Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, A
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Wikipedia-Article "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is an autobiographical coming-of-age novel by James Joyce, first serialized in The Egoist between 1914-1915 and published in book form in 1916. It is the story of the growth and education of Stephen Dedalus, an alter ego for Joyce named after the Grecian mythological craftsman Daedalus. The work pioneers some of Joyce's modernist techniques that would later come to fruition in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.
The prime example of the Künstlerroman in the English literature, Joyce's novel traces the intellectual and religio-philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus as he begins to question and rebel against the Catholic and Irish conventions he has been brought up in. He finally leaves for Paris to pursue his calling as an artist.
Joyce wrote an early version of the novel as Stephen Hero, which he abandoned in 1905. This incomplete first draft was published posthumously in 1944.
The book is most noted for its stream-of-consciousness style that sets out to mirror what the protagonist is thinking. Since the work covers the protagonist aging from a young child to a man, the style of the work differs in each of its five sections, with the complexity and vocabulary gradually increasing. Stylistically, the novel is mostly written as a third person narrative, though towards the end of the book dialogue and finally journal entries by Stephen are relied on instead to mirror his alienation from society.
The book is set in Joyce's native Ireland, especially in Dublin. It deals with many Irish issues such as the quest for autonomy and the role of the Catholic church.
The title has been plagiarised and parodied by many writers including Dylan Thomas in his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog and Joseph Heller in A Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man.
Trivia
- In Vladimir Nabokov's book Lolita, Humbert Humbert gives Lolita this book when she is in the hospital, and recommends it warmly.
Further reading
- Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce. Oxford University Press, 1959, revised edition 1983.
- Burgess, Anthony. Here Comes Everybody: An Introduction to James Joyce for the Ordinary Reader (1965); also published as Re Joyce.
- Burgess, Anthony. Joysprick: An Introduction to the Language of James Joyce (1973)
External links
- Free eBook of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man at Project Gutenberg
- Searchable, self-referential edition of Portrait, with concordance
- http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/portrait_artist_young_man/
- http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/29/62/frameset.html
- R. B. Kershner's webpage concerning Joyce and Portrait
- [1]"Sparknotes for Portrait"