Literary music: Joyce's use and development of leitmotifs

Abstract

This thesis examines James Joyce’s use and development of leitmotifs across Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake. In doing so, not only does it rectify a gap in the literature —a gap recognised by both Clive Hart and Zack Bowen—but it also demonstrates that a device and technique which becomes prominent in Ulysses and pivotal in Finnegans Wake was anticipated in Joyce’s earlier works as well, giving a much fuller account of this technical aspect of Joyce’s œuvre. This sustained reading of leitmotifs, as it were, aims to highlight the role and functions of leitmotifs and their effects in Joyce’s different texts where others have simply underlined their presence. As such, this thesis also engages with previous scholarship on related subjects. Moreover, in analysing Joyce’s use of leitmotifs, this thesis also engages with the idea that the leitmotif, in a literary context, is derived from its musical counterpart and therefore explores these implications. It questions the definitions and assumptions attached to the leitmotif in literary discourse to challenge accepted notions and demonstrate its full potential in a literary context. Therefore, this thesis proposes that under Joyce’s pen the leitmotif evolves from a device which adorns the surface of the texts to a metaphor through which to think about repetition and, as a result, into a modus operandi, a guiding principal which influenced the composition and orchestration of his texts. Ultimately, it attempts to show Joyce’s literary use of music.