Paperback, 464 pages
Published 1916
Barnes & Noble Classics Series (2004)
Modern Library 100 Best Novels (1900-1998)
Introduction by: Kevin J.H. Dettmar
Perhaps Joyce's most personal work, "A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man" depicts the intellectual awakening of one of literature's most memorable young heroes, Stephen Dedalus. Through a series of brilliant epiphanies that parallel the development of his own aesthetic consciousness, Joyce evokes Stephen's youth, from his impressionable years as the youngest student at the Clongowed Wood school to the deep religious conflict he experiences at a day school in Dublin, and finally to his college studies where he challenges the conventions of his upbringing and his understanding of faith and intellectual freedom. James Joyce's highly autobiographical novel was first published in the United States in 1916 to immediate acclaim. Ezra Pound accurately predicted that Joyce's book would "remain a permanent part of English literature, " while H.G. Wells dubbed it "by far the most important living and convincing picture that exists of an Irish Catholic upbringing." A remarkably rich study of a developing young mind, "A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man" made an indelible mark on literature and confirmed Joyce's reputation as one of the world's greatest and lasting writers.
In the semi-autobiographical Portrait, young Stephen Dedalus yearns to be an artist, but first must struggle against the forces of church, school, and society, which fetter his imagination and stifle his soul. The bookβs inventive style is apparent from its opening pages, a record of an infantβs impressions of the world around himβand one of the first examples of the βstream of consciousnessβ technique.
Comprising fifteen stories, Dubliners presents a community of mesmerizing, humorous, and haunting charactersβa group portrait. The interactions among them form one long meditation on the human condition, culminating with βThe Dead,β one of Joyceβs most graceful compositions centering around a characterβs epiphany. A carefully woven tapestry of Dublin life at the turn of the last century, Dubliners realizes Joyceβs ambition to give his countrymen βone good look at themselves.β
James Joyce (1882-1941), the eldest of ten children, was born in Dublin, but exiled himself to Paris at twenty as a rebellion against his upbringing. He only returned to Ireland briefly from the continent but Dublin was at heart of his greatest works, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. He lived in poverty until the last ten years of his life and was plagued by near blindness and the grief of his daughter's mental illness.