William York Tindall (1903–1981) was an American Joycean scholar with a long and distinguished teaching career at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Several of Tindall's classic works of criticism, including ''A Reader's Guide to James Joyce'' and ''A Reader's Guide to Finnegans Wake'' are still in print. He wrote a total of thirteen books on UK and Irish writers including Joyce,

Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Under ...

W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

, and

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

. Indeed, Tindall nominated Beckett for the

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

; Beckett was the 1969 laureate. Born in Vermont, he studied at Columbia, both as an undergraduate and graduate student. Between those courses of study, in 1925 he set off to see Europe. He went to Paris and bought a copy of Joyce's ''

Ulysses Ulysses is one form of the Roman name for Odysseus, a hero in ancient Greek literature. Ulysses may also refer to: People * Ulysses (given name), including a list of people with this name Places in the United States * Ulysses, Kansas * Ulysse ...

'' — then banned in America. By chance, he bought it on June 16,

Bloomsday Bloomsday is a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce, observed annually in Dublin and elsewhere on 16 June, the day his 1922 novel '' Ulysses'' takes place in 1904, the date of his first sexual encounter with his ...

, the day in which all the events in the book take place. He had it rebound as a French novel to carry it through US Customs. That began Professor Tindall's study of and advocacy for Joyce's works in America; in fact, he started teaching ''Ulysses'' even before the book was allowed in the US. Therefore, students in his first ''Ulysses'' course were forced to read the dean's copy kept secured in the university library. Finally in 1933, the United States District Court in New York City ruled that the novel was not obscene and could be published in America. In January, 1934 ''Ulysses'' was finally available legally in the US and no one had to rely on the library copy any more. Professor Tindall's teaching career at Columbia lasted from 1931 to 1971. For four decades, he taught some of the most popular literary criticism courses in the curriculum. He pioneered a method of reading Joyce's most difficult novel ''

Finnegans Wake ''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish literature, Irish writer James Joyce. It is well known for its experimental style and reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the Western canon. It has been called "a work of fiction whi ...

'' with a small group of graduate students, everyone adding a bit of their academic knowledge to the task. He called this Reading by Committee, saying that the group brought to it "a variety of languages and learning, ndmight do more with the book than I alone, with small learning and less Greek."

References

External links

Finding aid to William York Tindall papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tindall, William York 1903 births 1981 deaths Columbia College (New York) alumni Columbia University faculty James Joyce scholars Samuel Beckett scholars Writers from Vermont