United States v. One Book Called Ulysses
Encyclopedia
United States v. One Book Called Ulysses was a 1933 case in the United States District Court
for the Southern District of New York dealing with freedom of expression. At issue was whether James Joyce
's novel Ulysses
was obscene. In deciding it was not, Judge John M. Woolsey
opened the door to importation and publication of serious works of literature, even when they used coarse language or involved sexual subjects.
The trial court's decision was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
, which confirmed that offensive language in a literary work is not obscene where it does not promote lust. But Judge Woolsey's trial court opinion is now more widely known, and often cited as an erudite and discerning affirmation of literary free expression.
In 1922 James Joyce published Ulysses
, his most famous novel. Prior to publication as a book, the work was serialized in The Little Review
, a Chicago-based literary magazine. This periodical published the "Nausicäa episode," which contained a masturbation scene. Copies were mailed to potential subscribers; a girl of unknown age read it and was shocked, and a complaint was made to the Manhattan District Attorney. As the magazine could be purchased in a New York bookshop and its publishers maintained an office in the city, the local district attorney was able to prosecute in New York. Publishers Margaret Caroline Anderson
and Jane Heap
could not argue that the chapter should be considered in light of the work as a whole, as only that chapter was published in the issue in question. The trial court, stating that the novel seemed "like the work of a disordered mind", convicted and fined Anderson and Heap. That stopped publication of Ulysses in the United States for over a decade.
In 1933 Random House
, which had the rights to publish the entire book in the United States, arranged for a test case
to challenge the implicit ban, so as to publish the work without fear of prosecution. It therefore made an arrangement to import the French edition and to have a copy seized by the U.S. Customs Service
when the ship carrying the work arrived. Despite advance warning to Customs of the anticipated arrival of the book, the local official declined to seize it, stating "everybody brings that in." He and his superior were finally convinced to seize the work. The United States Attorney then took seven months before deciding whether to proceed further. While the Assistant U.S. Attorney assigned to assess the work's obscenity felt that it was a "literary masterpiece," he also found it obscene within the meaning of the law. The office therefore decided to take action against the work under the provisions of the Tariff Act of 1930, which allowed a district attorney to bring an action for forfeiture and destruction of imported works which were obscene. This set up the test case.
in New York City. The United States, acting as libelant, brought an action in rem
against the book itself rather than the author or importer, a procedure in the law that Morris Ernst
, attorney for the publisher, had previously asked to have inserted when the statute was passed by Congress. The United States asserted that the work was obscene, therefore not importable, and subject to confiscation and destruction. Random House, as claimant and intervenor, sought a decree dismissing the action, contending that the book was not obscene and was protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution
which protects free expression. There was no trial as such; instead the parties stipulated to the facts and made motions for the relief each sought.
Attorney Ernst later recalled the libelant's case as having three lines of attack: (1) the work contained sexual titillation, especially Molly Bloom's soliloquy, and had "unparlorlike" language; (2) it was blasphemous, particularly in its treatment of the Catholic Church; and (3) it brought to the surface coarse thoughts and desires that usually were repressed. These attributes were a perceived as a threat to "long–held and dearly cherished moral, religious, and political beliefs" — in short, it was subversive of the established order. Ernst's argument therefore concentrated on "downplaying the novel's subversive or potentially offensive elements and emphasizing its artistic integrity and moral seriousness". He instead argued that the work was not obscene but rather a classic work of literature.
Judge John M. Woolsey
ruled that Ulysses was not pornographic—that nowhere in it was the "leer of the sensualist". Acknowledging the "astonishing success" of Joyce's use of the "stream of consciousness" technique, the judge stated that the novel was serious and that its author was sincere and honest in showing how the minds of his characters operate and what they were thinking. Some of their thoughts, the judge said, were expressed in "old Saxon words" familiar to readers, and:
To have failed to honestly tell fully what his characters thought would have been "artistically inexcusable", said the judge.
