Abstract
In this chapter, Martin Brick reconsiders the definition and application of the term “epiphany” to Joyce’s work. Brick points out that epiphanies in Joyce are often social experiences rather than individual moments of personal reflection and clarification. Brick wants us to see Joyce’s epiphanies as signifiers of “joint problem solving,” where the alienation of the modern self is mediated by intermental cognition, underscoring the discursive subtext present in conversations between characters. Brick’s essay points out the slippage of both character and reader epiphanies in Joyce’s text, suggesting the difficulty of pinning down one way of reading the stylistic devices in Dubliners.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsBibliography
Beja, Morris. Epiphany in the Modern Novel. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971.
Eide, Marian. Ethical Joyce. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Gibbons, Luke. “‘Have You No Homes to Go to?’: James Joyce and the Politics of Paralysis.” Semicolonial Joyce, edited by Derek Attridge and Marjorie Howes, 150–171. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Gibson, Andrew. The Strong Spirit: History, Politics, and Aesthetics in the Writings of James Joyce, 1898–1915. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Hendry, Irene. “Joyce’s Epiphanies.” The Sewanee Review. 54.3 (Jul-Sep 1946): 449–67.
Herman, David. “Narrative Theory after the Second Cognitive Revolution.” Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies, edited by Lisa Zunshine, 155–175. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2010.
Joyce, James. Dubliners: Text, Criticism, and Notes. Edited by Robert Scholes and A. Walton Litz. New York: Viking, 1969.
––––. Letters of James Joyce. Vol. 2. Edited by Richard Ellmann. New York: Viking, 1966.
––––. Stephen Hero. Edited by Theodore Spencer. London: Jonathan Cape, 1956.
Levin, Harry. James Joyce: A Critical Introduction. Rev. and Aug. ed. New York: New Directions, 1960.
Norris, Margot. Suspicious Readings of Joyce’s “Dubliners.” Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.
Palmer, Alan. “Intermental Thought in the Novel: The Middlemarch Mind.” Style 39.4 (Winter 2005): 427–439.
––––. “Storyworlds and Groups.” Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies, edited by Lisa Zunshine, 176–192. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2010.
Scholes, Robert. “Joyce and the Epiphany: The Key to the Labyrinth?” Critical Essays on James Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” edited by Philip Brady and James F. Carens, 27–35. New York: G.K. Hall & Co, 1998.
Scholes, Robert and Florence Walzl. “The Epiphanies of Joyce.” PMLA 82.1 (Mar 1967). 152–54.
Wertsch, James V. Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action. Cambridge [MA]: Harvard University Press, 1991.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Brick, M. (2017). Intermental Epiphanies: Rethinking Dubliners with Cognitive Psychology. In: Culleton, C., Scheible, E. (eds) Rethinking Joyce's Dubliners. New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39336-0_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39336-0_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-39335-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-39336-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)