Literary legacies:

James Joyce: Disgusted by narrowness and provincialism

Compiled by Ishara Mudugamuwa

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born in a Dublin suburb in Southern Ireland. He was the eldest of ten children, and his family was poor and Roman Catholic. As a youth, Joyce was educated at Roman Catholic lower schools and at home. He earned a degree in Latin from University College, Dublin in 1902 and while there he renounced the Roman Catholic faith.

In 1904 he and his companion, Nora Barnacle, left Ireland for good. They lived in Trieste, in Italy, Paris and Zurich. They had two children but didn't marry until 1931. To support the family, Joyce worked as a language instructor and received writing grants from patrons, but the family was never comfortable financially. During much of his adult life Joyce suffered from a series of severe eye trouble that eventually led to near blindness.

Joyce was a pioneer and a model for authors who believed in free written expression. His writing evolved steadily from adolocent lyrics to precise vignettes to bold combinations of autobiography and satire. Most of his works deal with everyday life in 20th century Dublin.

Joyce's work spanned the extremes of naturalism and symbolism, from the spare style of Dubliners to the verbal richness of Finnegans Wake, Dubliners, a group of naturalistic stories is the first product of his lifelong preoccupation with Dublin life.

Though so disgusted by the narrowness and provincialism of Ireland that he spent most of his life in self-imposed exile. Joyce nevertheless made Ireland and the Irish the subject of his fiction.

Joyce's first novel" A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" is a portrayal of the maturation of the artist, a study of the vanity of rebelliousness, and examination of the self-deception of adolescent ego.

His famous work "Ulysses" began appearing in serial from in the "Little Review" in 1918. Joyce's first prose work "Dubliners" is a book of 15 short stories and sketches that revolve around the ancient city of Dublin.

Joyce attained international fame with the 1922 publication of "Ulysses" which many people consider as one of the greatest and original books ever written. This most prominent literary figure died in 1941, shortly after the outbreak of World War two.