Having disposed of the question of whether the book was written with pornographic intent, Judge Woolsey turned to the question of whether the work nevertheless was objectively obscene within the meaning of the law. That meaning, as set forth in a string of cases cited by the judge, was whether the work "tend[ed] to stir the sex impulses or to lead to sexually impure and lustful thoughts". The judge found that the book when read in its entirety did not do so:
Consequently Ulysses was not obscene, and could be admitted into the United States.
Within minutes of hearing of the decision, Bennett Cerf
of Random House instructed the typesetters to start work on the book. One hundred copies were published in January 1934 to obtain U.S. copyright. This was the first legal publication of the work in any English-speaking nation.
The news of the decision was cabled to Joyce in Paris. Richard Ellmann
, Joyce’s biographer, stated that judge’s eloquent and emphatic decision allowed the author to achieve his ambition of obtaining a "famous verdict". Joyce stated triumphantly that "one half of the English speaking world surrenders; the other half will follow", a gentler version of his prior sardonic prediction that while England would allow the work within a few years after the U.S. stopped censoring it, Ireland would not follow suit until "1000 years hence". In fact, the first unsuppressed British edition was published in 1936.
. The three-judge panel affirmed Woolsey's ruling by a two-to-one vote in United States v. One Book Entitled Ulysses by James Joyce. The panel majority consisted of Judges Learned Hand
and Augustus N. Hand, with Chief Judge Martin Manton
dissenting.
Judges Learned Hand and Augustus Hand, believing that the case was receiving undue publicity and attention, "agreed that the opinion affirming Woolsey's ruling should, if at all possible, contain 'not a single quotable line.'" The decision was therefore drafted by Augustus Hand rather than his cousin Learned Hand, whose writing was far more memorable.
Augustus Hand nevertheless rose to the occasion and transcended the prosaic. His opinion acknowledged the critical acclaim given to the book, and found Joyce’s depiction of his characters “sincere, truthful, relevant to the subject, and executed with real art”. That depiction however contained passages “obscene under any fair definition”, and the court therefore had to decide whether the work should be banned. The court discussed a number of other works, from classic works of literature to “physiology, medicine, science, and sex instruction” which contain sections which would be characterized as “obscene”, yet nevertheless are not banned as they do not promote lust. The majority opinion forthrightly confronted and disagreed with precedents which allowed courts to decide the question of obscenity on the basis of isolated passages, even if taken out of context. Such a standard would “exclude much of the great works of literature” and be impracticable, and the court therefore held that the “proper test of whether a given book is obscene is its dominant effect”.
Judge Hand concluded the majority opinion with a historical perspective of the harms of overzealous censorship:
In his dissent, Judge Manton opined that certain passages undoubtably were obscene, so much so they could not even be quoted in the opinion; that the test of obscenity was whether the material tended "to deprave and corrupt the morals of those whose minds are open to such influences"; and that the reason for using such terms was irrelevant. He nevertheless went on to distinguish Ulysses from medical and scientific texts which are "of obvious benefit to to the community", as the novel was but a work of fiction, "written for the alleged amusement of the reader only". The effect on the community, including children, was to be the sole determining factor in applying the statute. The dissent rejected a position that would allow material even though it was objectionable only to a susceptible minority, as:
In conclusion, Judge Manton stated that masterpieces are not the product of "men given to obscenty or lustful thoughts— men who have no Master". He instead appealed to higher purposes for good literature; to serve the need of the people for "a moral standard", to be "noble and lasting", and to "cheer, console, purify, or enoble the life of people".
But the significance of the case goes beyond its immediate and ultimate precedential effect. While the Second Circuit's decision set the precedent, Judge Woosley's trial court opinion has been reproduced in all Random House printings of the novel, and is said to be the most widely distributed judicial opinion in history. The opinion has been recognized as a perceptive analysis of Joyce's work.
Richard Ellmann stated that Judge Woolsey’s decision "said much more than it had to", and another Joyce biographer and critic, Harry Levin
, called the decision a "distinguished critical essay". The opinion discusses some of the same characteristics that Joyce scholars have discerned in the work.
