Joyce was born in a Dublin suburb on February 2, 1882 to John Stanislaus Joyce and Mary Jane Joyce. He was the first born of ten children and, as the family grew, their financial situation worsened. With each new child John was forced to mortgage another of his inherited properties until there was nothing left. Despite his predicament, John remained a very witty man, and often used his wit to undermine that which was bothering him at the time, whether it was the church, the government or his wife's family. This distinctive trait would also be adopted by his eldest and most dear son James in later years. In September of 1888 young James was enrolled in Clongowes Wood College, a Jesuit school of some prestige, but was withdrawn in June of 1891 because of his father's poor finances. This period is significant, however, since this was the first that he was separated from his supportive family for any length of time. Some of his experiences at Clongowes would later be recounted in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The rigorous Jesuit training he received appears to have been a turn off to the young Joyce and surely added to his growing contempt of the Catholic church. This anticlericalism was also fueled by his father, who constantly complained about the church and the clergy. This was a sharp contrast to Irish society at the time which was, for the most part, very devout. It is also interesting to note that John Joyce's frequency of appearance in his son's books is only second to the appearance of James himself. This demonstrates the influential role which John played in his son's life. Evidence of Joyce's early obsession with language and words can be found in his semi-autobiographical novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In the beginning of this book, young Stephen, the name Joyce chose for himself, wonders about the word "belt." "That was a belt round his pocket. And belt was also to give a fellow a belt," Stephen thinks. The dual meaning intrigues him.

In April of 1893 Father John Conmee, who had been the rector at Clongowes and was now prefect of studies at Belvedere College, another Jesuit school, arranged for James and his brothers to attend Belvedere without charge. Here he read voraciously in European literature, discovering the works of Henrik Ibsen, Dante, Flaubert and others who would remain his literary idols for life. Joyce did well at Belvedere, and graduated from there in 1898.

That summer was a very important one in Joyce's life. For some time he had been having "impure" thoughts and feelings and decided finally to throw off the hypocrisy of the church. He began visiting brothels in Dublin, experimenting with his awakening sexuality. This was the real point in which he turned away from the Catholic church. In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce makes this statement, roughly equating to this point in his life:

"I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use, silence, exile, and cunning."

That fall he entered University College, Dublin where he continued his studies and attempted to refine his skills of silence and cunning. In 1900 he published an article in the university magazine on Ibsen's play, When We Dead Awaken. Later he received a personal letter of gratitude from Ibsen which had a profound effect on the young Joyce. From that point on Joyce studied the languages and literature of Europe with even greater dedication, totally immersing himself in what would become his domain. His parents supported this and even stood up for him when people suggested that he was wasting his time. In 1901 he tried to publish another article, this an attack on the Irish theatrical movement, but was refused by the university magazine. Determined to be published, he got together with a feminist classmate who had also been refused publication, Francis Skeffington, and these two published their papers at their own expense in a pamphlet. This difficulty with not being accepted contrasted greatly with his eventual departure from literary convention.

Joyce graduated from University College in 1902. That summer he decided it was time to introduce himself into the literary circle. He met George Russell, a Dublin writer, who eventually introduced him to Yeats and other influential writers. Joyce then left for Paris where he intended to study medicine. This did not interest him, however, and in 1903, with the illness of his mother, Joyce returned to Dublin. She died in August of that year, leaving Joyce in dire emotional straits.

June 16, 1904 was another major event in Joyce's life. On this day he met the love of his life, Nora Barnacle. Nora forgave James his earlier sexual exploits and they fell in love and moved to Austria in October. This begins the third of Joyce's "weapons," his self-imposed exile from his homeland. This year was also a significant one for his career as a professional writer. In this year he began writing the short stories that would be put together as Dubliners and also began the autobiographical novel Stephen Hero which ten years later after serious revision of style would be published as A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In 1905 James and Nora moved to Italy where, on July 27, their son Giorgio was born. A second child, Lucia, came in 1907, the year in which Chamber Music, a book of Joyce's poems, was published and also the year in which the short stories of Dubliners were completed. Sometime around 1908 Joyce decided to begin revising his 1000 page novel, Stephen Hero, in "a completely different series of styles," styles which would, in their mature form, make Joyce one of the greatest literary innovators ever.

