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Early critics usually concerned themselves with textual explication，the analysis of character and plot，the poetic and rhetorical patterns of Joyce's prose and poetry.These studies usually started from a less theoretical position，paying attention to textual facts and element.There are also those critics who investigated the rich symbolism and polysemy of Joyce's writing.The notable achievements might include Cliver Hart's Structure and Motif in Finnegans Wake and Roland McHugh's Annotations to Finnegans Wake .
The articulation of Joyce's radical and revolutionary qualities had to wait until the systematic application of theories .“The history of Joyce studies can in some ways be seen as a microcosm of the historical development of critical theory and its application to literary texts .”（Roughly x）The flourish of Joyce criticism started with the rise of structuralism that was either accompanied or followed by semiotics，feminism，Marxist approach and poststructuralism.In recent years，a series of new approaches to Joyce's study have developed out of the earlier theoretical innovations，reflecting the successive waves that passed through literary studies.They have provided novel interpretations and discovered unsuspected connections.Many of these have involved fuller attention to historical and cultural contexts，especially the Irish context within which and against which Joyce wrote.The new avenues include cultural studies（or the study of popular or consumer culture），colonial and post⁃colonial studies，gay and lesbian studies.
The advent of structuralism has contributed much to revealing the radical nature of Joyce's writing.Robert Scholes is both a Joycean scholar and a theorist who has written on the history of narrative，structuralism and semiotics.In Structuralism in Literature ： An Introduction ，he sees the reluctance to Joyce's work as a result of the anxieties that some people experience in witnessing the structuralist assault upon the traditional idea of the self as a unified，individual subject.Scholes traces the development of the ideas of characters in Joyce's work as a movement from a bioenergetic concept of characters bounded by their own skins，and of actions which take place in one location of space⁃time，to a cybernetic concept of character in which the notion of ego begins to be dispersed.Margot Norris's The Decen tred Universe of Finnegans Wake ： A Structuralist Analysis is one of the first Anglo⁃American assessments of the Wake from a poststructuralist perspective.For Norris，the fluid characters are continually changing their identities and exchanging their qualities with those of other characters.The distinction between self and other ceases to be clear，as the characters are subject to the structural process of change and mutability.
Semiotics is usually applied to the study of Joyce's last two works，since their ambiguity and self⁃referentiality can best illustrate the semiotic process.Julia Kristeva，a French semiotician，has not written any major studies devoted exclusively to Joyce，but her work reveals a significant understanding of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake .She cites Joyce along with Proust and Kafka as creators of a polyphonic，modern novel incorporating carnivalesque structures，which has doubled or multiplied the portrait of characters in his novels.
Feminism became a central issue in Joyce studies in the last decade of the 20th century.It was concerned about Joyce's attitude towards females and the nature of his portrayal of girls and women in his writing.Women in Joyce is a collection of essays which look at his female characters from a variety of perspectives and include several feminist assessments of Joyce's treatment of females .In Joyce and Feminism，Bonnie Kime Scott establishes a set of feminist frameworks for studying Joyce and examines the female characters.
Psychoanalytic criticism is an area that flourished in the last decades of the 20th century.Psychoanalytic critics of Joyce can be divided into the Freudian，Jungian and Lacanian groups .In Joyce between Jung and Freud，Sheldon Brivic sees Joyce's characters personifying introverted and extroverted characteristics.The type personified by Stephen is spiritual and stable，and easily disturbed by changes in identity，while the one personified by Bloom is physical and mutable.In Joyce's Book of the Dark ：“ Finnegans Wake ”，John Bishop argues that it is from Vico，and not Freud that Joyce gains his understanding .He believes that Vico anticipated most of Freud's ideas.
Marxist criticism investigates Joyce's writing from the theoretical perspective offered by Marxism.It focuses on a work of art as both the product of the cultural，sociological，economic，and political ideology of its time and as a producer and reworker of these same factors.In Crisis and Criti cism ，Alice West holds the opinion that Stephen and Bloom are interdependent and conceived in terms of relation，not of distinct demarcated consciousness.Another Marxist critic，Frederic Jameson points out that Ulys ses ，as part of the modernist literary tradition，focuses on the disconnectedness between man and society，as a consequence of a mass⁃produced environment.
