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