James Joyce, vita e opere, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica James Joyce, vita e opere e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! LIFE ▪ Was born in Dublin in 1882 from a Catholic middle-class parent. ▪ When he was a child, his family lost his wealth. ▪ In 1898 Joyce started studying Italian, French and English at University College in Dublin and he wrote reviews and articles. ▪ In 1904 he met Nora Barnacle and they decided to marry. ▪ Later he moved to Trieste (Austria) to teach at the Berlitz Institute and he wrote Dubliners and A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man. He met Italo Svevo. ▪ When in 1914 the First World War started, he was forced to go in Zurich, where he wrote his masterpiece, Ulysses and he met the poet Ezra Pound. ▪ In 1920 he went to Paris where he worked to his last novel Finnegans Wake and met Samuel Beckett, but the Germans occupied France in 1940 and he was again forced to return to Zurich. ▪ Died in 1941 in Zurich. WORKS 1. Dubliners → published in 1914, is a collection of short stories written using a naturalistic style. 2. A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man → published in 1916, is a semi-autobiographical Bildunsgroman. The protagonist is Stephen Dedalus, a young artist who rebels against is country, his family and his religion. He left Ireland to find freedom. 3. Ulysses → published in 1922, is his masterpiece. Is a reproduction of Homer’s Odyssey. Is divided in 18 chapters. The story takes place in one single day, 16 june 1904, and follows the action of one single character, Leopold Bloom, around one single place, Dublin. In fact, Joyce applies the stream of consciousness technique. 4. Finnegans Wake → last novel published in 1939. DUBLINERS Is a collection of 15 short stories divided in four groups: 1. Childhood → characterized by a sense of disillusion and failure. 2. Adolescence (Evelyn) 3. Maturity → together with the group “Adolescence”, talks about the impossibility of men to escape from suffering because they are paralyzed. 4. Public life → talks about the relationship between Irish people and social institution, such as politics and Church. In this group we find The Dead, the protagonist is Gabriel Conroy and is the perfect representation of the mediocre Irish middle-class men, who lives his life like a dead person. It’s a portrait of Ireland in the 20th century, in fact it describes the lives of 15 inhabitants of Dublin. Thank to this, we can notice different aspects of Irish life because he considered this life during different stage. THEME: THE RELATIONSHIP WITH DUBLIN Even though Joyce left Dublin, this country appears continuously in his works. He loved, because gave him inspiration for his works, and hated this country because was a provincial town that didn’t gave him the opportunity to study and also because was a static city, in fact his inhabitants where imprisoned in a city that doesn’t give them the chance to grow and they weren’t able to act and change. THEME: PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL PARALYSIS What unites Dubliners is the impossibility of being able to act. They have clear ideas, but they cannot put them into practice. This behavior is defined by Joyce paralysis, like the figure of the inept that characterizes the Italian literature of the 900. It is a physical and spiritual condition that leads to becoming static, suffering a lack of growth, similar to death. THEME: EPHIPANY The only way to avoid paralysis is epiphany, that is revelation and manifestation. Joyce used it to refer to the moments in which the characters of Dubliners experience the sudden revelation of their condition of paralysis. However, this will not change their lives, but it will make them more aware of their situation. STYLE There is an evolution of his way of writing. He starts whit a traditional style, rejecting the third person omniscient narrator and using an internal narrative point of view, so there is one point of view, but during the stage of death he uses the stream of consciousness style, to express new states of anxiety. ULYSSES Is a complex novel set in one single place, Dublin, during one single day, 16 june 1904. There are 18 chapters in which are narrated the events of three characters. The story is divided in three sections: 1. The Telemachiad → talks about the protagonist, Stephan Dedalus, only three episodes. 2. The Odyssey → focuses on Leopold Bloom, from 4 to 15 episodes. 3. Noston → talks about Leopold's return to his beloved but unfaithful wife Molly. The story end with Molly’s monologue on her adventures, are 1600 verses written with the technique of stream of consciousness and the acceptance of her husband Leopold. THEMES AND STYLE Is an epic novel which offers different vision of daily life, personal attitudes, political and cultural discussion and reflection on the human condition. The style is various, the structure of the sentence is disrupted and the language is characterized by imaginative words, some even invented. He takes inspiration from Homer's odyssey, uses titles to refer to characters, indicates time and place, body parts, colors and symbols. Recalling ancient mythology, he wants to criticize the modernity that lacks heroism of the ancient world. STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS TECHNIQUE → a modern narrative style With this technique, Joyce writes entering the mind of the protagonist, following his incoherent flow of thoughts, without following a logical and irrational organization.