A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man

( 71 )

Overview

A masterpiece of modern fiction, James Joyce’s semiautobiographical first novel follows Stephen Dedalus, a sensitive and creative youth who rebels against his family, his education, and his country by committing himself to the artist’s life. “I will not serve,” vows Dedalus, “that in which I no longer believe.…and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can.” To Dedalus, the artist is like God—one who “remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined ...

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More About This Book

Overview

A masterpiece of modern fiction, James Joyce’s semiautobiographical first novel follows Stephen Dedalus, a sensitive and creative youth who rebels against his family, his education, and his country by committing himself to the artist’s life. “I will not serve,” vows Dedalus, “that in which I no longer believe.…and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can.” To Dedalus, the artist is like God—one who “remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.” Joyce’s rendering of the impressions of childhood broke ground in the use of language. “He took on the almost infinite English language,” Jorge Luis Borges once said. “He wrote in a language invented by himself.…Joyce brought a new music to English.” As a bold literary experiment, this classic has had a huge and lasting influence on the contemporary novel.

@Bildungsroman I’m in college. Cool. But I live at home with mom. That doesn’t make me a tool, does it?

Nah, I’m totally cool. Look, I’ve got this cool tweed hat. Yeah, I’m cool. Totally.

From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less

Joyce's semi-autobiographical chronicle of Stephen Dedalus' passage from university student to "independent" artist is at once a richly detailed, amusing, and moving coming-of-age story, a tour de force of style and technique, and a profound examination of the Irish psyche and society.

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Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher
“A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is in fact the gestation of a soul.” –Richard Ellmann

“One believes in Stephen Dedalus as one believes in few characters in fiction.” –H. G. Wells

“[Mr. Joyce is] concerned at all costs to reveal the flickerings of that innermost flame which flashes its myriad message through the brain, he disregards with complete courage whatever seems to him adventitious, though it be probability or coherence or any other of the handrails to which we cling for support when we set our imaginations free.” –Virginia Woolf

“[A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man will] remain a permanent part of English literature.” –Ezra Pound

With an Introduction by Richard Brown

From the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780451530158
  • Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
  • Publication date: 6/6/2006
  • Series: Signet Classics Series
  • Format: Mass Market Paperback
  • Edition description: Reprint
  • Pages: 256
  • Sales rank: 349,947
  • Product dimensions: 4.22 (w) x 6.90 (h) x 0.74 (d)

Meet the Author

James Joyce
James Joyce, the twentieth century’s most influential novelist, was born in Dublin on February 2, 1882. The oldest of ten children, he grew up in a family that went from prosperity to penury because of his father’s wastrel behavior. After receiving a rigorous Jesuit education, twenty-year-old Joyce renounced his Catholicism and left Dublin in 1902 to spend most of his life as a writer in exile in Paris, Trieste, Rome, and Zurich. On one trip back to Ireland, he fell in love with the now famous Nora Barnacle on June 16, the day he later chose as “Bloomsday” in his novel Ulysses. Nara was an uneducated Galway girl who became his lifelong companion an the mother of his two children. In debt and drinking heavily, Joyce lived for thirty-six years on the Continent, supporting himself first by teaching jobs, then trough the patronage of Mrs. Harold McCormick (Edith Rockerfeller) and the English feminist and editor Harriet Shaw Weaver. His writings include Chamber music (1907), Dubliners (1914), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Exiles (1918), Ulysses (1922), Poems Penyeach (1927), Finnegans Wake (1939), and an early draft of A Portrait of a Young Man, Stephan Hero (1944). Ulysses required seven years to complete, and his masterpiece, Finnegans Wake, took seventeen. Both works revolutionized the form, structure, and content of the novel. Joyce died in Zurich in 1941.

From the Paperback edition.

Biography

James Joyce was born in Dublin on February 2, 1882. He was the oldest of ten children in a family which, after brief prosperity, collapsed into poverty. Nonetheless, he was educated at the best Jesuit schools and then at University College, Dublin, where he gave proof of his extraordinary talent.