Colonialism and postcolonialism are the important parts of contemporary Joyce studies.Postcolonial scholars study colonialism and nationalism in their visibility，as the subjects of explicit discussion and struggle，and in their invisibility，as the secret structures that underlie much of Western intellectual and political life.In “Joyce，Colonialism and Nationalism”of the second edition of the Joyce Companion，Marjorie Howes offers a detailed description of Joyce's engagement with colonialism and nationalism on the smallest and the largest horizons：that of individual words and that of the formal qualities of each text as a whole.
Cultural studies include the efforts to restore the multiple contexts of Joyce and his works.In The Joyce Companion of Cambridge （2004），Jennifer Wicke argues that every aspect of mass culture and media technology makes an appearance across the spectrum of Joyce's writing in Finnegans Wake ，that Gerty in Ulysses is a product of popular culture in Dublin.
Since Richard Brown's landmark James Joyce and Sexuality ，much of the innovative work on sexuality in Joyce has been done in the area of queer or non⁃normative sexuality.The latest might include James Joyce ＆ the Perverse Ideal by David Cotter .For him，sexual masochism runs through the centre of Joyce.Bloom's masochism is not an anomaly，or an arbitrary obscurity，but “an illustration of the extreme implications of an equation that is the bedrock of Joyce's writing .”（Cotter，5）Other books on sexuality include Derek Attridge's Joyce effects ： On Language ， Theory ， and History and Suzette Henke's James Joyce and the Politics of Desire .
In addition to the research abroad，the Joycean studies in China have constituted an important part of the Joyce criticism.According to Yang Jian，the 1920s marks the beginning of the Joyean studies with some fragments of comment by writers like Mao Dun，Xu Zhimo，Zheng Zhenduo，etc（杨建，2005）.Joycean studies did not start to flourish until the 1980s，featuring the translation，explication and general study of Joyce's works；the 1990s saw the boom of Joycean criticisms.In 1994，two Chinese versions of Ulysses were published.Joycean studies were carried out from the various perspectives of philosophy，aesthetics，comparative literature，cultural poetics，etc.Yang Jian divides the Joycean studies into four categories：aesthetics，cultural studies，stylistics and narratology.Up to now，there are about 130 articles and five books on these aspects.Guo Jun，Li Mengtao and Li Weiping have explored Joycean aesthetics：Guo Jun analyzes the connection of the epiphany with the Christian aesthetics，while Li Weiping discusses the influence of Aristotle，Aquinas and Vico on Joyce.The cultural studies include Dai Congrong's analysis of the carnivalesque feature，Wang Yougui's discussion of the political subversiveness of linguistic fragments，and Guo Jun's discovery of the colonial nightmare under the cover of parody and comedy. The Aesthetics and Art in the Novels of Joyce by Li Weiping provides a systematic study of Joyce's fictional art.It analyzes the transformation process of characters based on the artistic revolutions：the paralyzed Dubliners in the epiphany，the young artist in the mixture of impressionism and realism，the antihero in free association and montage，the impalpable character in the language of the night.Other works include James Joyce ： Modern Ulysses by Yuan Decheng， The Night mare of Stream⁃of⁃consciousness Master ： Joyce and Ulysses by Ma Kefei and Li Shangqiang， A Guide to Ulysses by Chen Shu，etc.Liu Xiangyu and Wang Yougui have analyzed the musical elements of Joyce's work，revealing its intertextual features.
As the pivotal part of Joyce's artistic career， Ulysses has always attracted attention from scholars and critics.Since characters are quite crucial to the stream of consciousness novel，identity study has formed an important part of the criticism on this work.
Ulysses has played the pivotal role in Joyce studies.This may be attributed to many reasons.On the one hand，compared with the simplicity and innocence of Dubliners and Portrait ，its complexities in structure and language offer rich material for the research of scholars.On the other hand，in opposition to the sense of frustration and discouragement readers experience when facing the dream language of Finnegans Wake ，the relative ease and pleasure in reading Ulysses entails its access to both readers and professors.Although Ulysses is on the wane and losing ground to Finnegans Wake ，the relevant studies can still offer unique insights into the understanding of Joyce and his work.
