James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the twentieth century. Joyce's novel Ulysses (1922) is a landmark in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in a variety of literary styles, particularly stream of consciousness. Other well-known works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914) and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). His other writings include three books of poetry, a play, letters, and occasional journalism.

Born in Dublin into a middle-class family, Joyce attended the Jesuit Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare, then, briefly, the Christian Brothers–run O'Connell School. Despite the chaotic family life imposed by his father's unpredictable finances, he excelled at the Jesuit Belvedere College and graduated from University College Dublin in 1902. In 1904, he met his future wife, Nora Barnacle, and they moved to mainland Europe. He briefly worked in Pola (now in Croatia) and then moved to Trieste in Austria-Hungary, working as an English instructor. Except for an eight-month stay in Rome working as a correspondence clerk and three visits to Dublin, Joyce lived there until 1915. In Trieste, he published his book of poems Chamber Music and his short-story collection Dubliners, and began serially publishing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in the English magazine The Egoist. During most of World War I, Joyce lived in Zurich, Switzerland, and worked on Ulysses. After the war, he briefly returned to Trieste and in 1920 moved to Paris, which was his primary residence until 1940.

Ulysses was first published in Paris in 1922, but its publication in the United Kingdom and the United States was prohibited because of its perceived obscenity. Copies were smuggled into both countries and pirated versions were printed until the mid-1930s, when publication became legal. Ulysses frequently ranks high in lists of the greatest books, and academic literature analyzing Joyce's work is extensive and ongoing. 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 radical transformation of traditional plot and character development.

Though most of his adult life was spent abroad, his fictional universe centers on Dublin and is largely populated by characters who closely resemble family members, enemies and friends from his time there. Ulysses is set in the city's streets and alleyways. Joyce said: "For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal."

In 1923, Joyce started his next major work, Finnegans Wake. It was published in 1939. Between these years, he traveled widely. He and Nora were married in a civil ceremony in London in 1931. He made several trips to Switzerland, frequently seeking treatment for his increasingly severe eye problems and psychological help for his daughter, Lucia. When Germany occupied France during World War II, Joyce moved back to Zurich in 1940. He died there in 1941 after surgery for a perforated ulcer at age 58.

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