THE POLITICS OF PASTICHE IN JAMES JOYCE’S ULYSSES

Pastiche in literature seems, at first glance, simply a stylistic imitation of authors and texts. The fact is that the term refers to a type of intertextuality with a rich history implying infinite aesthetical and critical codes in art and literature. In the second half of twentieth century Julia Kristeva (1941- ) initiated a new movement in the world of criticism, inaugurating ‘intertextuality’ as a new critical idiom. The term refers to the texts as products of their literary past and as dynamic networks in which various intertexts are interconnected with each other. These intertextual networks are also productive and accounted as intertexts to form future texts. James Joyce’s (1882-1941) Ulysses (1922), as a pastiche, is an amalgom of adapted or direct borrowings from other texts, particularly Homer’s Odyssey. Relying on the theory of intertextuality and comparing Joyce’s novel with Odyssey, this paper clarifies that in Ulysses, Joyce represents pastiche through different techniques ranging from allusion to direct qoutation. Joyce designates Odyssey as the skleten of his novel and titles it as Ulysses which is the Latin equivalent for Odysseus. The parelles between two texts act as catalizers to move the new story on. These parellels are not limited only to the titled chapters but also the stories are comparable with each other. Choosing Odyssey as the pretext, Joyce injects the features of epic, as an old and serious literary form, into his modern novel and emancipates the imprisoned energy from the depth of history. Turning potentials to actualities through this literal transformation leads to dynamic relationships between the past and present in the text of Ulysses. Therefore, in contrast to the similarities between two texts, there are some clashes between the characters and themes. Moreover the mixture of different genres such as epic and novel generate new gaps demanding new solutions to be filled. Applying intertextuality, Joyce not only criticise the form but also put the content of literary work under question. He blends a lot of textual materials and makes experiments with them to rebel against the mainstream ideologies. Intertextuality is a medium through which Joyce transforms the obsolete meanings into the dynamic places of productivity and multiplicity in his work.

کلیدواژه ها:

Pastiche ، Intertextuality ، Intertext ، Pretext