Judge Woolsey mentioned the "emetic" effect of some of the passages alleged to be obscene; Stuart Gilbert
, Joyce’s friend and author of an early critical study of the novel, stated that those passages "are, in fact, cathartic and calculated to allay rather than to excite the sexual instincts".Gilbert (1930), p. 32. And Harry Levin noted that the judge described the book’s "effect in terms of catharsis, the purge of the emotion through pity and terror" that is ascribed to tragedy, a theme that Levin found in prior works of Joyce.
The judge had also stated that portrayal of the coarser inner thoughts of the characters was necessary to show how their minds operate, an authorial judgment that treats those characters as not mere fictional creations, but as authentic personalities. Gilbert said that the "personages of Ulysses’ are not fictitious", but that "these people are as they must be; they act, we see, according to some lex eterna, an ineluctable condition of their very existence". Through these characters Joyce "achieves a coherent and integral interpretation of life", or in the words of Judge Woolsey, a "true picture" of lower-middle class life, drawn by a "great artist in words" who has devised a "new literary method for the observation and description of mankind".
(lower court decision, full text here). United States v. One Book Entitled Ulysses by James Joyce, 72 F.2d 705
2nd Cir. 1934 (appellate court decision; full text here).
Herbert, Stacy (Spring 2004). "A Draft for "Ulysses in Print: the Family Tree", an Installation for the Exhibition". Antwerp: Genetic Joyce Studies, Issue 4. Time Magazine cover story on Ulysses publication in the United States, trial court decision, and James Joyce.
Younger Irving
, "Ulysses in Court: The Litigation Surrounding the First Publication of James Joyce's Novel in the United States", republished in
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
for the Southern District of New York dealing with freedom of expression. At issue was whether James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's novel Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
was obscene. In deciding it was not, Judge John M. Woolsey
John M. Woolsey
John Munro Woolsey was a United States federal judge in New York City.Born in Aiken, South Carolina, Woolsey attended Phillips Academy, and received an A.B. from Yale University in 1898. He was awarded an LL.B. from Columbia Law School in 1901, where he was a founder of the Columbia Law Review...
opened the door to importation and publication of serious works of literature, even when they used coarse language or involved sexual subjects.
The trial court's decision was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals...
, which confirmed that offensive language in a literary work is not obscene where it does not promote lust. But Judge Woolsey's trial court opinion is now more widely known, and often cited as an erudite and discerning affirmation of literary free expression.
Background
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
, his most famous novel. Prior to publication as a book, the work was serialized in The Little Review
The Little Review
The Little Review, an American literary magazine founded by Margaret Anderson, published literary and art work from 1914 to 1929. With the help of Jane Heap and Ezra Pound, Anderson created a magazine that featured a wide variety of transatlantic modernists and cultivated many early examples of...
, a Chicago-based literary magazine. This periodical published the "Nausicäa episode," which contained a masturbation scene. Copies were mailed to potential subscribers; a girl of unknown age read it and was shocked, and a complaint was made to the Manhattan District Attorney. As the magazine could be purchased in a New York bookshop and its publishers maintained an office in the city, the local district attorney was able to prosecute in New York. Publishers Margaret Caroline Anderson
Margaret Caroline Anderson
Margaret Caroline Anderson was the American founder, editor and publisher of the art and literary magazine The Little Review, which published a collection of modern American, English and Irish writers between 1914 and 1929...
and Jane Heap
Jane Heap
Jane Heap was an American publisher and a significant figure in the development and promotion of literary modernism. Together with Margaret Anderson, her friend and business partner , she edited the celebrated literary magazine The Little Review, which published an extraordinary collection of...
could not argue that the chapter should be considered in light of the work as a whole, as only that chapter was published in the issue in question. The trial court, stating that the novel seemed "like the work of a disordered mind", convicted and fined Anderson and Heap. That stopped publication of Ulysses in the United States for over a decade.
