LITERARY STUDIES James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist
Dec 31, 2015
LITERARY STUDIES
James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist
James Joyce
1882 – 1941
Born in Ireland
Raised Roman Catholic
Came from a poor family
Spent youth in Ireland; Lived abroad for adult life
Like father, drank heavily in his adulthood
Major Works
Dubliners
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Ulysses
Finnegan’s Wake
Dubliners
Published in 1914
Contains 15 short stories
All stories set in Dublin, Ireland
Each story is unique, yet has overlapping characters and themes
Each story focuses on a different type of paralysis crippling the Irish people
Dubliners
paralysis |pəˈraləsis|noun ( pl. -ses |-sēz|)
the loss of the ability to move (and sometimes to feel anything) in part or most of the body, typically as a result of illness, poison, or injury.
inability to act or function in a person, organization, or place
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Published in 1916
Formative years of Stephen Dedaelus Name come from Greek
Mythology: Daedelus Semi-autobiographical
Novel follows Stephen from early childhood into young adulthood
Ulysses
Published in 1922
#1 on list of 100 Greatest English Novels (1999)
Banned in America until 1934
Follows two charcters: Leopold Bloom & Stephen Dedaelus
Each chapter is 1 hour during June 16, 1904
Ulysses
Explicit and Implicit allusions to Homer’s Odyssey
Gilbert Schema: most chapters thematically contain: Allusion to Odyssey Place Organ Symbol Western Art Literary Technique
Ulysses
Example of Gilbert Schema:
Title Scene Hour Organ Color Symbol Art Technic
Calypso House 8 Am Kidney Orange
Nymph Econ-omics
Narrative(mature)
Hades Grave-yard
11 Am
Heart WhiteBlack
Cartaker Religion
Incubism
Sirens ConcertRoom
4 pm Ear -- Barmaids Music Fuga per canonem
Penelope
Bed -- Flesh -- Earth -- Mono-Logue(female)
Finnegan’s Wake
Finnegan’s Wake
“I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.”
--James Joyce
Finnegan’s Wake
Published in 1939 (17 years to write!)
Stream of consciousness
Seemingly written in a different language: Joycean
Plays with language, grammar and all literary conventions
No consensus on plot, characters or other details
Schema for Finnegan’s Wake
James Joyce
“I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.”
--James Joyce