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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

James Joyce, Music, and Narrative

Abstract

dc:description

"My dissertation reevaluates the function of music in James Joyce's major prose works. Previous scholarship from Matthew Hodgart and Mabel Worthington's landmark Songs in the Works of James Joyce (1959), to Zack Bowen's Musical Allusions in the Works of James Joyce (1974), and Ruth Bauerle's Picking up Airs (1993), have concentrated primarily on identifying the hundreds of allusions to popular and operatic songs in Joyce's fictions. My work leans heavily on this research and expands this approach in two ways. First, I see music in the texts as performing a narrative function. The character's reactions to music being played or sung represents a momentary pause in the narrative action similar to the concept of ""stretch"" outlined by Seymour Chatman. Second, I examine this scene in the context of the text in which it appears: who is performing? who is listening? where is the performance taking place? This dramatic reading of the musical scene in the fiction highlights the relationship between the musical text and the culture."

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Ph.D.
Level thesis:degree_level
Dissertation
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
English
Grantor
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Year dc:date
2015

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Reilly, Seamus Joseph
Contributors dc:contributor
  • James Hurt

Subjects

dc:subject × 1

Rights

Language dc:language
eng

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Identifier
(MiAaPQ)AAI9737232
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/81472

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
Base URL
www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Reilly, Seamus Joseph. James Joyce, Music, and Narrative. Dissertation thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/81472