BIOGRAPHY
James Joyce was born in 1882 in a middle class suburb of Bighton Square, in Dublin. He was the oldest brother
of ten children, but his mother got pregnant five times more (the same as Mrs Dedalus in Ulyses). His family
boasted to be descendents of the famous irish liberator Daniel O´Connell. Because of his father´s standing, the
family moved to Bray, near the capital. There, the teen writer met is first love, Eileen, who appeared with the
same name at A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.
In 1893, John Joyce, his father, was discharged due to his non-payments, and an economical crisis in his
family began. He became an alcoholic man, and this feature is later inherited by his oldest son. Joyce was used
to spend a lot of money. Only in his latest years, he started to save his spending habits, especially because his
dauther´s mental disease.
The writer went to a boarding school of jesuits in 1888, distinguished at everything, including sports, except
at maths. Four years later, he had to leave the school because of his father economical problems. Then, he
signed in another two similar schools, because his father wanted him to entered the jesuits. He refused that
proposition, because he denied of catholicism when he was sixteen years old. He gained a lot of money because
of his school awards, but he didn´t know how to spend it, so he bought things to his siblings. He went to the
university in 1898, and became interested in linguistics, philosophy and languages, like english, french and
italian. He took part in some literary magazines, writing some articles and theatre. He made some public
readings of what he wrote, and people usually aclaimed him. He started having problems in his sight, but he
continued writing.
Joyce read novels of Dickens, Walter Scott or Jonathan Swift, among others, and he liked a lot the poems of
Rimbauld, Byron and Yeats. He met the last one, who tell Joyce that he had to go to Oxford instead of been
there.
He moved to Paris in 1903, when he finally graduated, and start studing medicine. But the ruin of his family
prevented him continuing with his studies, so he had to find work as professor and journalist. He was constantly
starved, because he didn´t gain so much money, and his mother cry because of that all the times that Joyce
wrote letters to her. She became ill of cancer, and his son had to return to Dublin in order to asist her. Finally
she died, and this affected a lot to James. He started been a wanderer, and continue living by singing (he was a
very good singer) and thanks to his friends money.
In 1904 he tried to publish A Portrait of the Artist, an autobiographical work that contains literary essays
elements, but it was denied. When the author´s 22nd birth, he decided to review the literary piece and he called it
Stephen Hero, which would be published after Joyce death. This novel inspired the writer to write a very known
work, which name is A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. At the same time, he was writing Dubliners. The
same year he started to touch with Nora Barnacle. He began writing his masterpiece, Ulysses, the same day that
he and she had their first date.
He stayed at Dublin a little bit more, and he continued drinking a lot. One day, a friend of his father, took
and carried him to his house, because the author had drunk a lot. This person was used by Joyce to create the
main character of Ulysses. He moved to Pula (Austria-Hungary), but in 1905 the foreigners were expelled.
During the next ten years, the family lived in Trieste, and Joyce forced them to speak in italian. Joyce had two
children: Giorgio (1905) and Lucia (1907). He continued writing stories and in 1909, he visited Nora´s family.
Joyce returned to Dublin in 1912 because he wanted to publish Dubliners, but his publisher discussed him
because he thought that one of the character is homosexual. The dubliners didn´t want to suport the author due
to they betray of his nation. The writer decided to go out Dublin and he never returned. He got in love by one of
his student, but this love was imposible. He wrote many poetry with a lot of humouristic and ironic items about
it. When the 1st World War was starting, he finally brought out Dubliners, in 1914, and definitelly began to
write Ulysses.
During the war, he and his family went to Zúrich, in Switzerland. The family continued non-having so much
money, but some James friends let him a little bit more. He fell in love with a woman, but she refused him. He
create a character that seduce the main character of his masterpiece because of his love with this woman. Due to
his new fame, some unknown people gave money to Joyce. In 1916 one publisher brought out the first edition
in America of Dubliners and the first edition in the world of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man because he
pleased James in order to fight the writer´s depression. The author continue with his problems on his sight. He