In 1902, following his graduation, he went to Paris, thinking he might attend medical school there, but he soon gave up attending lectures and devoted himself to writing poems and prose sketches, and formulating an "aesthetic system'." Recalled to Dublin in April 1903 because of the fatal illness of his mother, he circled slowly towards his literary career. During the summer of 1904 he met a young woman from Galway, Nora Barnacle, and persuaded her to go with him to the Continent, where he planned to teach English.The young couple spent a few months in Pola (now in Yugoslavia), then in 1905 moved to Trieste, where, except for seven months in Rome and three trips to Dublin, they lived until June 1915. They had two children, a son and a daughter. His first book, the poems of Chamber Music, was published in London in 1907, and Dubliners, a book of stories, in 1914. Italy's entrance into the First World War obliged Joyce to move to Zürich, where he remained until 1919. During this period he published A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Exiles, a play (1918).

After a brief return to Trieste following the armistice, Joyce determined to move to Paris so as to arrange more easily for the publication of Ulysses, a book which he had been working on since 1914. It was, in fact, published on his birthday in Paris, in 1922, and brought him international fame. The same year he began work on Finnegan's Wake, and though much harassed by eye troubles, and deeply affected by his daughter's mental illness, he completed and published that book in 1939. After the outbreak of the Second World War, he went to live in Unoccupied France, then managed to secure permission in December 1940 to return to Zürich. Joyce died there six weeks later, on 13 January 1941, and was buried in the Fluntern Cemetery.

Author biography courtesy of Penguin Group (USA).

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    1. Date of Birth:
      February 2, 1882
    2. Place of Birth:
      Dublin, Ireland
    1. Date of Death:
      January 13, 1941
    2. Place of Death:
      Zurich, Switzerland
    1. Education:
      B.A., University College, Dublin, 1902
    2. Website:
      http://www.jamesjoyce.ie

Read an Excerpt

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo. . . .

His father told him that story: His father looked at him through a glass. He had a hairy face.

He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne lived: She sold lemon platt.


O, the wild rose blossoms
On the little green place.


He sang that song. That was his song.


O, the green wothe botheth.


When you wet the bed, first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother put on the oilsheet. That had the queer smell.

His mother had a nicer smell than his father. She played on the piano the sailor&rsquos hornpipe for him to dance. He danced:


Tralala lala,
Tralala tralaladdy,
Tralala lala,
Tralala lala.


Uncle Charles and Dante clapped. They were older than his father and mother but Uncle Charles was older than Dante.

Dante had two brushes in her press. The brush with the maroon velvet back was for Michael Davitt and the brush with the green velvet back was for Parnell. Dante gave him a cachou every time he brought her a piece of tissue paper.

The Vances lived in number seven. They had a different father and mother. They were Eileen's father and mother. When they were grown up he was going to marry Eileen. He hid under the table. His mother said:

--O, Stephen will apologize.

Dante said:

--O, if not, the eagles will come and pull out his eyes.--


Pull out his eyes,
Apologize,
Apologize,
Pull out his eyes.

Apologize,
Pull out his eyes,
Pull out his eyes,
Apologize.


The wide playgrounds were swarming with boys. All were shouting and the prefects urged them on with strong cries. The evening air was pale and chilly and after every charge and thud of the foot-ballers the greasy leather orb flew like a heavy bird through the gray light. He kept on the fringe of his line, out of sight of his prefect, out of the reach of the rude feet, feigning to run now and then. He felt his body small and weak amid the throng of players and his eyes were weak and watery. Rody Kickham was not like that: He would be captain of the third line all the fellows said.

Rody Kickham was a decent fellow but Nasty Roche was a stink. Rody Kickham had greaves in his number and a hamper in the refectory. Nasty Roche had big hands. He called the Friday pudding dog-in-the-blanket. And one day he had asked:

--What is your name?