In 1933 Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
, which had the rights to publish the entire book in the United States, arranged for a test case
Test case (law)
In case law, a test case is a legal action whose purpose is to set a precedent. An example of a test case might be a legal entity who files a lawsuit in order to see if the court considers a certain law or a certain legal precedent applicable in specific circumstances...
to challenge the implicit ban, so as to publish the work without fear of prosecution. It therefore made an arrangement to import the French edition and to have a copy seized by the U.S. Customs Service
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is a federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security charged with regulating and facilitating international trade, collecting import duties, and enforcing U.S. regulations, including trade, customs and immigration. CBP is the...
when the ship carrying the work arrived. Despite advance warning to Customs of the anticipated arrival of the book, the local official declined to seize it, stating "everybody brings that in." He and his superior were finally convinced to seize the work. The United States Attorney then took seven months before deciding whether to proceed further. While the Assistant U.S. Attorney assigned to assess the work's obscenity felt that it was a "literary masterpiece," he also found it obscene within the meaning of the law. The office therefore decided to take action against the work under the provisions of the Tariff Act of 1930, which allowed a district attorney to bring an action for forfeiture and destruction of imported works which were obscene. This set up the test case.
Trial court ruling
The seizure of the work was contested in the United States District CourtUnited States District Court for the Southern District of New York
The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York is a federal district court. Appeals from the Southern District of New York are taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case...
in New York City. The United States, acting as libelant, brought an action in rem
Jurisdiction in rem
In rem is a legal term describing the power a court may exercise over property or a "status" against a person over whom the court does not have "in personam jurisdiction"...
against the book itself rather than the author or importer, a procedure in the law that Morris Ernst
Morris Ernst
Morris Leopold Ernst was an American lawyer and co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union.He was born in Uniontown, Alabama on Aug. 23, 1888, to a Czech-born father and German mother. He lived in various locations around New York City from the age of 2...
, attorney for the publisher, had previously asked to have inserted when the statute was passed by Congress. The United States asserted that the work was obscene, therefore not importable, and subject to confiscation and destruction. Random House, as claimant and intervenor, sought a decree dismissing the action, contending that the book was not obscene and was protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
which protects free expression. There was no trial as such; instead the parties stipulated to the facts and made motions for the relief each sought.
Attorney Ernst later recalled the libelant's case as having three lines of attack: (1) the work contained sexual titillation, especially Molly Bloom's soliloquy, and had "unparlorlike" language; (2) it was blasphemous, particularly in its treatment of the Catholic Church; and (3) it brought to the surface coarse thoughts and desires that usually were repressed. These attributes were a perceived as a threat to "long–held and dearly cherished moral, religious, and political beliefs" — in short, it was subversive of the established order. Ernst's argument therefore concentrated on "downplaying the novel's subversive or potentially offensive elements and emphasizing its artistic integrity and moral seriousness". He instead argued that the work was not obscene but rather a classic work of literature.
Judge John M. Woolsey
John M. Woolsey
John Munro Woolsey was a United States federal judge in New York City.Born in Aiken, South Carolina, Woolsey attended Phillips Academy, and received an A.B. from Yale University in 1898. He was awarded an LL.B. from Columbia Law School in 1901, where he was a founder of the Columbia Law Review...
ruled that Ulysses was not pornographic—that nowhere in it was the "leer of the sensualist". Acknowledging the "astonishing success" of Joyce's use of the "stream of consciousness" technique, the judge stated that the novel was serious and that its author was sincere and honest in showing how the minds of his characters operate and what they were thinking. Some of their thoughts, the judge said, were expressed in "old Saxon words" familiar to readers, and:
[i]n respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of [Joyce's] characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring.
To have failed to honestly tell fully what his characters thought would have been "artistically inexcusable", said the judge.
Having disposed of the question of whether the book was written with pornographic intent, Judge Woolsey turned to the question of whether the work nevertheless was objectively obscene within the meaning of the law. That meaning, as set forth in a string of cases cited by the judge, was whether the work "tend[ed] to stir the sex impulses or to lead to sexually impure and lustful thoughts". The judge found that the book when read in its entirety did not do so:
[W]hilst in many places the effect of Ulysses on the reader undoubtedly is somewhat emetic, nowhere does it tend to be an aphrodisiac.
Consequently Ulysses was not obscene, and could be admitted into the United States.
