James Joyce: life, style, themes and works, Dispense di Inglese

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JAMES JOYCE 1882 Dublin - 1951 educated by Jesuits, Clongowes and Belvedere College → Modern Languages at University College grew up as a rebel among rebels his interest was for a broader European culture, and this led him to begin to think of himself as a European rather than an Irishman 1903 medical school in Paris → turned back to Dublin because her mother had a fatal illness 1904 met and fell in love with Nora Barnacle → they settled in Trieste → met Italo Svevo 1914 Dubliners was published on the eve of the First World War 1915 Zurich because his position as a British national in Australian-occupied Trieste left him no alternative 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man : semi-autobiographical novel 1918 Ulysses: in several form in The Little Review 1920 Paris 1922 Ulysses published by an american-born bookseller 1940 returned to Zurich because started WWII setting: Ireland, especially Dublin rebelled against the Catholic Church all the facts explored from different points of view simultaneously isolation and detachment of the artist from society: greater importance given to the inner world of the characters - time perceived as subjective - his task to render life objectively the evolution of Joyce’s style: ● Dubliners: realism, disciplined prose, different points of view and free-direct speech ● A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man : third-person narration, minimal dialogue, language and prose used to portray the protagonist’s state of mind and free-direct speech ● Ulysses: interior monologue with two levels of narration and extreme interior dialogue Dublin: revolutionary montage of “Dublins” through a range of historical juxtapositions and varied styles ≠ static DUBLINERS 1914 in the newspaper The Irish Homestead by the pseudonym Sthephen Dedalus Dubliners= afflicted people the city seemed to Joyce the centre of paralysis childhood: The Sister, An Encounter and Araby adolescence: Eveline, After the Race, Two Gallants and The Boarding House Mature Life: A Little Cloud, Counterparts, Clay and A Painful Case public life: Ivy Day in the Committee Room, A Mother, Grace and The Dead naturalistic, concise, detailed descriptions realism mixed with symbolism: deeper meaning of external details each story opens in medias res and is mostly told from the perspective of a character free-direct speech and free-direct thought different linguistic registers: according to age, social class and role epiphany: “the sudden spiritual manifestation” of an interior reality= it is the special moment in which a trivial gesture, an external object or a banal situation or an episode lead the character to a sudden self-realisation about himself / herself or about the reality surrounding him / her themes: paralysis and escape: escape is an alternative to paralysis but always leads to failure - ● physical paralysis: external forces ● moral paralysis: religion, politics and culture no didactic aim because of the impersonality of the artist EVELINE characters: ● Eveline: passive, influenced by her family’s mentality ● her father: a violent and strict man - her fear ● her mother: conservative - her duty ● Frank: Eveline’s fiancé, a very kind, open-hearted and brave boy - her unknown future antithesis between Eveline’s house and her new one in Buenos Aires: paralysis/escape epiphany: a street organ which reminds Eveline of the promise she made to her dying mother symbolic words: ● dust= decay, paralysis ● sea= action, escape themes: ● struggle between one’s happiness and one’s responsibility ● dream vs reality ● action vs inactivity ● paralysis and the failure to find a way out of it A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN article “A” very important: the novel is only one of all the possible interpretations of a subject Dublin semi-autobiographical novel: ● son of a religious mother ● eldest of ten children and received his education at Jesuit schools ● early experiences with prostitutes during his teenage years and struggled with questions of faith ● left Ireland to pursue the life of a poet and writer five chapters: the spiritual evolution of a young Irish writer, Stephen Dedalus a fictional alter-ego of Joyce, from childhood to maturity Stephen: name of the Christian martyr → martyr to art Dedalus: Daedalus the mythological character → he must escape from the social, political labyrinth of Dublin’s life to reach the neutrality of art his transformation: from a shy little boy to a bright student - from innocence to corruption - from an unrepentant sinner to a devout Catholic - from a fanatical religiousness to a new devotion to art and beauty begins with third-person narrator and ends with a first-person one narrative fragmented real characters and real events but filtered through the consciousness of a fictional character different languages and styles: linked to each phase of Dedalus’s evolution poetic language: expression linked to sight and hearing; several musical devices