European Joyce Studies

As unusual or esoteric as the subject might seem, Joyce's punctuation offers a way to study and appreciate his stylistic innovations and the materiality of his textual productions. Joyce's shunning of what he called "e;perverted commas"e; and the general absence of punctuation in Molly Bloom's monologue are only the most infamous instances of a deeply idiosyncratic and changeable use of punctuation. The essays collected in Doubtful Points: Joyce and Punctuation investigate ellipses, parentheses, commas, dashes, colons, semi-colons, full stops, and even diacritics to explore a surprising array of contingent subjects: Joyce's working relationships with publishers; questions of editing and translation; hermeneutic and epistemological dilemmas and reading strategies; linguistic nationalisms; the ideological effects of regulated writing; and more. This book is sure to edify and intrigue "e;fullstoppers"e; and "e;semicolonials"e; alike.