Ulysses Summary
James Joyce

Ulysses Summary

Foreword, District Court Decision, and Letter from Joyce

The 1934 edition of Ulysses begins with a Foreword written by Morris L. Ernst, a Random House defense attorney involved in the obscenity case against the novel. Ernst applauds the decision of John M. Woolsey, the presiding judge, to rule against the charge of obscenity and allow the novel to be published in the United States. Ernst claims this judicial decision marks a “New Deal in the law of letters.” The attorney explains the complications involved in the definition and application of obscenity and links this release from “the legal compulsion for squeamishness in literature” with the repeal of Prohibition, which occurred also in the first week of December 1933.

Next, Judge Woolsey describes in his opinion Joyce’s accomplishment:

[He] attempted . . . with astonishing success—to show how the screen of consciousness with its ever-shifting kaleidoscopic impressions carries . . . not only what is in the focus... View more of the Ulysses Summary