ABSTRACT
This chapter puts forward a reading of James Joyce's Ulysses that suggests that what Joyce achieves in that work is an imaginative reappropriation of 'ancient' and 'modern' elements that blurs the ancient-modern distinction to such an extent that these categories can ultimately no longer be sustained. The main argument is that the re-evaluation that Homer's Odyssey undergoes in Ulysses is made possible by the novel's nonlinear temporality. It aims to show, the many epiphanic moments in Ulysses represent something like gateways whereby otherwise remote – that is, chronologically distant – events and moments make contact with one another, as opposed to a sheer, bewildering fragmentation of experience. The chapter has, after all, aims to establish that aspects of the Odyssey are relevant to an understanding of Ulysses – on the condition that the creativity, open-endedness, and nonlinearity of Joyce's reception of the Homeric epic are recognised.
