Vladimir Nabokov
"Ulysses"
Holograph and typescript notes for lectures, ca. 195
Berg Collection, The New York Public Library

When teaching literature, Nabokov consistently emphasized a book's style and structure over its ideas. He took this approach towards James Joyce's Ulysses, mapping out the paths of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus over the course of a day in Dublin. He explained, "The Dublin setting is built partly on data supplied by an exile's memory, but mainly on data from Thom's Dublin Directory, whither professors of literature, before discussing Ulysses, secretly wing their way in order to astound their students with the knowledge Joyce himself stored up with the aid of that very directory."