James Joyce: riassunto della vita e opere

JAMES JOYCE: RIASSUNTO DELLA VITA E OPERE

James Joyce (1882-1942)
Life:
- He was born in Ireland into a middle-class family.
- Influences in his childhood Jesuits (for the education)
- Irish nationalists (Joyce’s father was a support of Parnell: leader of the Irish Home Rule movement)
- Love he had a relationship with Nora Barnacle and they married only after the born of their 1st child.
- Travels he went several time to Paris, but he went also to Croatia, to Italy, to Zurich (during the World War I).

he was a cosmopolitan writer (a citizen of the world).
- Personality before the meeting with Nora Barnacle he abandoned himself to the dissolute life (he became also an alcohol addicted).

James Joyce: opere principali

JAMES JOYCE RIASSUNTO INGLESE

Features and Themes
- Artist it had to be “invisible” in his work (he must not express his own point of view).

He had only to report the thought and the experience of his characters.
•    Relationship with Ireland Joyce rejected Irish life, and he accused the Irish people to be passive. He loved and hated Dublin because he was born here, but it was a city characterized by the Passivity (it wasn’t opened to the novelties).
•    Influences Freudian Psychoanalysis, literary traditions of all Europe, realism and symbolism.
•    Language he created a new kind of dream language (mixture of existing words, inventive words and non-existent words).
•    He used the interior monologue: characterized by lack of punctuation, onomatopoeic words, puns.
•    He was the forerunner of existentialism and of the theatre of the absurd.
•    Comparison with Swift both were Irish man, both opposed England and accused the Irish people to be passive.
•    Comparison with Wilde both abandoned themselves to the dissolute life (Wilde because was homosexual, Joyce because was an alcohol addicted).

James Joyce: Dubliners e Ulysses

JAMES JOYCE RIASSUNTO VITA E OPERE IN INGLESE

Works
2 Phases:
1)    Joyce used a realistic technique, he included a lot of details and used a language spoke by common people.
The Dubliners a collection of 15 short stories written in 1905 (only “The Death” was written in 1907) and published only in 1914 (because was accused of immorality). In this work Joyce analyzed Dublin’s life (centre of paralysis).  
It is divided in 4 section that represent the ages of man:
1.    Childhood
2.    Adolescence
3.    Maturity
4.    Public Life
5.    plus and Epilogue.
He used the Epiphany: it is the moment of insight, a sudden revelation (the moment in a story when a sudden spiritual awakening is experienced or when a common object assumed a mysterious meaning).
The Death: The story can be divided in 2 parts
1.    The protagonist Gabriel Conroy, a school teacher and a critic, goes to the party of his aunts Kate and Julia Morkan where he is applauded by everyone and he leaves this party self-satisfied.

Tesina su James Joyce