{"id":602,"date":"2016-11-22T00:43:51","date_gmt":"2016-11-22T00:43:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/?p=602"},"modified":"2016-11-22T00:43:51","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T00:43:51","slug":"first-annotation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/uncategorized\/first-annotation\/","title":{"rendered":"First Annotation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baron, Scarlett. “Flaubert, Joyce: Vision, Photography, Cinema.”\u00a0Modern Fiction Studies,\u00a0<\/em>vol. 54, no. 4, 2008, pp. 689-714,\u00a0https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/article\/257623\/pdf. Accessed 21 Nov 2016.<\/p>\n

Noting the shortsightedness (so to speak) of previous analyses of Joyce’s work in comparison with cinema, Baron examines\u00a0Ulysses\u00a0<\/em>as well as Joyce’s other texts through comparison with the work of Flaubert, noting a shared fixation on the technologies and techniques of vision that originates prior to the invention and popularization of film. Cautioning against a present-day tendency to assume the predominance of film as a technology of visualization, Baron begins by\u00a0looking towards “modernism’s literary heritage in the field of visual representation”(690) in order to more fully understand the significance of “cinematographic” narration in Joyce’s work.<\/p>\n

In the first of the article’s three sections, “Vision,” Baron begins by discussing the significance of vision in Flaubert’s writing. Using both Flaubert’s letters and quotes from his fiction, she identifies “an aspiration to observe surfaces intensely, so as to see what lies within: the essence of the object”(691). She then, meticulously citing various moments within\u00a0Ulysses\u00a0<\/em>as well as\u00a0Stephen Hero,\u00a0<\/em>argues that Joyce’s narratives contain a similar form of vision, “a vision that has taken as its object a specific, circumscribed object”(693). By locating the origins of this kind of myopic gaze in the earlier literature of Flaubert, Baron diverges from previous attempts to attribute this viewpoint to the “zoom-in” of film.<\/p>\n

Baron switches tactics for the article’s second section, “Photography,” in which she provides evidence not just for Flaubert and Joyce’s preoccupations with the developing technology of the photograph but for both authors’ ultimate dismissal of its artistic merit. After citing Flaubert’s letters, in which he clearly articulates his contempt for the “mechanical process”(695) of the photograph compared to the vividness of the original, Baron points out that Joyce – whether or not he was aware of Flaubert’s views on photography – held a similar view that the photograph, however useful it might be, was “not a work of art”(695). Baron suggests that, for both of these authors (although especially Joyce), the issue in question was the\u00a0stasis\u00a0<\/em>inherent in the photograph, using as evidence numerous moments in\u00a0Ulysses\u00a0<\/em>in which the presence of photography seems to pause or interrupt the motion of a scene. References to the mutoscope – a kind of early motion picture device – as well as to screens in\u00a0Ulysses\u00a0<\/em>function as a kind of history of the image that moves towards Baron’s final topic: cinema.<\/p>\n

In this last and longest section of the article, Baron argues that many of the narrative techniques popularized by Flaubert (such as the fade-to-black, or the misdirecting image cut), due to their focus on the visual, lent themselves naturally to the techniques of early cinema. Rather than just representing an investment of the narration\/camera in a focal character, however, Baron suggests this perspective can also create “estrangement of the narrator from his character”(704) important to both Flaubert and Joyce’s narrative styles. Therefore, Baron concludes that Joyce’s conscious and repeated use of cinematographic techniques in the narrative of\u00a0Ulysses<\/em>\u00a0does not necessarily stem from the influence of cinema alone, but from a preoccupation with techniques of seeing – and with potential alienation from these techniques – that originates with his\u00a0literary\u00a0<\/em>predecessors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baron, Scarlett. “Flaubert, Joyce: Vision, Photography, Cinema.”\u00a0Modern Fiction Studies,\u00a0vol. 54, no. 4, 2008, pp. 689-714,\u00a0https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/article\/257623\/pdf. Accessed 21 Nov 2016. Noting the shortsightedness (so to speak) of previous analyses of Joyce’s work in comparison with cinema, Baron examines\u00a0Ulysses\u00a0as well as Joyce’s other texts through comparison with the work of Flaubert, noting a shared fixation on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":604,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions\/604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}