Joyce's Moraculous Sindbook by Henke, Suzette A - 1978: A Study of "Ulysses"

Though most critics have been quick to acknowledge the innovative nature of James Joyce's stylistic experiments, few have pointed out the radical content of Ulysses or the revolutionary view of consciousness that is implicit in the novel.

Suzette Henke makes use of various Continental methods of literary criticism to reconstruct Ulysses as a fictional life-world, and draws upon phenomenology, Geneva criticism, psychoanalytic investigation, and linguistic analysis to illumine the progress of the narrative. Existential philosophy provides the point of departure from which she demonstrates how the principles of Heidegger and Sartre elucidate the humanistic dimensions of Joyce's work. Ulysses, she maintains, is no mere tour de force: it has meaning "from and in life" and is significant to us as moral beings.