Stephen had answered: Stephen Dedalus.

Then Nasty Roche had said:

--What kind of a name is that?

And when Stephen had not been able to answer Nasty Roche had asked:

--What is your father?

Stephen had answered:

--A gentleman.

Then Nasty Roche had asked:

--Is he a magistrate?

He crept about from point to point on the fringe of his line, making little runs now and then. But his hands were bluish with cold. He kept his hands in the side pockets of his belted gray suit. That was a belt round his pocket. And belt was also to give a fellow a belt. One day a fellow had said to Cantwell:

--I'd give you such a belt in a second.

Cantwell had answered:

--Go and fight your match. Give Cecil Thunder a belt. I'd like to see you. He'd give you a toe in the rump for yourself.

That was not a nice expression. His mother had told him not to speak with the rough boys in the college. Nice mother! The first day in the hall of the castle when she had said good-bye she had put up her veil double to her nose to kiss him, and her nose and eyes were red. But he had pretended not to see that she was going to cry. She was a nice mother but she was not so nice when she cried. And his father had given him two five-shilling pieces for pocket money. And his father had told him if he wanted anything to write home to him and, whatever he did, never to peach on a fellow. Then at the door of the castle the rector had shaken hands with his father and mother, his soutane fluttering in the breeze, and the car had driven off with his father and mother on it. They had cried to him from the car, waving their hands:

--Good-bye, Stephen, good-bye!

--Good-bye, Stephen, good-bye!

He was caught in the whirl of a scrimmage and, fearful of the flashing eyes and muddy boots, bent down to look through the legs. The fellows were struggling and groaning and their legs were rubbing and kicking and stamping. Then Jack Lawton&rsquos yellow boots dodged out the ball and all the other boots and legs ran after. He ran after them a little way and then stopped. It was useless to run on. Soon they would be going home for the holidays. After supper in the study hall he would change the number pasted up inside his desk from seventy-seven to seventy-six.

It would be better to be in the study hall than out there in the cold. The sky was pale and cold but there were lights in the castle. He wondered from which window Hamilton Rowan had thrown his hat on the haha and had there been flowerbeds at that time under the windows. One day when he had been called to the castle the butler had shown him the marks of the soldiers&rsquo slugs in the wood of the door and had given him a piece of shortbread that the community ate. It was nice and warm to see the lights in the castle. It was like something in a book. Perhaps Leicester Abbey was like that. And there were nice sentences in Doctor Cornwell&rsquos Spelling Book. They were like poetry but they were only sentences to learn the spelling from.


Wolsey died in Leicester Abbey
Where the abbots buried him.
Canker is a disease of plants,
Cancer one of animals.


It would be nice to lie on the hearthrug before the fire, leaning his head upon his hands, and think on those sentences. He shivered as if he had cold slimy water next his skin. That was mean of Wells to shoulder him into the square ditch because he would not swop his little snuffbox for Wells-s seasoned hacking chestnut, the conqueror of forty. How cold and slimy the water had been! A fellow had once seen a big rat jump into the scum. Mother was sitting at the fire with Dante waiting for Brigid to bring in the tea. She had her feet on the fender and her jewelly slippers were so hot and they had such a lovely warm smell! Dante knew a lot of things. She had taught him where the Mozambique Channel was and what was the longest river in America and what was the name of the highest mountain in the moon. Father Arnall knew more than Dante because he was a priest but both his father and Uncle Charles said that Dante was a clever woman and a well-read woman. And when Dante made that noise after dinner and then put up her hand to her mouth, that was heartburn.
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Table of Contents

Introduction

Bibliography

Chronology

Publication history/Note on the text

Explanatory notes

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 71 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(39)

4 Star

(15)

3 Star

(10)

2 Star

(4)

1 Star

(3)

Your Rating:

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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 71 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted December 8, 1999

