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‘Can my daughter of 18 read this book?’: Ulysses and obscenity
Author(s) -
Potter Rachel
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
critical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.111
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1467-8705
pISSN - 0011-1562
DOI - 10.1111/j.0011-1562.2004.00595.x
Subject(s) - femininity , meaning (existential) , daughter , relation (database) , literature , section (typography) , popular fiction , psychoanalysis , art , psychology , law , political science , advertising , database , computer science , business , psychotherapist
This article considers Ulysses in relation to legal, social and literary ideas of obscenity in the early twentieth century. I discuss the trial of the Little Review in 1921, in which the question of the text's obscenity was related to the responses of a particular audience, 'young girls'. I also consider, however, whether Joyce twists the meaning of obscenity in the 'Nausicaa' section Ulysses , asking whether it is Bloom's masturbation or the young Gerty's sentimental imagination which is obscene. The article explores the shifting relationship between Ulysses , obscenity and femininity.