An Interview with David Hayman

David Hayman has been a well-known name in Joyce studies for half a century. A survey of his work delineates the evolution of major critical approaches to Joyce’s writing and mirrors the epistemological changes that have shaped the way we now understand the canon. To a large degree, textual studies, now a central feature in interpretations of Joyce’s work, came into existence and certainly gained legitimacy through Hayman’s pioneering efforts. Many of the critical commonplaces that we take for granted as we discuss Joyce’s texts grew out of Hayman’s work. Hearing his descriptions of his development as a Joycean, a term with which he has a certain uneasy relationship, gives us a sense of the rich heritage that we enjoy, and it helps us understand how the work of critics like Hayman, Hugh Kenner, Fritz Senn, Edmund Epstein, and many others made possible the ongoing critical achievements of subsequent generations of Joyceans.