    A Great Insight into the Mind of a Youth in Conflict with his Upbringing

    This James Joyce's most personal novel written about one man's impressionable childhood and follows him through to his college years as he comes to a greater understanding of individualism and intellectulal freedom and throws off the limitations of his catholic upbringing. The novel is a masterpiece of writing style that defies time and place and becomes a book of everlasting, and everpresent importance. The book is written in a stream of conscience style (somewhat similar to Dostoevsky but more so) that can at times be difficult to follow. This is certainly not your typical beach reading, or grocery line novel. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a terribly moving novel, but it must be read with great patience, and presence of mind. You have to be willing to work for it to feel the true and indescribable force of this novel. The novel is required reading for any serious reader.

    5 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted November 12, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    boring!

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is ranked by the Modern Library as the third greatest English-language novel of the twentieth century. I have no idea why. I just found it to be extremely boring. The book is the semi-autobiographical coming of age of Stephen Dedalus, the alter ego of James Joyce. From his questions and anxiety over the roles of women and his dealings with them to his on-again-off-again struggles with religion, A Portrait of the Artist...just didn't keep my interest. It's not a bad story really but I just did not dig the prose. I haven't given up on James Joyce yet but I really hope his other books won't put me to sleep.

    2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted October 28, 2008

    more from this reviewer

    I Also Recommend:

    Siddhartha (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

    Not a fan

    The style of writing was really interesting, though I'm not sure if I completely liked it or not. The subject matter wasn't interesting to me at all. If you can get through two-thirds of the book then the prose is rather beautiful and philosophical. I only skimmed through it, though, as I could not bring myself to keep reading the two-thirds of it that were completely boring. By the time I got to the interesting parts I really didn't know what was going on in the story, only that the prose was fantastic and the main character had undergone a transformation from an obedient boy to a philosopher in his own right.

    1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 6, 2005

    for some more than others...

    I did not find this book to be very enjoyable. Although Joyce certainly deserves recognition for his stylistic achievements, his plot leaves much to be wanted. There were more references to religion than I felt necessary and the characters were not at all likeable. That said, this is probably a more enjoyable work of fiction for readers who can relate to the character's need to become more than who he is.

    1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted February 8, 2002

    An Essential Classic!

    James Joyce is one of the world's greatest authors of all time. He wrote poetry and prose and, in his final book, Finnegans Wake, created his own language. This book is a great tale of Stephen Deadalus through his early life that, in analysis, provides a 'portrait' of the young James Joyce. Probably Joyce's best book for the beginner Joyce-fan, this Penguin Putnam Classic is fully annotated by an ingenious scholar to help the reader who does not understand all of Joyce's plays on words and tricks. This is essential for everyone's personal library!

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted June 27, 2012

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

    OOOOOOOOOOOH IM HAVING A WILD PARTY THIS SAT COME PLEASE!!!!!!

    0 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted February 23, 2012

    Highly Recommended!

    James Joyce artfully crafts his novel to examine a struggle that everyone must go through at some point or another: finding yourself and your own path. Joyce is brilliant and it is my opinion that everyone should read this book.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 26, 2011

    Confused by errors

    It's hard enough to read to begin with; this version has a lot of typographical errors that make it that much more difficult.

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  • Posted June 4, 2011

    Find another version

    This one has too many strange, miscellaneious typographical characters, making it difficult to read.