Identity study is an important part in the understanding of Ulysses .With the help of thematic，narrative and structural analysis，scholars usually concentrate on Stephen，Bloom and Molly. Identity in Crisis ，the doctoral dissertation by Kent Bryan Baxter，analyzes the identity crisis through the sudden and pronounced appearance of the developmental stage of adolescence in fictional discourses in the early decades of the 20th century.Another doctoral dissertation， The Haunted Subject ，presents a picture of modern individuals like Stephen caught in the web of familial，historical and social relationships.In James Joyce's “ Fraudstaff ”，Devlin describes different versions of Dedalus in Joyce's works，from Stephen Hero to Ulysses .
Identity study on Bloom usually derives from two perspectives：the queer theory and Jewish identity. James Joyce ＆ the Perverse Ideal analyzes Bloom's masochism，which is one avenue through which sexuality becomes more than itself，and partakes of political，ethical and aesthetic constructs.In masochism，a blind drive becomes textualized and contextualized：it is written into a theory of life.Representations of “the Jew”have long been a topic of interest in Joyce studies.In James Joyce ， Ulysses ， and the Construction of Jewish Identity ，Neil R .Davison argues that Joyce's lifelong encounter with pseudo⁃scientific，religious，and political discourses about “the Jew”forms a unifying component of his career.Joyce confronts the controversy of “race”，the psychology of internalized type，and the contradictions of anti⁃Semitism.
Molly has always been a matter of controversy.Besides feminism，almost all the other critical studies on Joyce take their stance concerning her.The common stereotypical view of Molly includes phrases like a sexual being，stupidity，naivety，passivity.Others may regard her as a contradictory figure swinging between decent woman and unfaithful wife.Van Boheemen，a representative of French feminism，attributes such characterization to the self⁃defense of patriarchal culture.In The Novel as Family Romance ： Language ， Gender and Authority from Fielding to Joyce ，she argues that the concern with the feminine may have been no more than Joyce's attempt to retain a masculine，phallocentric，and because of the patriarchal privileging of spirit，spiritual dominance.In James Joyce's “ Fraudstaff ”，Kimberly J.Devlin argues that Molly participates in female masquerade insofar as she often attempts to conform herself to cultural image of femininity，dramatizing them reflexively .“But Molly also functions as the critic of female masquerade through her repeated gestures of female impersonation that amount to a form of parodic gender mimicry .”（Devlin，85）
In China，scholars have also probed into the art of characterization in Ulysses .Among the 64 articles on Ulysses ，about one third are about or relevant to the characters.Yang Jian analyzes the archetypal structure of the three characters：Bloom the modern Ulysses，Stephen the modern Telemachia and Molly the modern Penelope（杨建，1996）.Hu Yuan discusses the opposition between hero and antihero，soul and body，in Bloom（胡媛，2001）.Zhang Zhe explores the divinity of Molly in her maternal love，concern for her husband and calm confrontation with the troubles of life（张喆，2001）.Liao Changyin discusses the image of Molly，pointing out her role as the sexual subject，analyzing her connection with social ideology in the coexistence of “I”，“You”and “He”in her interior monologue（廖昌胤，2003）.Zhang Hong analyzes the father⁃son relationship from the cultural perspective，revealing its familial and historical implications.
The above⁃mentioned identity studies on Ulysses are often limited in scope and perspective.Most of them focus on one character，illustrating the personal features of Bloom，Stephen or Molly.They feature three patterns in the analysis of characters：one stresses the parallel structure between Ulysses and Odyssey ，between the myth and the present reality；another is gender study on Bloom or Molly；the third is the connection of characters with the social context，as is shown in identity crisis，colonial trauma，etc.Most of them have ignored the modernist atmosphere in which Ulysses was written and which actually shaped the existence of the three characters.As the modern epistemology underlying the stream of consciousness determines the essential personality of individuals，the discussion of their identity should not only recover the local features of Dublin，but also the general tendency of modern society as a whole.
The application of the subjectivity approach helps to reveal the interaction between the ways of knowing and the modes of existence，between interiority and world，which will be crucial for the analysis of the essential feature of modern identity in Ulysses.Based on the subjectivity approach，this book attempts to explore the modern identity through the discussion of Bloom，Stephen and Molly.The feasibility of this approach will be analyzed in the following part.