Clash of the Modern/Postmodern Titans? James Joyce in Gravity’s Rainbow
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8866048 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Erik Ketzan (0000-0003-0264-2157, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 101 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 333-356 |
| Publication date | 2020-03-05 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | English Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-838X • E-ISSN: 1744-4217 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0013838x.2020.1727176 |
| OpenAlex | W3010502715 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 21 |
This paper examines one explicit and many potential references to James Joyce in Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, and explores evidence that a minor Pynchon character may be read as an amalgamated representation of Joyce and his fictions. First, comparisons and contrasts between Joyce and Pynchon are surveyed. The treatment of archetype (which Pynchon associates with Joyce) in Gravity's Rainbow is then explored, finding that Pynchon consistently interrogates, warps, and rejects the concept of archetype. Evidence that Sir Stephen Dodson-Truck in Gravity's Rainbow somehow portrays Joyce is interpreted in comparison with the portrayal of writers in fiction, anxiety of influence, “patricide” and influence, and the portrayal of Joyce in Flann O'Brien's The Dalkey Archive. As tantalizing as a “clash of the titans” between Joyce and Pynchon would be, what emerges is more subtle: aesthetic opposition by Pynchon to archetypes in fiction, coupled with hints of a critique of Joyce's etymological “blithering”
Archetype · Art · Art history · Character (mathematics · Literature · Opposition (politics · Physics · Postmodernism · Rainbow · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · Narrative Theory and Analysis · Law · Philosophy
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |