Reauthorizing Joyce

Vicki Mahaffey argues that for James Joyce, language is the most important link between the unconscious and the socio-historical.  It serves as a precise link beween the psychological and the political, between the individual and the communal, between the future and the past.  Quoting Finnegans Wake, Mahaffey describes language as a bag full of "presents."

 This first paperback edition of Reauthorizing Joyce suggests that the reader's role in relation to Joyce's novels is more active and significant than is usually the case.  "Reading Joyce goes beyond entertainment into 'hands on' instruction about how to perceive and process language more productively, enjoyably, and responsibly.  Joyce provides readers with novels that are workshops in interpretive responsibility and sensual perceptiveness."

 Language, according to Mahaffey, is the real hero of Joyce's work.  This study shows how language functions in Joyce as an index to unconscious desires and as a record of how people have responded to the sensual aspects of language through time.

Vicki Mahaffey is associate professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.  She has written numerous book chapters and articles, many on James Joyce, for journals such as Critical Inquiry  and James Joyce Quarterly.