fox in faux-Joyce: The functions of autobiography in James Joyce's "Ulysses"

In the "Scylla and Charybdis" chapter of Ulysses, the novel appears to make a problem out of its autobiographical suppositions. Stephen Dedalus argues that the works of Shakespeare have a biographical basis, and previously in Ulysses Stephen has imagined himself as a Shakespearean character. Stephen is also the protagonist of Joyce's earlier work, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In the "Scylla and Charybdis" episode, the association between Joyce and Stephen seems confirmed when the narrator's voice, sometimes conflated with Stephen's, reports thoughts particularly appropriate for James Joyce. This chapter, however, lures one into an autobiographical reading of Stephen that does not remain tenable throughout the novel. Apparent autobiography in Ulysses becomes a problem (rather than an easy option for interpretation) when one finds autobiographical references significantly changed in the "Circe" chapter--changed so that the essential ambiguity of Joyce's autobiographical references becomes clear.