James Joyces A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Common themes of 20th century early modernism: consciousness, time, nature of knowledge, use of skeptical irony, parodic mastery of previous creations, the way in which the artists own hidden consciousness (behind the text) displays his or her own formal procedure (Dane) Joyces contribution:
o Techniques: parody, pastiche, self-referentiality, fragmentation of

word and image, open-ended narrative, multiple point of view o Explicit detail in trivial life makes the familiar strange (not in a realistic or naturalist vein) o Explored languages relation to the world and that of the work of art to its cultural situation

Derek Attridge: to be aware of how much is going on in this apparently simple style this is part of Joyces revolution is not to puncture the illusion of reality but to enjoy the many sidedness of language and story telling and to relish the readerly activity one is called upon to perform Joyce constantly brings into discussion our process of sense making (heavily employed when dealing with fiction) so that his fictional worlds include our acts of reading and comprehension(Attridge) he constantly creates with language, he does not implode sense (Beckett)

 Finnegans

Wake

We are now diffusing among our lovers of this sequence (to you! to you!) the dewfolded song of the naughtingels (Alys! Alysaloe!) from their sheltered positions, in rosescenery haydyng, on the heather side of waldalure, Mount Saint Johns, Jinnyland, whither our allies winged by duskfoil from Mooreparque, swift sanctuary seeking, after Sunsink gang (Oiboe! Hitherzither! Almost dotty! I must dash!) to pour their peace in partial (floflo floreflorence), sweetishsad lightandgayle, twittwin twosingwoolow. Let everie sound of a pitch keep still in resonance, jemcrow, jackdaw, prime and secund with their terce that whoe betwides them, now full theorbe, now dulcifair, and when we press of pedal (sof!) pick out and vowelise your name. (FW 359.31360.6)

o meaning is not solid and stable, cannot be once and for all

attained o there is not just one single meaning as intended by the author o all reading is a reciprocative process between text and reader o interpretation is a process of creating structures, sequences and connections, not getting to the bottom of some universal Truth o Joyce offers many keys and symbols, almost enticingly as if there were some underlying truth to be found Anthony Burgess: Prose and subject-matter have become one and inseparable

Seamus Dane: Representation is a language problem; but it is also a problem to decide what is to be represented. Ireland/history Dublins mix of oral and literate culture (humour and pedantry)=> mosaic of sermons, speeches, stories, witticisms, rhetorical extravaganzas and mimicries Language as performance: taking possession of language(s), quotations, translations/betrayal Joyce takes languages to their roots as literary IndoEuropean

Seamus Dane: nomadism of perpetual exile Physical manifestation of writing from a void (spiritual)
o Allowed him to represent/invent Ireland o Leaving/exile = assert independence and position (see Dantes

leaving after the political discussion at Christmas, Stephens refusing to enter the order leaving for the University, Stephens decision to go abroad)

By an epiphany, he meant a sudden spiritual transformation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself (SH 216/211) not insight, but a coalescing of disparate observations, thoughts and desires into a pattern that may completely change long held ideas about the self and the world does not confirm a truth, but shatters it use of mirrors/looking glass: It is not my fault that the odour of ashpits and old weeds and offal hangs around my stories (Letters I 63-4) = truth as is, not as told

want of interpretation readers are meant to decode the relationships between stylistic medium and message (Dane) style= way of showing the Real as a result of influences showed belief systems and their origins (in religion, popular culture, family, politics) Joyces great accomplishment= synthesis of past and present, not merely a satirical or ironic juxtaposition of classic and modern, like Eliot (Dane)