Synopses & Reviews
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man portrays Stephen Dedaluss Dublin childhood and youth, providing an oblique self-portrait of the young James Joyce. At its center are questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. Exuberantly inventive, this coming-of-age story is a tour de force of style and technique.
Review
"An eminent novelist was asked recently by some troublesome newspaper what he thought
of the literature of 1916. He answered publicly and loudly that he had heard of
no literature in 1916; for his own part he had been reading "science." This was
kind neither to our literary nor our scientific activities. It was not intelligent
to make an opposition between literature and science. It is no more legitimate
than an opposition between literature and "classics" or between literature and
history. Good writing about the actualities of the war too has been abundant,
that was only to be expected; it is an ungracious thing in the home critic to
sit at a confused feast and bewail its poverty when he ought to be sorting out
his discoveries. Criticism may analyze, it may appraise and attack, but when it
comes to the mere grumbling of veterans no longer capable of novel perceptions,
away with it! There is indeed small justification..." H.G. Wells, The New Republic, 1916
(read )
Table of Contents
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Editor's Preface
I. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: The Text
A Note on the Text
Related Texts by Joyce
Editorial Note
A Portrait of the Artist
Epiphanies
From Stephen Hero: Emma Cleary; I Will Not Submit; The Convent Girls; You Are Mad, Stephen; Epiphanies
The Trieste Notebook
From Ulysses: Let Me Be and Let Me Live; The Only True Thing in Life?; Nothung!
From Finnegans Wake: Shem the Penman; The Haunted Inkbottle
III. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Criticism
Early Comment:
Ezra Pound, Letter to Joyce
Edward Garnett, Reader's Report
Ezra Pound, James Joyce: At Last the Novel Appears
Diego Angeli, Extracts from Il Marzocco
H. G. Wells, James Joyce
The Egoist, Extracts from Press Notices
The Egoist, James Joyce and His Critics: Some Classified Comments
The Tradition and the New Novel:
Maurice Beebe, The Artist as Hero
Irene Hendry Chayes, Joyce's Epiphanies
Frank O'Connor, Joyce and Dissociated Metaphor
William York Tindall, The Literary Symbol
General Readings:
Richard Ellmann, The Growth of Imagination
Harry Levin, The Artist
Hugh Kenner, The Portrait in Perspective
Kenneth Burke, Definitions
Controversy: The Question of Esthetic Distance:
Editor's Introduction
Wayne Booth, The Problem of Distance in A Portrait of the Artist
Robert Scholes, Stephen Dedlaus, Poet or Esthete?
IV. Explanatory Notes
Chronology
Topics for Discussion and Papers
Selected Bibliography