A little more than a month ago, precisely on 2nd of February, the Irish writer James Joyce would complete 140 years old. So this post is a tribute to him. His innovative style of writing still influences many writers and his political activism always for democray and against coercive ideologies such as, nationalism, fascism, comunism was very important. This post is a summary of two articles. The first was published at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce. The second was published at https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/james-joyce/
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882-1941) was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. Joyce's novel Ulysses (1922) is a landmark in which the episodes are in a variety of literary styles, most famously stream of consciousness. Other well-known works are the short-story Dubliners (1914), and the novels A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). Joyce was born in Dublin into a middle-class family. A brilliant student, he graduated at University College in Dublin in 1902. In 1904, he met his future wife Nora Barnacle and they move to Trieste, working as an English teacher. In Trieste, he began publishing his books. During the World War II, he lived in Zurich and started working on Ulysses. After the war, he briefly returned to Trieste and then moved to Paris in 1920, which became his residence until 1940. Many writers, film-makers and other artists have been influenced by his stylistic innovations, such as his meticulous attention to detail, use of interior monologue, wordplay, and the transformation of traditional plot and character development. Throughout his life, Joyce stayed actively interested in politics. Joyce's direct engagement in politics was strongest during his time in Trieste, when he submitted newspaper articles, gave lectures, and wrote letters advocating for Ireland's independence from British rule. His novels address many political issues. Ulysses has been read as a novel critiquing the effect of English colonialism on the Irish people. Finnegans Wake has been read as a work that investigates the divisive issues of politics and the coercive oppression of nationalism and fascism. Joyce's work still has a profound influence on contemporary culture. Its emphasis on the details of everyday life have opened up new possibilities of expression for authors. James Joyce is one of the most revered writers in the English language and a central figure in the history of the novel. He is still hugely important to us because of his devotion to some crucial themes: the idea of the grandeur of ordinary life, and his determination to portray what actually goes through our heads moment by moment (what we now know as stream of consciousness). 1914 turned out to be Joyce's year of breakthrough when a publisher in London finally decided to bring out his book of short stories, Dubliners which had been rejected, and the American poet, Ezra Pound, arranged to get his novel, A Portrait of the Artist, serialised. This was followed by the serialisation of Ulysses in 1918, the book which made Joyce's name around the world. Joyce's principle work Ulysses is named after the most dramatic adventure story the ancient Greeks handed down to civilisation. But the major character of Joyce's novel is not a warrior. He is, instead, quite kindly and quite foolish man called Leopold Bloom. He works in the advertising industry, he is married (but his wive is having an affair). He is a bit of an outsider in Dublin and there are various humiliations which he has to put up with all the time. He is unlike a traditional hero, but he is representative of our average, unimpressive, fragile, but rather likeable every day selves. Joyce treats Leopold with respect and immense interest, he is someone (Joyce suggest) we should learn from and try in certain ways to be like, just as in the ancient world, Ulysses was held up as an inspiring model of resourceful and brave conduct. We follow Leopold for a whole day as he wanders around Dublin, we see him having lunch, etc. He worries about his relationship with his wife and daughter, he has various conversations. Joyce is saying that the apparently little things that happen in daily life (eating, feeling sorry for someone, feeling sorry for oneself, getting embarrassed) aren't really little things at all. If we look at them through the right lens they are revealed as serious, deep and fascinating. Our own lives are just as interesting as those of the traditional heroes, but we are less good at appreciating them. The helpful lens is supplied initially by Joyce's novel, but ideally we should internalise it and make it our own: we should accept ourselves as minor legitimate heroes of our own dignified lives. Joyce, like other modernist describers of stream of consciousness is suggesting that if we knew more about what others and ourselves really thought and felt we'd have a clearer sense of what it means to be human; and we'd also perhaps be slower to anger, we'd love more and hate less. We'd be more curious about the apparently strange byways our own minds, and those of others are endlessly following. James Joyce spent the greater part of his life writing. But what is art for? In The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce gets his spokesman Stephen to have an answer. He follows a traditional route, using two terms from the medieval philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas. The first is Integritas: This means that an artist is someone who attempts to grasp the true integrity and identity of what is being studied. It might be a tree, a moment of history or the life of a fictional character. We don't normally do this, we don't concentrate on what a person is saying or doing, or what moments around us really are. Art has the job of doing this for us, and teaching us to do so habitually. The second step for an artist is to bring Claritas (or clarity): which means shining the lighting of reason into the murkier parts of experience and life. Art, as Joyce sees it, should be a corrective to our natural, but dangerou, blindness and inattention. If it sometimes puzzles us, we know, says Joyce, that it's doing its job, it's awakening us to what we have quickly grown blind to.
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