Joyce's Sentences
Two SessionsA literary course for adult readers and writers · taught by James F. Mulhern
What would you like to see?
Click any button below.
Important Information & Course Materials▾
An Invitation▾
James Joyce wrote sentences like no one before or after him. Some run for pages without a period. Others last four words and change the shape of English prose. This two-session weekend workshop reads two of the most famous passages in modern literature — the last pages of “The Dead,” and the last chapter of Ulysses, Molly Bloom’s forty-page interior monologue — and asks a single question: what happens inside a Joyce sentence?
You do not need to have read Ulysses. You do not need to have read “The Dead.” You need only to be willing to read slowly, aloud, and to trust that Joyce meant every mark on the page.
What This Course Is▾
- A two-session close-reading weekend
- One passage per session, both by Joyce, both available free online
- Ninety minutes per session, discussion-based
- Non-graded, non-competitive, open to any adult reader
What This Course Is Not▾
- Not a survey of Joyce’s life or biography
- Not a course on Irish history (though Ireland is present in every sentence)
- Not a course requiring you to have read Joyce before
About the Instructor▾
James F. Mulhern is a Kirkus-starred novelist, Oxford Writing Fellow, and Professor Emeritus of English. He has read Joyce in the classroom for three decades — including at Trinity College Dublin and Exeter College Oxford — and has led Bloomsday readings and Joyce study weekends for adult reading groups. His own fiction has been called “storytelling that displays the prowess of the contemporary Irish masters” in independent review.
Course Details▾
- Instructor: James F. Mulhern
- Location: in person or on Zoom
- Format: Two sessions, 90 minutes each, one weekend
- Duration: 2 sessions
- Cost: Contact for current terms
- Enrollment: Open to all adults; no application required
- Grading: None
- Required texts: None to purchase. Both passages are free online.
- Materials to bring: This document (printed or on your phone/tablet), and something to write with
What to Expect Each Weekend▾
Each session follows the same shape:
- Read aloud — someone reads the passage aloud. Joyce must be heard.
- First response — what struck each of us on hearing it read.
- Slow re-reading — we return to specific sentences, again and again.
- The Joyce question — what did that sentence do that no other writer’s sentence could have done?
- The wider question — what does this passage teach us about the possibilities of English prose?
Readings▾
All texts are available free online. Both passages link to Project Gutenberg. No book purchase is required.
A Companion Volume▾
Coming soon — a companion volume with James F. Mulhern’s marginal notes on both passages.
A Few Promises▾
- Every session begins on time and ends on time.
- Every discussion is generous. Nothing said in the room leaves it.
- No one is asked to speak. Silence is a legitimate contribution.
- Joyce is difficult on the page but generous in the room. We move slowly.
A Few Asks▾
- Read the passage before the session, or at least start it. Joyce rewards preparation.
- Bring the printed or digital text. We refer to specific sentences constantly.
- Come to both sessions if you can. They build on each other.
Registration▾
To register or to bring this course to a partner venue — especially a museum, library, or literary organization interested in a Bloomsday event — please email jamesfmulhern@gmail.com. The course can also be delivered as a single Saturday intensive.
About the Use of These Materials▾
These materials — course descriptions, reading lists, syllabi, discussion questions, session pages, and prompts — were written and designed by James F. Mulhern for Silver Current Press. Readers are welcome to read, print, share, and quote them for personal use and study.
Teachers, program directors, and institutions who would like to use any of this material in a classroom, syllabus, publication, or paid program are asked to write first — a short email is enough. The answer will almost always be a warm yes, with a note on attribution. Please contact Professor Mulhern at [email protected].
The Sessions▾
Session 1 — "The Dead" (final pages)
Focus: The last pages of Dubliners — Gabriel Conroy in a Dublin hotel room, thinking of his wife’s dead lover Michael Furey, watching the snow fall. Widely regarded as the finest ending in the modern short story.
Main Points of the Lesson
- Joyce’s sentences do two things at once. They tell us what happens and they tell us what happening feels like from inside a consciousness.
- Free indirect discourse in Joyce. The narrator borrows Gabriel’s voice for whole paragraphs. When did we cross from narration into Gabriel’s mind? We often cannot say.
- Rhythm carries meaning. Read the last paragraph aloud and you can hear the snow falling before you read the word “snow.”
- The Joyce sentence extends what English can do. Compare to Chekhov or James: same subject matter, different music.
- The ending re-reads the story. Everything in “The Dead” that seemed comic on first reading becomes tragic in the last two pages. That is a Joyce move.
Reading
- James Joyce, “The Dead” from Dubliners (1914) — Project Gutenberg full text
- Recommended for first-time readers: read the final section (from “She was fast asleep.” to the end) — about 8 pages.
Critical Reception
- James Joyce — Poetry Foundation biographical entry — for background on Joyce and Dubliners.
In-Class Practice
Take the last paragraph. Read it aloud once quickly, once slowly, once with your eyes closed. Notice what each reading gives you that the others don’t. (10 minutes.)
Discussion Questions
- Read the last sentence aloud. What is its rhythm? What does it sound like?
- When in the last section does the narration slip fully into Gabriel’s mind? Point to a sentence.
- What is the effect of the snow? What does the snow do that a different weather could not do?
- “Better to pass boldly into that other world…” — what does Gabriel mean? What does Joyce mean? Are they the same?
- If Joyce had ended the story one paragraph earlier, what would be lost? Try imagining the story ending at “his soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead.” What is different?
Homework
Between sessions: read (or re-read) the final chapter of Ulysses — Molly Bloom’s soliloquy. Don’t try to understand it on first pass. Read it the way you would read a river. Bring your questions to Session 2.
Session 2 — Molly Bloom's Soliloquy
Focus: The final chapter of Ulysses — forty pages of Molly Bloom’s stream of consciousness, essentially unpunctuated, ending with what may be the most famous “yes” in English literature.
Main Points of the Lesson
- Joyce eliminated punctuation to eliminate distance. In the middle of a thought, there is no comma. Molly’s mind moves at the speed of Molly’s mind.
- A sentence can be a chapter. Molly’s soliloquy is (arguably) eight enormous sentences. Where they begin and end matters less than how they flow.
- Yes is a Joyce word. Yes is what the whole novel has been about. Yes is Molly’s answer to Bloom, and Bloom’s answer to life, and Joyce’s answer to art.
- The soliloquy is a resurrection. After the disappointments of the day Ulysses records, Molly’s yes says: still.
- This is the passage that changed twentieth-century prose. Woolf read it. Faulkner read it. Toni Morrison read it. Every modernist inside voice descends from Molly.
Reading
- James Joyce, Ulysses, Episode 18 (Penelope) — Project Gutenberg full text — Episode 18 is the final section
- For first-time readers, the last two pages (the famous “yes” passage) are the essential reading; the whole chapter can be read after.
In-Class Practice
Take the last page of Molly’s soliloquy. Read it aloud with three other readers, each of you taking one long sentence. Notice how each voice hands off to the next. (15 minutes.)
Discussion Questions
- Count the “yes”es on the last page. Are they all the same yes?
- What is the effect of no punctuation? Read a page silently, then aloud. Which is closer to what Joyce wanted?
- Molly moves — in her memory — through Gibraltar, Dublin, and the Howth Head where Leopold Bloom proposed to her. What holds these places together?
- Compare the final sentence of Ulysses with the final sentence of “The Dead.” Both are Joyce; how differently do they end?
- If Joyce had used ordinary punctuation, what would we lose? What might we gain?
Homework
None. Instead: pick any page of any book you love and try to read it as slowly as we have been reading Joyce. Notice what the writer earned by every choice.