Intertextual Relations: James Joyce and William Shakespeare in Angela Carter’s Wise Children

Angela Carter’s feminist appropriation of William Shakespeare’s plots in Wise Children (1991) is well recognized. This article proposes that the novel also makes sustained references to the life and work of James Joyce and thereby provides a crucial but overlooked counterpoint to Carter’s use of Shakespeare. It sets her simultaneous play with these two literary forefathers in the light of her thoughts on intertextuality, Bardolatry, and biological and cultural legitimacy, as well as her observations in “Envoi: Bloomsday.” Thus, it argues that Carter both invokes Joyce’s liberating example as an adaptive writer in the burlesque tradition to support her own feminist critique of patrilineal models of artistic inheritance and literary transmission, and rejects the institutionalization of Shakespeare’s plays as high art rather than popular entertainment.