In this new work, Andrew Gibson sets out to reverse the traditional view of Joyce and his work as the paradigm of international modernism in literature. Where criticism has usually consigned Ireland to secondary status in Joyce's work, Gibson firmly relocates the writer and his work in Ireland, showing them at all points to be intricately bound up in Irish history, politics and culture. Crucially, he views Joyce's departure for Europe as allegiance to an Irish emigratory tradition that is centuries old, rather than the abandonment of the old country. Accounts of Joyce's life and work have tended to give rather short shrift to his profound engagements with Irish history and politics. Gibson argues that there have been important reasons for this, themselves often historical and political. Tracing the development of Joyce as a critic and writer, he maps this development to specific political and historical events. Beginning with the political traditions and allegiances that formed part of Joyce's family background, he pinpoints the fall of Parnell, the collapse of political hope, and the transfer of political energies to cultural activity as crucial in the writer's early formation. Joyce's immense renown has been due above all to his reputation as an experimental, modernist writer. His works' open-endedness and seemingly infinite availability to differing interpretations has allowed criticism to constantly update his politics. The book argues that Joyce's most important concerns were historically material and specific. Yet, it also recognises that Joyce himself encouraged and fostered the view of his work as modernist, which became the dominant tradition in Joyce studies.

安德鲁•吉布森（Andrew Gibson），英国伦敦大学皇家霍罗威学院现代文学理论教授。他于2002年出版了《乔伊斯的复仇：〈尤利西斯〉中的历史、政治和美学》，2003年与乔•科尔合著了由雷克森出版的《从朋克到布莱尔的伦敦》。

译者简介

宋庆宝，中国政法大学人文学院副教授、比较文学与外国文学博士、英国曼彻斯特大学访问学者。