Description
Before Ulysses, there was Stephen Dedalus. In his autobiographical first novel, published in 1916, James Joyce follows a young Irishman coming of age in a Dublin of priests, schoolmasters, and family quarrels — slowly discovering the artist within.
From earliest memories at Clongowes Wood College to student days at University College Dublin, Stephen wrestles with the claims of church, nation, and family — and rejects them all for art. Joyce’s revolutionary prose grows with his hero, from a child’s sensory impressions to the famous diary entries of a young man determined to “forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”
A cornerstone of modernist literature and one of the great coming-of-age novels ever written, Portrait rewards every reader willing to meet it halfway. Start here, and you will understand why Joyce changed fiction forever. For readers ready to meet modernism at its source, there is no better door.
Before Ulysses, there was Stephen Dedalus. In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man — James Joyce’s autobiographical first novel, published in 1916 — a young Irishman comes of age in a Dublin of priests, schoolmasters, and family quarrels, and slowly discovers the artist within.
From his earliest memories at Clongowes Wood College to his student days at University College Dublin, Stephen wrestles with the claims of church, nation, and family — and rejects them all in favor of art. Joyce’s revolutionary prose grows with his hero, moving from a child’s sensory impressions to the famous diary entries of a young man determined to “forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”
A cornerstone of modernist literature and one of the great coming-of-age novels ever written, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man rewards every reader willing to meet it halfway. Start here, and you will understand why Joyce changed fiction forever.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet