About this item
"In 'A portrait of the artist as a young man, ' Joyce describes the early life of Stephen Dedalus: significant memories from infancy, schooldays, family life, his first taste of sin, guilt, repentance-- and his passage to freedom as he elects to leave Ireland forever. This is, in effect, an autobiography. Stephen is Joyce; every person he encounters and every incident he experiences, is drawn from life. The writing, though, displays the colour and imagination of the very finest fiction, in language which cries out to be read aloud"--Container. Read more...
About the Author
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 - 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist and poet. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the 20th century.Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922) , a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominent among these the stream of consciousness technique he utilised. Other well-known works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914) , and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939) . His other writings include three books of poetry, a play, occasional journalism and his published letters.Joyce was born in 41 Brighton Square, Rathgar, Dublin--about half a mile from his mother's birthplace in Terenure--into a middle-class family on the way down. A brilliant student, he excelled at the Jesuit schools Clongowes and Belvedere, despite the chaotic family life imposed by his father's alcoholism and unpredictable finances. He went on to attend University College Dublin.In 1904, in his early twenties, Joyce emigrated permanently to continental Europe with his partner (and later wife) Nora Barnacle. They lived in Trieste, Paris and Zurich. Though most of his adult life was spent abroad, Joyce's fictional universe centres on Dublin, and is populated largely by characters who closely resemble family members, enemies and friends from his time there. Ulysses in particular is set with precision in the streets and alleyways of the city. Shortly after the publication of Ulysses, he elucidated this preoccupation somewhat, saying, "For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal."Bio from from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.
