Just bought Ulysses yesterday, reading Dubliners now. Should I read the Odyssey before Ulysses or just dive in? What are good translations of the Odyssey?
If you're even asking this question it means you're not ready for Ulysses.
>>7705664
just read it if you're interested in it. You can revisit it later after having read the Odyssey if you feel like it. It's not the fucking bible it's just a book
>>7705704
What a pretentious and completely fucking useless way to respond to this question
>>7705664
As far as I can tell, a good understanding of the Odyssey can definitely improve the experience of reading Ulysses, but there's nothing to suggest that it's explicitly necessary. If your interest lies with Ulysses more so than with The Odyssey, then I would go ahead and read the former first. seeing as Ulysses is a difficult read regardless of whether or not you've read the Odyssey beforehand. However, if that's what you decide to do I would definitely recommend going back to Ulysses later after having read the Odyssey, it's well worth it to see the allusions and parallels that Joyce built into the book
I would recommend reading The Odyssey and A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, but if you really wanna read it that bad you can without either
Read Finnegan's Wake or go back to Sammy the Seal
>>7705736
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young man got me into Joyce and I fucking loved it. I just want a basis for understanding at least some of the allusions, me having not read the entire western canon and all. I don't want to ruin the experience by trying to understand everything but, at the same time, I don't want to miss too much.
>>7705727
A stupid answer to a stupid question
But still, it's so much worse than you and the others guys who gave the really insightful answer of 'read it whenever you want'
>>7705746
I'm doing FW after Ulysses m8
>>7705753
>stupid answer
>stupid question
>stupid
>stupid
>stupid
>>7705766
What are you even doing?
Does Joyce reference Diana, or the Celtic derivation, Arduinna?
This later became the Celtic name 'Arden', and it has a connection to Shakespeare as his mother was an Arden.
There is some suggestion that because the MacArtan family had retained power late into the 16th Century, that Shakespeare would have had some reason to venture into County Cork.
I've found three major ways to track William Shakespeare to County Cork in Ireland.
>His potential (matriarchal) family line which retained power into his own lifetime.
>His friend, whose name is Francis Collins.
>His daughter Judith Shakespeare who married a man by the name Quiney.
Does Joyce touch on that at all? Elizabethan politics were full of very dramatic religious conflicts.
Of course, the 'Forest of Arden' is mainly in Warwickshire and Staffordshire, but the family name Arden may not necessarily derivate from there.
>>7705758
Right after? Are you sure you can handle that much premium unleaded Joycecore back to back? I read Finnegans Wake several months after Ulysses and it was still a headtrip. I was hearing the words at night in my head when I was trying to go to sleep. Finnegans Wake isn't a book to be taken lightly, m80
>>7705664
Read the Odyssey if you're interested in reading it anyway, otherwise it's not necessary. It's arguable that Hamlet is more important to the novel anyway.
Definitely make sure you read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man though. The main character is the subject of the first 3 chapters of Ulysses.
Note that if Mary Arden's name derived from MacCartan, then both Shakespeare and de Gaulle shared the same background!
>>7705721
>It's not the fucking bible it's just a book
But anon...the bible is just a book...
>>7705970
Well, that's the plan anyway. Portrait affected me more than maybe any other piece of literature, except maybe Crime & Punishment. But I'm loving Dubliners in a whole different way, so maybe I'll be able to get it up again after Ulysses and have a go at FW. We'll see.
