University at Buffalo's world-renowned James Joyce Collection enjoys a major outing

by James Maynard, Ph.D., visiting assistant curator
University at Buffalo Poetry Collection

"Discovering James Joyce: The University at Buffalo Collection," is a free public exhibition of hundreds of rarely seen items from the University's world-renowned James Joyce Collection, among them Joyce family portraits, intimate photographs, the author's personal effects, colorful handwritten manuscripts, source notebooks and much, much more.

The exhibit runs June 14-September 13 2009 in UB's Anderson Gallery in Buffalo, in concert with "Eire on the Erie," the 2009 North American James Joyce conference hosted by the UB English Department (June 12-16), and examines the historical context and working methods of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers.

Directions to the gallery, gallery hours and information on lectures and other events associated with the exhibition can be found at https://www.ubartgalleries.org

"Discovering James Joyce" spans the entire arc of Joyce's life and career with special emphasis on the genetic evolution and publication of his acclaimed novels "Ulysses" and "Finnegans Wake," and is intended equally for scholars and anyone with an interest in Joyce.

The exhibit traces the writer's creative process through various stages of his notebooks and manuscripts and explores the publishing venues through which Joyce's works first came into print, and visitors will find themselves immersed in his compositions.

For "Ulysses" one can see firsthand, for example, how a piece of music enters into the text, how the Circe chapter evolves from the very first page of Joyce's notebook and how the French typesetters working with Sylvia Beach introduced their own interpretations.

Likewise, the "Finnegans Wake" section of the exhibit illustrates the changing nature of Joyce's late notebooks, the early manifestations of the novel under different titles and Joyce's habit of making changes and corrections even into the last stages of his publications' production.

There are also historical treasures and curiosities such as Joyce's outline of Ulysses, signed and inscribed to Beach; a limited edition of six signed etchings by Matisse for a 1935 collectors edition of "Ulysses;" Shakespeare and Company's business records and a 1920s poster advertising "The Scandal of Ulysses" (the book's colorful history includes everything from pirated editions to censorship trials).

In the 1920s and 30s, as well as today, almost all innovative poetry and prose entered the world thanks to the perseverance and faith of small press publishers, and much of what we now consider the canonical works of modernism were first disseminated through "little magazines" (usually noncommercial in nature and often committed to certain literary ideals). Indeed, both "Ulysses" and "Finnegans Wake" were first serialized in such publications, some of which will be shown here.

The benefits of such an exhibition are several.

It humanizes an author often regarded as difficult and distant by presenting Joyce in association with his closest friends, patrons, publishers and family.

Second, it demonstrates just how much time and meticulous care - by Joyce and others - went into the preparation and publication of his books, sometimes with unexpected results. Furthermore, in laying bare the compositional methods of Joyce's writing practice, the displays of notebooks and working papers help debunk the myth of authorial genius by demonstrating the elaborate means by which the final texts evolved and by indicating many of the prior texts upon which Joyce himself relied.

In other words, the exhibition emphasizes the social nature of writing and the ways in which the personal, the literary and the historical converge and overlap.

"Joyce's work is engaging in its play of language," says Michael Basinski, curator of the UB Poetry Collection, of which the Joyce archives are the crown jewel, "in part because it incorporates the personalities of an intriguing array of other people. The complexity of the writing, its arcane references and word play present deliberate puzzles for readers that can never be appreciated fully except in person."

More fundamentally, the exhibition addresses the question of what can be learned from literary archives in general.

In their archiving of first editions, little magazine appearances, manuscripts, notebooks, correspondence and ephemera, special collections like the Poetry Collection maintain a constellation of material objects - an "ineluctable modality," as Joyce might say - that together represent at least in part the vast and chaotic fields of culture and history out of which all literature emerges and which literature in turn shapes in myriad ways.

Paradoxically, these complex relations and associations are often erased by the time a given text reaches the level of mass-market success. By opening the archive to a much wider audience, expositions like this one make it possible for a greater number of people to explore for themselves such fascinating histories. The result is a must-see exhibition for anyone interested in Joyce, modern literature, literary manuscripts, or the idiosyncrasies of an influential writer's imagination.

"Discovering James Joyce: The University at Buffalo Collection" runs through September 13, 2009, and features docent-led tours, lectures on Joyce and workshops for teachers, families and children (private tours are available upon request).

There is also a catalogue featuring essays by leading Joyce scholars. In the future, a version of the exhibition will travel to select venues across the country.

For more information about the exhibition or to inquire about bringing it to other institutions, call the Poetry Collection (library.buffalo.edu/pl/) at (716) 645-2917. For information about gallery hours and tours, call the UB Anderson Gallery (ubartgalleries.org) at (716) 829-3754.

Buffalo's James Joyce Collection is the largest and most prestigious Joyce archive in the world, comprising more than 10,000 pages of the author's working papers, notebooks, manuscripts, photographs, correspondence, portraits, publishing records, important memorabilia and ephemera, as well as Joyce's private library.

Supplementing the archive is a complete set of first editions, including most issues and states of every book published by Joyce, translations, a large number of his magazine appearances and virtually all significant criticism. Together, these materials document practically every aspect of Joyce's artistic life and provide unmatched glimpses into his writing process and literary relationships. Because it would require dozens of galleries to display all of the items in the collection, the exhibition comprises a careful selection made by Dr. Basinski.

Representing many of the publishers, presses and personalities most closely associated with literary modernism, the UB James Joyce Collection is the signature component of the literary manuscripts housed in the Poetry Collection.

Founded in 1937 by Charles D. Abbott, the Poetry Collection is the library of record for twentieth- and twenty-first-century poetry in English and features an extensive selection of poetry first editions and other titles, literary magazines, broadsides, anthologies and manuscripts from a wide range of writers and presses.

Today, the collection continues its original mission of acquiring the publications and papers of all Anglophone poets and is an active research center for the ongoing study of modern and contemporary poetry.