James Joyce and Absolute Music

by Michelle Witen, Erik Tonning (Series Editor), Matthew Feldman (Series Editor)

Drawing on draft manuscripts and other archival material, James Joyce and Absolute Music , explores Joyce's deep engagement with musical structure, and his participation in the growing modernist discourse surrounding 19th-century musical forms. Michelle Witen examines Joyce's claim of having structured the “Sirens” episode of his masterpiece, Ulysses , as a fuga per canonem , and his changing musical project from his early works, such as Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man . Informed by a deep understanding of music theory and history, the book goes on to consider the “pure music” of Joyce's final work, Finnegans Wake . Demonstrating the importance of music to Joyce, this ground-breaking study reveals new depths to this enduring body of work.

320 pages, Hardcover

Published February 22, 2018