This essay explores the use of ellipsis in Joyce’s major works in light of the notion of the unsaid. Joyce’s writing explicates itself through an endless negotiation between what is said and made typographically visible, and what is unsaid and therefore invisible. On the one hand the unsaid, as the unvoiceable and the unnameable, refers to something that cannot be revealed; on the other hand it expresses an urge to communicate by using other means than language. By virtue of its oxymoronic nature, whereby the repetition of the dots indicates suspension as well as a need of completion, ellipsis perfectly epitomises such a kind of writing, becoming one of Joyce’s most compelling stylistic hallmarks.
The Poetics of the Unsaid: Joyce's Use of Ellipsis between Meaning and Suspension
VOLPONE, Annalisa
2014
Abstract
This essay explores the use of ellipsis in Joyce’s major works in light of the notion of the unsaid. Joyce’s writing explicates itself through an endless negotiation between what is said and made typographically visible, and what is unsaid and therefore invisible. On the one hand the unsaid, as the unvoiceable and the unnameable, refers to something that cannot be revealed; on the other hand it expresses an urge to communicate by using other means than language. By virtue of its oxymoronic nature, whereby the repetition of the dots indicates suspension as well as a need of completion, ellipsis perfectly epitomises such a kind of writing, becoming one of Joyce’s most compelling stylistic hallmarks.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
