What Do You Know About James Joyce?

Joyce James (1882-1914): Irish writer. He lived after 1904 on the continent, but centered his whole literary work on Ireland, esp. on Dublin. In his first novel "A Portrait of the Artist as a young Man" (1916), he introduced the stream-of-Consciousness technique (which he was to perfect in "Ulysses"). The novel traces the evolution of its hero, Stephen Dedalus, from infancy to young manhood, centering in his renunciation of the catholic faith and exploring those aspects to him that reveal the unique perceptiveness, sensitivity and detachment of the artist.

The short stories "Dubliners" (1914) and already described lower-middle-class Dublin existence and made subtle use of symbols to give depth and universality to their themes. "Ulysses" (1922) was Joyce's masterpiece. Written into the peregrination of its hero, Leopold Bloom, are such archetypal themes as the odyssey, the biblical exodus, and the Hamlet legends. The book is of enormous sequence of bravura passages; stream-of-Consciousness, interior monologues, elaborates parody, phantasmagoria, and bare narrative.

In his last book, "Finnegan's Wake" (1939), Joyce used the freedom granted by the dream-world setting in an attempt to tap the unconscious racial memory, exploiting the innate suggestiveness of words in language liberated from confinements of convention and syntax. Joyce's innovations in language and style have profoundly influenced 20th century writing.

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