James Joyce: The Irish Author of Stream of Consciousness Novels, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica James Joyce: The Irish Author of Stream of Consciousness Novels e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! J. JOYCE (1882-1904) The main representative of the stream of consciousness technique is J. Joyce. He was born in Dublin, in 1882 , so he was Irish and he took a degree in modern languages at University college of Dublin. He studied French, Italian and German. He suffered from the restrictions and the narrow- mindedness of Irish culture. Irish people were unable to rebel against the British government and its misrule. Joyce had been educated in Jesuit schools and he wanted to get rid of its restrictions. He was convinced that in order to solve all the problems of Ireland, it was important to have a European point of view , that is to view Ireland from a distance. So he went into VOLUNTARY EXILE; he left Dublin and went to live in Paris,even if later, he went back to Dublin because of his mother's illness. In Paris he met the 20-year-old Nora Barnacle who worked as a chambermail in a hotel, and he fell in love with her. She became his long life partner and they got married. Their first date was on 16° June 1904. Still nowadays in Dublin they celebrate “BLOOMSDAY” which is the day chosen in Joyce's novel “Ulysses”. The day is named after Leopold Bloom who is the central character, and the story develops in one day, that is June 16th 1904 . In Dublin they celebrate this day and it is a kind of street carnival (Bloomsday festival) and people recollect the experiences Joyce carried out in Ulysses. Then the couple moved to Trieste where Joyce met Svevo. There Joyce worked as an English teacher. These years were difficult, because he had financial difficulties. Anyway at the outbreak of WWI, he published “Dubliners” (1914), a collection of 15 short stories divided into 4 books: Childwood; Adolescence; Adult life: Public life. Here he talked about ordinary people, in ordinary Dublin, doing ordinary things and living ordinary lives. Then he wrote “a Portrait of the artist as a young man” (1916), which is autobiographical , then “Ulysses” (1922) and finally “ Finnegans wake” (1939), where he carried to the extreme his technique of the stream of consciousness. This book was impossible to understand and the critics did not appreciate it. When WWII broke out, the Joyces fled from Paris to the neutral Switzerland (Zurich), and he died there in 1941. Throughout all his life he suffered from glaucoma (eye disease whch leads to vision loss) and when he died he was almost blind. This physical problem was compensated by his sense of earing , the SOUND OF WORDS was very important to him. That's why all the language that he invented was highly onomatopoeic, the words appeal the earing. That's why his works should be read aloud because he focused on the sound of words because of his poor eye-sight. Joyce was convinced of the importance of the impersonality of the artist; THE WRITER’S TASK was to describe life objectively. In O.Wilde we find the same impersonality of the artist who is outside the narration. Which method does Joyce adopt in his novels? The stream of consciousness techniqu , which is THE INTERIOR MONOLOGUE. He uses a particular device which is useful to understand the novel: a moment of sudden revelation caused by a trivial /banal gesture, or situation. In that moment memories of the past