ABSTRACT
This chapter puts forward a reading of Joyce’s Ulysses that suggests that what Joyce achieves in that work is an imaginative reappropriation of ‘ancient’ and ‘modern’ elements that blurs the ancient-modern distinction to such an extent that these categories can ultimately no longer be sustained. The main argument of the chapter is that the re-evaluation that Homer’s Odyssey undergoes in Ulysses is made possible by the novel’s nonlinear temporality. It is this mode of temporality that enables Joyce to forge a relationship to Homer that is much more creative than commentators have tended to allow for.
