Transatlantic reception
“Bloomsday” just gone reminded me to look again at what I knew to be Virginia Woolf’s complicated relationship with Joyce’s work, and in doing so an interest was sparked in general to the reaction to Ulysses on both sides of the Atlantic at the time. An encouraging gesture, if nothing else, towards sometime diving in and finally reading this classic of modernism myself!
Famously, with the exception of parts serialized in The Little Review between 1918 and 1920 (for instance, here is a link to Episode XI), Ulysses became the subject of scandal and extended obscenity trials, and was in fact banned in the United States and the UK until 1934 and 1936 respectively. Copies published and printed by Shakespeare & Co. in Paris did circulate, could be got to, and especially was so amongst the intelligentsia of the time, and consequently was reviewed by on both sides of the Atlantic.
And, that included by T.S. Eliot, with whom Woolf sparred with on the subject, and his November, 1923, review for The Dial can be read here that the British Library. Formally written and glowing in its praise, it is written as a refutation of an earlier review by Richard Aldington (English Review, 1921) – which I can not easily find, but does seem in tandem with the Eliot response a constant in the academic realm of Ulysses scholarship, and to that end this short article in the James Joyce Quaterly (Spring, 1973) that gives evidence that Aldington had in fact encouraged, or even initiated, a response from Eliot. (On another matter, I do know that this was all at a time when Aldington was, not only helping Eliot professionally, but also one of the initiators of a fund to help Eliot financially, a matter in which Woolf was also involved.)
This is a difficult to read facsimile, but unfortunately the best I can come up with, of the review by Gilbert Seldes that Leonard Woolf encouraged Virginia Woolf to read (upon which she decided she should temporarily stifle her verdict and take another look!). As I say, visually speaking, not an easy read, but it is to my mind at least a better read than Eliot’s. (May I say, Eliot may have few peers in twentieth century poetry, but his essay style is very highbrow to the point of pedanticism.)
And then there is this piece by the Irish critic, Mary Colum (who I don’t know, but do now!) in The Freeman on 19 July 1922. Perhaps lacking impartiality, due to an abiding friendship, but an excellent read just the same.