ENG 4934 Fall 2019 Gontarski

What makes an English major, or rather, a literature major? Let me suggest that English majors relish the opportunities to read, to study, to plunge into the depths of, to get lost in, and, finally, to enjoy the acknowledged greatest literary works of all time. James Joyce’s Ulysses is just such a book. This Senior Seminar will spend the semester reading and studying James Joyce’s great novel, always ranked high, frequently number 1, on lists of the greatest works of literature—ever. ENG 4934 will read Ulysses closely, against its sources, especially Homer’s The Odyssey, and even look at some of its visual interpretations, especially the illustrations by Matisse.

[The 100 greatest novels of all time: #1 on the Modern Library List

http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/]

"I hold this book to be the most important expression which the present age has found; it is a book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape." —T. S. Eliot

"What is so staggering about ‘Ulysses’ is the fact that behind a thousand veils nothing lies hidden; that it turns neither toward the mind nor toward the world, but, as cold as the moon looking on from cosmic space, allows the drama of growth, being, and decay to pursue its course." —Carl Jung

"The greatest novel of the 20th century." —Anthony Burgess

"'Ulysses' is extraordinarily interesting to those who have patience (and they need it)." —John Middleton Murry

"It is difficult not to acclaim a masterpiece." —Virginia Woolf