Within minutes of hearing of the decision, Bennett Cerf
Bennett Cerf
Bennett Alfred Cerf was a publisher and co-founder of Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his television appearances in the panel game show What's My Line?.-Biography:Bennett Cerf...
of Random House instructed the typesetters to start work on the book. One hundred copies were published in January 1934 to obtain U.S. copyright. This was the first legal publication of the work in any English-speaking nation.
The news of the decision was cabled to Joyce in Paris. Richard Ellmann
Richard Ellmann
Richard David Ellmann was a prominent American literary critic and biographer of the Irish writers James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and William Butler Yeats...
, Joyce’s biographer, stated that judge’s eloquent and emphatic decision allowed the author to achieve his ambition of obtaining a "famous verdict". Joyce stated triumphantly that "one half of the English speaking world surrenders; the other half will follow", a gentler version of his prior sardonic prediction that while England would allow the work within a few years after the U.S. stopped censoring it, Ireland would not follow suit until "1000 years hence". In fact, the first unsuppressed British edition was published in 1936.
Appeal
The U. S. Attorney appealed Judge Woolsey's decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second CircuitUnited States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals...
. The three-judge panel affirmed Woolsey's ruling by a two-to-one vote in United States v. One Book Entitled Ulysses by James Joyce. The panel majority consisted of Judges Learned Hand
Learned Hand
Billings Learned Hand was a United States judge and judicial philosopher. He served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and later the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit...
and Augustus N. Hand, with Chief Judge Martin Manton
Martin Manton
Martin Thomas Manton was a prominent United States federal Judge in New York City, sometimes remembered for having resigned and served time in prison for accepting bribes while in office. In 1916 he was the youngest federal judge in the United States.-Biography:He was born on August 2, 1880...
dissenting.
Judges Learned Hand and Augustus Hand, believing that the case was receiving undue publicity and attention, "agreed that the opinion affirming Woolsey's ruling should, if at all possible, contain 'not a single quotable line.'" The decision was therefore drafted by Augustus Hand rather than his cousin Learned Hand, whose writing was far more memorable.
Augustus Hand nevertheless rose to the occasion and transcended the prosaic. His opinion acknowledged the critical acclaim given to the book, and found Joyce’s depiction of his characters “sincere, truthful, relevant to the subject, and executed with real art”. That depiction however contained passages “obscene under any fair definition”, and the court therefore had to decide whether the work should be banned. The court discussed a number of other works, from classic works of literature to “physiology, medicine, science, and sex instruction” which contain sections which would be characterized as “obscene”, yet nevertheless are not banned as they do not promote lust. The majority opinion forthrightly confronted and disagreed with precedents which allowed courts to decide the question of obscenity on the basis of isolated passages, even if taken out of context. Such a standard would “exclude much of the great works of literature” and be impracticable, and the court therefore held that the “proper test of whether a given book is obscene is its dominant effect”.
Judge Hand concluded the majority opinion with a historical perspective of the harms of overzealous censorship:
Art certainly cannot advance under compulsion to traditional forms, and nothing in such a field is more stifling to progress than limitation of the right to experiment with a new technique. The foolish judgments of Lord EldonJohn Scott, 1st Earl of EldonJohn Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon PC KC FRS FSA was a British barrister and politician. He served as Lord Chancellor of Great Britain between 1801 and 1806 and again between 1807 and 1827.- Background and education :...
about one hundred years ago, proscribing the works of ByronGeorge Gordon Byron, 6th Baron ByronGeorge Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...
and SoutheyRobert SoutheyRobert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 to his death in 1843...
, and the finding by the jury under a charge by Lord DenmanThomas Denman, 1st Baron DenmanThomas Denman, 1st Baron Denman PC KC was a British lawyer, judge and politician. He served as Lord Chief Justice between 1832 and 1850.-Background and education:Denman was born in London, the son of Dr Thomas Denman...
that the publication of Shelley'sPercy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
Queen MabQueen Mab (poem)Queen Mab; A Philosophical Poem; With Notes, published in 1813 in nine cantos with seventeen notes, was the first large poetic work written by Percy Bysshe Shelley , the English Romantic poet...
was an indictable offense are a warning to all who have to determine the limits of the field within which authors may exercise themselves. We think that Ulysses is a book of originality and sincerity of treatment and that it has not the effect of promoting lust. Accordingly it does not fall within the statute, even though it justly may offend many.
