James Joyce’s work was received in the Anglophone world, accessibly written for both academic and lay readers. Brooker shows how the reading of Joyce's work has moved through different critical paradigms, periods, and places, and how Joyce’s writing has given generations of readers a way to discuss the major issues of the modern world.
This is indeed an original piece of writing that complements existing criticism while extending scholarly knowledge. . . . Given the volumes of criticism on Joyce’s writings, this is a very important work, for it provides a timely reminder, especially for those who began work on Joyce over the past twenty years, of the important contributions made by early critics. —Michael Patrick Gillespie, series editor and coauthor ofRecent Criticism of James Joyce’s Ulysses
“Joyce’s Criticshas personality. It reads like a well-written novel of ideas. Its author has a sharp, economical style, a great sense of pacing, an eye for anecdote, much lightly-worn learning, not a little wit, and above all a way with his cast of characters, the critics and schools of critics who populate its pages.”—English Literature in Transition, 1880–1920
A vibrant guide to the reception of Joyce’s work by many minds and cultures. Joe BlCĪ