“And words. They are not in my dictionary”: A Lexicographical Study of James Joyce and the Oxford English Dictionary

James Joyce’s Ulysses and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) are unusual texts. Both are epic in scope; both make countless references to other works and explicitly absorb much of the preceding literature; both aim to set new creative and intellectual standards. Politically, the works are vastly different. While the OED aimed to document the (morally acceptable) established lexis, Joyce wished to challenge and redefine it. His liberalism with language and subject matter excluded references to his work from the OED for several decades. Ironically, while the first edition of the OED (in 1928) does not cite Joyce nor, to our knowledge, does its 1933 supplement, the OED 2 (1989) adds over 1,800 Joyce citations. Whereas the OED 3 (2000-) currently features 2,422 Joyce citations, many of those from the OED 2 have been removed for reasons that are unclear. Joyce is an example of the changeable place of modernist literature in the OED.