Work in Progress: Joyce Centenary Essays Hardback - 1983

Work in Progress contains a separate essay on each of Joyce's major works (Dubliners, A Por­trait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake), with recognized Joyce schol­ars examining in each a central critical problem.

Morris Beja examines Dubliners from the perspective of the "epiphany," a concept for­mulated by the young Joyce. Richard Peter­son finds a rhythmic flow in A Portrait that helps us see its narrative structuring more clearly. Shari and Bernard Benstock explore Ulysses to discern how movement and spa­tiality function in its narrative. Patrick Mc­Carthy considers how Finnegans Wake and its audience are necessarily symbiotic partners.

In the second grouping of essays Edmund Epstein and Fritz Senn each investigate how Joyce handles--or manipulates--language. Looking at three decades of criticism, Mar­garet Church demonstrates where the study of the Viconian cycle and stream-of-con­sciousness has led toward an understanding of the role of time in Joyce's fiction. Sheldon Brivic adduces a Joycean psychology from the works that offers an additional dimension to the study of the texts. Suzette Henke traces the growing maturity of Joyce's atti­tude toward women. Completing the collec­tion, Father Robert Boyle examines the reli­gious ethos present in Joyce's work.