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  • Posted March 12, 2010

    more from this reviewer

    Takes a while

    Took me a couple reads and some research to understand, but it was well worth it.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 9, 2004

    an original

    The strengths and weaknesses of this book are one: either you love them or disdain them. Joyce and his contemporaries stripped ideas of plot and character further and further away, until the mundane was endowed with the extraordinary- even today, this is too much a leap for some readers, who can't seem to find anything satisfying to cling on to in Stephen's persona or happenstance- Can we leave it at: either you like it or don't? But indisputably the language is extraordinary... if we read the book for the language alone, like Gertrude Stein encourages us with some of her books, it'd be enough.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 10, 2003

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    I read this book when I was a teenager and, although I couldn't understand it all, of course, I was enthralled, enchanted, intoxicated, inspired by it ... Poetry, like music, communicates without always being understood. Since then, I've lost count of the number of times I've reread it. It captures so well the feeling of being a child, ... the upbringing of an Irish Catholic, ... the growth of an artist, ... the experience of writing a poem, ... the birth of an adult soul from the womb of childhood!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 25, 2003

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

    A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a virtuoso performance in language. The imitations of the thoughts and perceptions of a child are masterful. The famous sermon about the tortures of hell is amazing every time you read it.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 23, 2003

    A Must Read

    This is probably one of the best books of all time. At the start of this book nothing will make sense but if you keep with it things will come together. Once you have read it once you can't wait to read it agin.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 12, 2003

    Narcissistic Prose

    James Joyce's Portrait is a self-centered, boring and difficult book to grasp. His flailing ideas that the reader should have to work for the book--in order to understand and appreciate it etc etc is absurd. Literature is for pleasure and joy. I don't think many people want to read a book in order to struggle and feel pain. Portrait is written about a seemingly regular, boring young man: Stephen Dedalus. It is only Joyce's language that manages to bring this hum-drum character to life. I can't believe we are expected to revel in Stephen's epipahanies and feel interest in his mundane life. The fact that Joyce would try to pawn this off an a semi autibiography is absurd. Perhaps he is trying to show how intrinsically boring and ordinary he is...in that case, I don't want to have to read through his life. The book is written lazily, especially the end, where Stephen and Joyce simultaneously prattle on. Beautiful language, terrible read.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 7, 2002

    Make Your Choice Joyce !

    In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce portrays numerous images of his early childhood through his late teenage years. Searching for his true purpose in the world, Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist in the work, encounters many hardships and trials; he struggles against his family, his church, his nationality, and himself. A Portait of the Artist as a Young Man provides an accurate insight of Joyce's mind and explains his idea of true art associated with aesthetics. Be sure to read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man before tackling Joyce's monumental masterpiece, Ulysses.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted February 8, 2002

    Not to be taken lightly

    This book is truly excellent if you are willing to take the time and study it. It is not a book written for simple perusing, and attempts to just read it as a story tend to be discouraging. I must disagree with another reviewer, as I read the book as part of a study on stream of consciousness writing. I highly recommend it. Another interesting perspective is the mazes that the main character gradually emerges from (religion, family, patriotism, etc). Although autobiographical, the book is much more than a tale of one man's life. It took me a short time to get into the book, so don't be turned off right away.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 17, 2001

    Beautiful

    This is absolutely the most beautiful and stunning book I've ever read. If you have any tendency towards the arts in you; if you have a love of words and writing in you; or if you have enough sensitivity to empathize with the artist read this book. Take your time with it and you won't be disappointed.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 3, 2001

    Prime example of growing-up story, clearly identifiable character

    James Joyce's first novel still remains one of the truly greatest of novels,-it is rare in fiction to so strongly believe in a character,-and to also feel for a place,- The monologue about Hell is one of Joyce's best bursts of beautiful poetic prose,- One might want to read the Joyce books in order which they were written,-Starting with the 'Dubliners' and ending with 'The wake',-one thing that is forgotten is what great fun these books are,-equal in entertainment as they are in artistic value,-

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 19, 2001

    Essential Joyce

    Though sometimes overshadowed by Ulysses, Joyce's first novel is ultimately quite meaningful and a pleasure to read. Portrait begins Joyce's experiments with language in its shifting styles, but on the whole is easier to understand than his later work. As with Ulysses, its richness is twofold: it portrays in detail the condition of Ireland approximately 100 years ago; but the ideas and truths pondered here are rather timeless. This book is full of memorable scenes and passages and I would highly recommend it.

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