James Joyce and Cinematicity

Investigates how the cinematic tendency of Joyce's writing developed from media predating film



First comprehensive consideration of Joyce in the context of pre-filmic 'cinematicity'.
Research and analysis based on recent 'media archaeology'.
Examines the shaping of Joyce's fiction by late-Victorian visual culture and science.
Shows that key aspects of his literary experimentation derive from 'forgotten' popular cultural practices and 'vernacular modernism'.
Shows Joyce's interaction with and critique of Modernity's developing 'media cultural imaginary'.




In this book, Keith Williams explores Victorian culture's emergent 'cinematicity' as a key creative driver of Joyce's experimental fiction, showing how Joyce's style and themes share the cinematograph's roots in Victorian optical entertainment and science. The book reveals Joyce's references to optical toys, shadowgraphs, magic lanterns, panoramas, photographic analysis and film peepshows. Close analyses of his works show how his techniques elaborated and critiqued their effects on modernity's 'media-cultural imaginary'.