James Joyce
His life
He was born in Dublin in 1882 and here he studied French, German, Italian and
English languages and literatures and graduated in 1902. His interest was for a
brooder European culture and this led him to consider himself as a European, in fact
he didn’t have irishness, he hated Ireland, considering Dublin the centre of all
paralysis and this attitude contrasted the one of W.B.Yeats.
Joyce believed that the only way to increase Ireland’s awareness was by making a
realistic portrait from a European viewpoint.
He spent some time in Paris, but in June 1904 he met and fell in love with Nora
Barnacle and they had their first date on 16th June which was to become the
“Bloomsday ” of Ulysses. In October they moved to Italy Trieste when he became
professor and one of his student was Italo Svevo. These years were difficult, he was
in trouble with publishers and printers as a consequence he published thirty-six short
poems “Chamber Music”.
His masterpiece is “Dubliners” a collection of short stories completed in 1905 and
published in 1914. In 1916 he also published “A portrait of the artist as a Young
Man”, his semi-autobiographical novel.
In 1917 he received his first anonymous donation which enabled him to continue
“Ulysses” a novel which tells about a metaphorical voyage in a day which represents
entire life, published in 1922 in Paris. In 1923, he began to work on “Finnegans
Wake” published in 1939. Hitler’s advances forced Joyce to flee to Switzerland,
where Joyce died in 1941.
Ordinary Dublin
Joyce set all his works mostly in Dublin. He wanted to give a realist portrait of the
life of ordinary people doing ordinary things and he represented the man’s mental,
emotional and biological reality.
Style and technique
