James Joyce - Writer

He wrote a novel that follows one man through a single day in Dublin, told in styles that shift from newspaper headlines to hallucination, and it changed what fiction could do. Ulysses made Joyce the modernist who cracked language open.

Writers Writer / Author Poetry Fiction Literature Journalism 20th Century

A life in dates

2012The Cats of CopenhagenBook published after his deathMore about this, short story by James Joyce1968Giacomo JoyceBook published after his deathMore about this, book by James Joyce1944Stephen HeroBook published after his deathMore about this, unpublished novel by James Joyce1941Died13 January 19411915“You forget that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence: and the kingdom of heaven is like a woman.”In their wordsExiles (1915), Act IIRead the whole statement

1912“To say that a great genius is half-mad, while recognizing his artistic prowess, is worth as much as saying that he was rheumatic, or that he suffered from diabetes.”In their words"Realism and Idealism in English Literature (Daniel Defoe - William Blake)," lecture, Università Popolare, Trieste (February 27-28, 1912),Read the whole statement

1907“I confess that I do not see what good it does to fulminate against the English tyranny while the Roman tyranny occupies the palace of the soul.”In their words27 April 1907"Ireland, Island of Saints and Sages," lecture, Università Popolare, Trieste (27 April 1907), printed in James Joyce: Occasional, CriticalRead the whole statement

1903“Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an aesthetic end.”In their words28 March 1903Notebook entry, Paris (28 March 1903), printed in James Joyce: Occasional, Critical and Political Writing (2002) edited by Kevin BarryRead the whole statement

1902“Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice, a revolt, in a sense, against actuality.”In their words"James Clarence Mangan" (1902), a lecture on Mangan delivered at the Literary and Historical Society, University College, Dublin (1Read the whole statement

“All things are inconstant except the faith in the soul, which changes all things and fills their inconstancy with light.”In their wordsNovember 1902Letter to Augusta Gregory (November 1902), from James Joyce by Richard Ellmann (1959) [Oxford University Press, 1983 edition, ] (p. 107)Read the whole statement

1882Born2 February 1882

Photos 8

James Joyce by Alex Ehrenzweig, 1915 cropped

James Joyce birth and baptismal certificate

Grave of John and Mary Joyce

Dog in snow; or new "After the wreck"

Dort-drueben

Déjeuner Ulysse

Frank T. Sharp, The Jargon of James Joyce, Wednesday, March 13 (NBY 1044)

James joyce she weeps over rahoon catalan translation

In their own words 10

James Joyce

10 statements, newest first

You forget that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence: and the kingdom of heaven is like a woman.
1915, Exiles (1915), Act II, Own words
To say that a great genius is half-mad, while recognizing his artistic prowess, is worth as much as saying that he was rheumatic, or that he suffered from diabetes.
1912, "Realism and Idealism in English Literature (Daniel Defoe - William Blake)," lecture, Università Popolare, Trieste (February 27-28, 1912),, Own words
Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honoured by posterity because he was the last to discover America.
Sep 5, 1912, "The Mirage of the Fisherman of Aran: England's Safety Valve in Case of War," Piccolo della Sera (Trieste, 5 September 1912), printed in, Own words

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Family

Father John Stanislaus Joyce

James Joyce

Partners

Spouse Nora Barnacle

Children

Sibling Stanislaus Joyce

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About this person

Born in Dublin in 1882 into a middle-class family undone by his father's chaotic finances, Joyce excelled at Jesuit schools and graduated from University College Dublin in 1902. In 1904 he met Nora Barnacle and left Ireland for good, teaching English in Trieste and publishing the story collection Dubliners in 1914 and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in 1916. He spent World War I in Zurich working on Ulysses, which appeared in Paris in 1922 and was banned in the UK and US for obscenity until the mid-1930s. He moved to Paris in 1920 and spent sixteen years on Finnegans Wake, published in 1939. Though he lived abroad, his fiction stayed rooted in Dublin - its streets, his family, his enemies. When Germany occupied France in 1940 he returned to Zurich, where he died in January 1941 after surgery for a perforated ulcer.

Country

United Kingdom