‘Ulysses’, by James Joyce, the most significant contribution made to fictional literature in the 20th century, turns a century

Ulises immortalized its author James Joyce with the same certainty that Gargantua and Pantagruel they immortalized Rabelais, and The Karamazov brothers to Dostoevsky. The critics consider that it is very likely that there is no one writing in English today who can match Joyce’s feat.

The world celebrates 140 years since Joyce’s birth and Ulises -a work that deserves to be constantly reviewed- turns 100. It is expected that this June 16 a large group of people from all over the world will gather in Dublin, Ireland, to pay tribute to the author and his novel.

James Joyce (1882–1941) was born in Ireland on February 2, 1882. He was born into a middle-class Catholic family that had enjoyed moderate commercial prosperity in the cities of Cork and Dublin throughout the 19th century. He died two years after the publication of his even more abstract and controversial epic Finnegans Wake.

The appearance of Ulises within the territory of the novel it was the hecatomb that resignified the formulas and conventions of the genre to the point of aggressively inhibiting, questioning and disturbing the novelists, who became aware of a new way of narrating. It is the complex account of a simple 38-year-old advertising agent of Jewish origin in his daily routine in Dublin. The narrative occasionally switches to Bloom’s unfaithful wife, Molly, or to an acquaintance, Stephen Dedalus, a spin-off writer of Joyce’s autobiography. Portrait of the teenage artist. Not much happens to Bloom over the course of the novel: he goes to the butcher shop, to a funeral, defecates, and then masturbates on the beach.

Written between 1914 and 1921 between Trieste, Zurich and Paris, the places where a Joyce lived who would never return to his native Ireland, then an English colony – he attacked Irish nationalism in a sarcastic and sometimes brutal way, but Dublin was the obsession and unique subject of all his life–, today the novel has made him the literary icon of his country. A novel published after unsuccessful attempts with other publishers by the legendary American bookstore installed in the French capital Sylvia Beach on February 2, 1922, when Joyce was 40 years old. Now, in the hundred year after Ulisesthere is now an avalanche of novelties that celebrate it, along with a complete program of activities in Dublin.

Stamps and celebrations

The Irish capital kicks off the celebrations in a big way that will last for six months, culminating on June 16, the day that Dublin celebrates the Bloomsday festival to remember the experiences of the protagonist of the novel. The Irish Literature Museum will open the exhibition Love, says Bloom, about the writer’s life and his relationship with his wife and muse Nora, Molly Bloom’s model. The James Joyce Center will host exhibitions and city tours, Trinity and University College will host an international symposium and the Irish Government has launched a portal with all the global activities: ulysses100.ie.

The Irish Post Service (An Post) has issued two new stamps to commemorate the centenary of the publication of James Joyce’s novel Ulisesone of the most influential modernist works of the 20th century.

The stamps have been created by The Stone Twins, an Irish design firm based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and are inspired by the “Gilbert scheme”, the tables created by Joyce himself to explain the complex structure of his most famous novel. famous.

“Since Ulysses is particularly famous for defying conventional language, the reverse typeface on the stamps tries to reflect Joyce’s experimental use of language,” he observes. EFE.

An Post anticipates that these commemorative items will generate “great interest” among collectors “in Ireland and abroad”, as well as among the “’joycean’ community” and all “those interested in literature”.

In the opinion of its CEO, David McRedmond, Ulises it remains “the first great modern novel” and one of the “most important works of the 20th century.”

“Its centenary demonstrates something else: that Ulises it is a work of art as relevant now as when it was written. These stamps reflect the unique blend of modernism and classicism that defines the novel,” McRedmond notes.

Joyce (1882-1941) initially published Ulises as a series of stories in an American magazine, while the complete novel was published on February 2, 1922, coinciding with the 44th birthday of the Dublin writer.

The book recounts the already epic one-day journey of Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus and Molly Bloom through the streets and suburbs of Edwardian Dublin on June 16, 1904.