On the afternoon of November 8, 2019, an excellent academic lecture entitled“Influence of Vico on the Poetics of James Joyce’sFictions”was heldat School of Foreign Languages. The lecture was delivered by ProfessorSHENFuying, doctoral supervisor of Shan Dong University and presided over by doctoral supervisor, ProfessorGAOJihai. Undergraduates, Postgraduates, doctoral students and relevant professional teachers of School of Foreign Languages attended the lecture with enthusiasm.
At the beginning of the lecture, ProfessorSHENbriefly introduced the basic information of James Joyce and the artistic value of his four representative works. Then,sheanalyzedtheconcept of historical developmentproposed bythe Italian philosopher, Giovanni Battista Vicoand some examples inFinnegans Wake. ProfessorSHENillustratedthe influence ofVico’sthoughtsonthe poetics of Joyce’s fictions in structure, narrative and characterization with detailed case analysis.On the poetics of fictional structure, the structure of threeperiodsnot only can be reflected in the four parts ofFinnegans Wake,but also in the macrostructure of Joyce’s novel creation. On the poetics of fictional narrative, the narrative time and space ofFinnegans Wakewas obscureaffected by Vico’s theory of historical circulation. Also, the episodes in this fiction wereechoedandthe theme and form of fiction were correlated.On the poetics of characterization,the distinctive integration of Holy Trinity, put forward by Vico provided theoretical basis for Joyce’s art of characterization. At last, Professor SHEN concluded that Joyce’s works were readable, and as a reader, we should dig into the inherent relations under the disordered organization of the stories, and then found the general elaboration about people and things on earth.
At the end of the lecture, Professor SHEN gave detailed answers to the questions raised by the audience and had a further discussion about the balance between texts and theories, the semantics produced in texts and chaos theory. Finally, Professor SHEN sincerely hoped that we can discover the charm of Joyce’s fictions to benefit more in the later study.
Professor SHEN’s in-depth explanations and humorous analysis impressed the attendees deeply. Meanwhile, this lecture helped to deepen their understanding on Vico’s thoughts and Joyce’s works. (author: Yan Xiaoyu)
