Hugo's There!?

Publisher： Rodopi

ISSN： 0923-9855

Source： European Joyce Studies, Vol.19, Iss.1, 2011-03, pp. : 60-75

Disclaimer: Any content in publications that violate the sovereignty, the constitution or regulations of the PRC is not accepted or approved by CNPIEC.

Previous Menu Next

Abstract

The significance of Hugo in Joyce - as in modernism generally - has been overshadowed by the dominant position within criticism of Flaubert. In a series of readings of Joyce's allusions to Hugo and his works, this chapter argues for their centrality to Joyce's Romantic figurings of the artist - as an exile, an exponent of anti-Catholic free thought, and resistance to tyrannical modes of thinking and of politics. Hugo's theory of genre is shown to be key to Stephen's theories in A Portrait... and to the deployment of gigantism in “Cyclops” and the grotesque in “Circe.” Finally, in Finnegans Wake, Hugo's frequent return to the trauma of Waterloo is repeated by Joyce in a way that, while it is less mournful, suggests, nonetheless, a fascination for Hugo's revolutionary spirit, in which the novel provides stories that subvert those provided by histories.