An introduction to relativity in James Joyce's Ulysses : a thesis presented in partial fulfulment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English at Massey University

Abstract

Unavailable to Leopold Bloom in 1904, but front page news to Joyce as he scripted Ulysses, Albert Einstein's relativity theories superseded Sir Isaac Newton's theories about absolute space, absolute time, laws of motion, and the universal law of gravitation during the period 1905 - 1922. The opposition between Newtonian mechanics and Einsteinian relativity was played out in the newspapers of the time and incorporated anachronistically into Joyce's novel in his characterisation of Bloom, who is not only a metempsychotic reincarnation of the ancient Greek hero Odysseus, but also a metempsychotic anticipation of the greatest scientist of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein. Musing continually on the ultimate nature of time, space, motion, light, and gravitation. Bloom verges on the brink of an Einsteinian epiphany without ever quite achieving one.