James Joyce Bio
Who Was James Joyce?
James Joyce / James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882-1941), was an Irish novelist noted for his experimental use of language. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.
Joyce came from a big family and was the eldest of ten children. His father was a talented singer (he reportedly had one of the finest tenor voices in all of Ireland), but failed to support his family. His habit of drinking and spending money carelessly soon brought the family into financial crises.
From an early age, Joyce loved to write and had a passion for literature. He taught himself Norwegian so he could read Henrik Ibsen's plays in the language they had been written and spent his free time devouring Dante, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Because of his intelligence, Joyce's family pushed him to get an education. Largely educated by Jesuits, Joyce attended the Irish schools of Clongowes Wood College and later Belvedere College before finally landing at University College Dublin, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a focus on modern languages.
He travelled a lot and during his short stay in Ireland he met Nora Barnacle, a hotel chambermaid who later became his wife. Around this time, Joyce also had his first short story published in the Irish Homestead magazine. In 1904, in his early 20s, Joyce emigrated to continental Europe with his partner Nora Barnacle, settling in Triste. There, Joyce taught English and learned Italian, one of 17 languages he could speak, a list that included Arabic, Sanskrit and Greek.
In 1914, he published his first book, Dubliners, a collection of 15 short stories. Two years later, Joyce put out a second book, the novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Joyce then began work on Ulysses, an experimental account of a single day in Dublin. The novel was serialised between 1918 and 20, but full publication was delayed due to problems with American obscenity laws. The work was finally published in book form by his friend Sylvia Beach in Paris in 1922. His play Exiles was first performed in German in 1919, and English in 1926. His last novel, Finnegans Wake (1939), is an innovative language experiment that contains over 40 languages and a huge variety of popular and arcane references.
During World War I, Joyce had moved his family to Zurich, where they subsisted on the generosity of English magazine editor Harriet Weaver, and Barnacle's uncle. Following an intestinal operation, the writer died at the age of 59 on January 13, 1941.
Famous Works
1. Dubliners (1914)
- Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. The stories comprise a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century.
- Many of the characters in Dubliners later appear in minor roles in Joyce's novel Ulysses.
- It is a vivid and unflinching portrait of “dear dirty Dublin” at the turn of the twentieth century. The notable stories are “Araby,” “Grace,” and “The Dead”.
2. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the first novel of Irish writer James Joyce.
Joyce came from a big family and was the eldest of ten children. His father was a talented singer (he reportedly had one of the finest tenor voices in all of Ireland), but failed to support his family. His habit of drinking and spending money carelessly soon brought the family into financial crises.
From an early age, Joyce loved to write and had a passion for literature. He taught himself Norwegian so he could read Henrik Ibsen's plays in the language they had been written and spent his free time devouring Dante, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Because of his intelligence, Joyce's family pushed him to get an education. Largely educated by Jesuits, Joyce attended the Irish schools of Clongowes Wood College and later Belvedere College before finally landing at University College Dublin, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a focus on modern languages.
He travelled a lot and during his short stay in Ireland he met Nora Barnacle, a hotel chambermaid who later became his wife. Around this time, Joyce also had his first short story published in the Irish Homestead magazine. In 1904, in his early 20s, Joyce emigrated to continental Europe with his partner Nora Barnacle, settling in Triste. There, Joyce taught English and learned Italian, one of 17 languages he could speak, a list that included Arabic, Sanskrit and Greek.
In 1914, he published his first book, Dubliners, a collection of 15 short stories. Two years later, Joyce put out a second book, the novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Joyce then began work on Ulysses, an experimental account of a single day in Dublin. The novel was serialised between 1918 and 20, but full publication was delayed due to problems with American obscenity laws. The work was finally published in book form by his friend Sylvia Beach in Paris in 1922. His play Exiles was first performed in German in 1919, and English in 1926. His last novel, Finnegans Wake (1939), is an innovative language experiment that contains over 40 languages and a huge variety of popular and arcane references.
During World War I, Joyce had moved his family to Zurich, where they subsisted on the generosity of English magazine editor Harriet Weaver, and Barnacle's uncle. Following an intestinal operation, the writer died at the age of 59 on January 13, 1941.
Famous Works
1. Dubliners (1914)
- Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. The stories comprise a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century.
- Many of the characters in Dubliners later appear in minor roles in Joyce's novel Ulysses.
- It is a vivid and unflinching portrait of “dear dirty Dublin” at the turn of the twentieth century. The notable stories are “Araby,” “Grace,” and “The Dead”.
2. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the first novel of Irish writer James Joyce.
- A Künstlerroman written in a modernist style, it traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, Joyce's fictional alter ego.
-A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man details events which closely correspond with those of Joyce's first twenty years.
- This novel is narrated, for the most part, in the limited omniscient point of view. Stephen's thoughts, associations, feelings, and language (both cerebral and verbal) serve as the primary vehicles by which the reader shares with Stephen the pain and pleasures of adolescence,
3. Ulysses (1922)
- Published on February 2, 1922, by Sylvia Beach, proprietor of the bookshop Shakespeare and Company.
- Ulysses is constructed as a modern parallel to Homer’s Odyssey. All of the action of the novel takes place in Dublin on a single day (June 16, 1904).
- The three central characters—Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom, and his wife, Molly Bloom—are intended to be modern counterparts of Telemachus, Ulysses, and Penelope.
- The book was banned for several years after it was published in France.
- In the United States, Ulysses's supposed obscenity prompted the Post Office to confiscate issues of the magazine that had published Joyce's work. Fines were levied against the editors, and a censorship battle was waged that only further hyped the novel.
4. Finnegans Wake (1939)
- It’s title was kept secret, the novel being known simply as “Work in Progress” until it was published in its entirety in May 1939.
- Finnegans Wake is arguably one of the most complex works of 20th-century English-language fiction.
- He combined a number of languages and utilized complex sonic implications to create an atmosphere of wordplay and hidden meaning throughout the entirety of Finnegans Wake.
Comments
Post a Comment