Randall J. Pogorzelski, Virgil and Joyce: nationalism and imperialism in the Aeneid and Ulysses, Madison; London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2016, x+78 pp., ISBN 978-0-299-30800-1.

Abstract

Presumably an elaboration of his PhD dissertation, Pogorzelski's Virgil and Joyce: nationalism and imperialism in the Aeneid and Ulysses fills an important gap in Joyce Criticism. Robert Schork, the undisputed authority on Latin and Roman Culture in Joyce (UP of Florida, 1997), affirmed that "Latin was Joyce's first second language"(2) and verified that Virgil's work was part of his library in Trieste. With his initial help, Pogorzelski starts by tracing direct references to Virgil in Ulysses, goes on to read Virgil through Joycean lenses, and brings in "Nationalism" as tertium comparationis. He contends that Joyce uses Virgil to construct "a cultural history of Ireland through the European classical tradition" (11), and, in turn, Pogorzelski himself uses Joyce to discover a new Virgil, the Virgil of Nationalism.