ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that Ulysses embodies the Einsteinian and post-Euclidean values of limited perspective and intersecting parallels in questioning the cultural and historical heritage of modernity. The final two composition stages of Ulysses span the emergence of Einstein from an obscure allusion in avant-garde literary culture to a public figure in mass culture. Wandering Rocks was the first episode to break from the initial style, participating in avant-garde magazine discourse that questioned the scientific nature of the event. Ithaca, coming after Einstein's arrival and coinciding with Joyce's publicity efforts, also bears the stamp of periodicals across the divisions of print culture that popularized the relativity theories and post-Euclidean geometry. It is well known that Ithaca draws from an old anonymous textbook and Bertrand Russell's 1919 Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. The mythic method is a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history.
