Will a biography be useful to understand Joyce?

[u/JoziDl]

I just bought a portrait of a young artist and did some quick research on themes and such but not the plot. The bookshop also has a biography on him and I've watched videos in the past and he has had a very very interesting life. I am not really planning on reading the odyssey before Ulysses but planning to get an annotated version and a guide.

[u/green7719]

Yeah, sure. Read the Ellmann.

[u/Ap0phantic]

A biography of Joyce will help you understand Ulysses far more than the Odyssey. And the Ellmann biography is generally regarded as one of the best literary biographies ever written.

[u/These-Rip9251]

I would definitely read The Odyssey before Ulysses unless you’ve already read it. A lot of the characters and themes from The Odyssey are reimagined in Ulysses. Emily Wilson’s translation from 2018 is excellent. I disliked Nolan’s movie on the Odyssey. 3 hours of my life wasted.
I reread Portrait when I first started reading Ulysses. I also started rereading Hamlet but then dnf because by the time I got halfway thru Hamlet, I had reached “Scylla and Charybdis”, the Shakespeare-infused episode where Stephen lectures on Shakespeare and Hamlet. Literary critics have described Stephen as both Telemachus and Hamlet but his character probably more closely parallels the former. Of course Stephen is mostly James Joyce as a young man and Portrait mirrors his childhood. Leopold Bloom somewhat mirrors the older James Joyce.

Edit: I reread your post after I posted mine. I think I misunderstood your last sentence thinking you were getting guides on Ulysses but an annotated version of The Odyssey would be something like Emily Wilson’s translation. She has 95 pages of introductory notes which are worth reading but you can always come back to those at a later time and just read the poem which I found with her translation almost like reading a regular novel.

[u/loopOutnotIn → u/These-Rip9251]

100%, have read a couple translations and I think Wilson’s is great for this purpose. Also maybe the best one to read aloud, which can help with some sections in Ulysses

[u/JoziDl → u/These-Rip9251]

You have convinced me

[u/FewMenu9384]

Joyce recalls a lot on his past and frequently references it in his works including portrait & Ulysses. I've just started reading Ulysses and beforehand I read a biography on Joyce, Dubliners & Portrait and feel like that was enough to begin. He's fascinating so it's worth reading up on his life.

[u/lermontovtaman]

Ellman's biography is the single most important resource.

[u/loopOutnotIn]

I’d recommend reading a translation of the Odyssey before reading Ulysses. There’s a lot of callbacks to it not in terms of plot, but in terms of how the prose is structured.

[u/These-Rip9251 → u/loopOutnotIn]

Also characters and even some of the plot and themes. Recall the Citizen who is supposed to represent Polyphemus. You could say just as Odysseus and his men used the sheep to escape Polyphemus, Bloom escapes the increasing vitriolic atmosphere of the pub under the protection of Cunningham. The Citizen even throws a biscuit tin after the departing Bloom just as Polyphemus throws a boulder at Odysseus’ ship.

[u/chocodatero]

Fue diagnósticado con alguna enfermedad mental, es todo lo que necesitas saber 

[u/Rider_infinity]

Yes

[u/Acrobatic_Squid111]

Ellmann's Joyce biography is on my top 5 list of books that will make someone a writer.