In his dissent, Judge Manton opined that certain passages undoubtably were obscene, so much so they could not even be quoted in the opinion; that the test of obscenity was whether the material tended "to deprave and corrupt the morals of those whose minds are open to such influences"; and that the reason for using such terms was irrelevant. He nevertheless went on to distinguish Ulysses from medical and scientific texts which are "of obvious benefit to to the community", as the novel was but a work of fiction, "written for the alleged amusement of the reader only". The effect on the community, including children, was to be the sole determining factor in applying the statute. The dissent rejected a position that would allow material even though it was objectionable only to a susceptible minority, as:
to do so would show an utter disregard for the standards of decency of the community as a whole and an utter disregard for the effect of the a book upon the average less sophisticated members of society, not to mention the adolescent.
In conclusion, Judge Manton stated that masterpieces are not the product of "men given to obscenty or lustful thoughts— men who have no Master". He instead appealed to higher purposes for good literature; to serve the need of the people for "a moral standard", to be "noble and lasting", and to "cheer, console, purify, or enoble the life of people".
Significance
Together, the trial and appellate decisions established that a court applying obscenity standards should consider (1) the work as a whole, not just selected excerpts; (2) its effect on an average, rather than overly sensitive person; and (3) contemporary community standards. These principles, filtered through a long line of later cases, ultimately influenced the U.S. Supreme Court's case law on obscenity standards.But the significance of the case goes beyond its immediate and ultimate precedential effect. While the Second Circuit's decision set the precedent, Judge Woosley's trial court opinion has been reproduced in all Random House printings of the novel, and is said to be the most widely distributed judicial opinion in history. The opinion has been recognized as a perceptive analysis of Joyce's work.
Richard Ellmann stated that Judge Woolsey’s decision "said much more than it had to", and another Joyce biographer and critic, Harry Levin
Harry Levin
Harry Tuchman Levin was an American literary critic and scholar of modernism and comparative literature.-Biography:...
, called the decision a "distinguished critical essay". The opinion discusses some of the same characteristics that Joyce scholars have discerned in the work.
Judge Woolsey mentioned the "emetic" effect of some of the passages alleged to be obscene; Stuart Gilbert
Stuart Gilbert
Stuart Gilbert was an English literary scholar and translator. Among his translations into English are works by André Malraux, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Georges Simenon, Jean Cocteau, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre...
, Joyce’s friend and author of an early critical study of the novel, stated that those passages "are, in fact, cathartic and calculated to allay rather than to excite the sexual instincts".Gilbert (1930), p. 32. And Harry Levin noted that the judge described the book’s "effect in terms of catharsis, the purge of the emotion through pity and terror" that is ascribed to tragedy, a theme that Levin found in prior works of Joyce.
The judge had also stated that portrayal of the coarser inner thoughts of the characters was necessary to show how their minds operate, an authorial judgment that treats those characters as not mere fictional creations, but as authentic personalities. Gilbert said that the "personages of Ulysses’ are not fictitious", but that "these people are as they must be; they act, we see, according to some lex eterna, an ineluctable condition of their very existence". Through these characters Joyce "achieves a coherent and integral interpretation of life", or in the words of Judge Woolsey, a "true picture" of lower-middle class life, drawn by a "great artist in words" who has devised a "new literary method for the observation and description of mankind".
Primary Sources
Case citation
Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...
(lower court decision, full text here). United States v. One Book Entitled Ulysses by James Joyce, 72 F.2d 705
Case citation
Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...
2nd Cir. 1934 (appellate court decision; full text here).
Secondary Sources
Ulysses!". Dublin: The James Joyce Center (2006).Irving Younger
Irving Younger was an American lawyer, law professor, judge, and writer. He is well known among lawyers and law students for his exciting talks on effective trial advocacy and legal history....
, "Ulysses in Court: The Litigation Surrounding the First Publication of James Joyce's Novel in the United States", republished in