Incest, Lit(t)erally: How Joyce Censored The Wake
All his life long as a writer, Joyce had to battle against censorship — be it political, moral or aesthetic — and censors, be they Irish, British, American, or even French. Censorship delayed the publication of Dubliners from 1907 to 1914 (Joyce was adamantly refusing to delete the adjective “bloody...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Presses universitaires de Rennes
2013-11-01
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| Series: | Revue LISA |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/5466 |
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| Summary: | All his life long as a writer, Joyce had to battle against censorship — be it political, moral or aesthetic — and censors, be they Irish, British, American, or even French. Censorship delayed the publication of Dubliners from 1907 to 1914 (Joyce was adamantly refusing to delete the adjective “bloody” in one of his short stories). Censorship put an abrupt end to the serialization of Ulysses that had started in The (American) Little Review in 1918. Under the charge of obscenity, the book was prosecuted by The New York Society for the Prevention of Vice in 1920, before being banned in the United States for the subsequent thirteen years.Curiously enough, Joyce’s last opus, Finnegans Wake (1939), did not incur any legal trouble. Yet, this Babelic monument revolves around incest and various “acts of immorality” that could, in other times or other places, have brought Joyce to court. Does the Wake’s alleged illegibility account for the fact that it was not the case? This paper, which focuses on Anna Livia’s “revered letter” (supposedly clearing her husband HCE of all infamous accusations), aims at reassessing Joyce’s linguistic boldness, a much commented upon feature that might very well be another name for self-censorship. |
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| ISSN: | 1762-6153 |