In August of 1909 Joyce made one of his last visits to Dublin. He and some friends opened the first Dublin cinema, called the Volta. This venture, however, quickly failed and Joyce moved back to the continent. In 1914, A Portrait of the Artist as a young man began to be published serially in The Egoist. In June of this year Dubliners, his collection of short stories, was also published. These two works brought Joyce considerable attention from literary circles and also from the public. This was also the year in which he began work on Ulysses. Things went smoothly from then on, with Miss Harriet Weaver beginning her patronage of Joyce and expediting the publishing of the works just mentioned. In 1918 portions of Ulysses began to be published in serial form in the United States. In 1919, there was some family trouble when James attempted to initiate an adulterous relationship with a female friend, possibly the uninhibitedness of his youth coming back to haunt him. It is not known if he was successful, but the family soon moved back to Italy. In 1920, the serial publication of Ulysses was banned in the U.S. because of the "obscene" nature of some of the content, a decision not to be overturned in until 1933. In 1922 Ulysses was published in book form in Europe to international acclaim. A year later, in 1923, Joyce began his last major work which he provisionally called Work in Progress but would become Finnegans Wake. As he worked on this and published portions in serial form, many supporters abandoned him because of the seemingly ridiculous and nonsensical style in which it was being written. Joyce persisted however, and was most productive between 1923 and 1929. In 1931, James and Nora were properly married, after two children and twenty-seven years together. His daughter Lucia's incipient madness and his failing eyesight forced him into a long period of near inactivity, but Finnegans Wake was finally completed and published in 1939, after which James and Nora moved to neutral Switzerland from Paris to avoid the feared Nazi aggression. Finnegans Wake was poorly accepted and Joyce, heartbroken, died in Zurich on January 13, 1941 of an ulcer.

Joyce's work stands as evidence of his literary genius. To understand the man, one must understand his books, which is nearly impossible but well worth attempting. His first published novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, is based on the first twenty years of the author's life. Joyce chose the name Stephen Dedalus to represent himself, the last name referring to the Daedalus of Greek mythology who built the labyrinth of the minotaur. This book is considered to be the most readable of Joyce's novels, but still reflects his unique and innovative style. His second novel, Ulysses, continues the classical theme. Its eighteen chapters parallel the eighteen episodes of Homer's Odyssey. Set in Dublin, the action takes place on June 16, 1904 ( the day Joyce was married to Nora) and the main character is Leopold Bloom, who can be compared with Ulysses. On this day, Leopold's wife takes her first lover. Stephen Dedalus, who can be compared with Telemachus, the son of Ulysses, is the secondary character. Joyce proclaimed that he put enough riddles and arcane allusions into Ulysses to keep scholars busy for centuries. So far this holds true. Ulysses was written in such a new style as to draw instant acclaim. His last work, Finnegans Wake, was an even more innovative book. Its 600 pages are seemingly unintelligible, written in a "night language," as Joyce called it, of puns composed of many languages and strange allusions to a wide spectrum of historical and literary information. When asked by a friend after a day's work if he had accomplished anything, Joyce replied that he had done a great deal, having finished two sentences. These two sentences were so packed with meaning and the exact word order was so important to Joyce that he had spent an entire day on them. This gives the reader a sense of the amount of thought put into this novel. Joyce liked to call it a history of the world, but it was not appreciated in his time because of the level of difficulty it presented. To read the Anna Livia section of this novel, complete with one critic's interpretation and a sound file of Joyce reading from it, please go to http://aristotle.algonet.se/artbin/pjoyces.html.

Joyce's style is difficult to explain. It was a vast departure from what was accepted as the norm of the time. He was proficient in many languages, including French, German, Italian, English, and others, and he used them all at one time or another. His gift was primarily a verbal one but, as one critic puts it, "derives from an acute ear and inherent musical taste as well as from the verbal associations of scholar and linguist." His puns and riddles are sometimes hilarious, sometimes baffling. His satire is brilliant and his social commentary often biting. He avoided verbosity, thinking that it detracted from the actual events being narrated and drew too much attention to the writer. His wit is evident in passages like the following from Ulysses: "Come forth Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job." His feelings about his own creativity and work are best stated in a short passage from A Portrait of the Artist, where he writes, "The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails."

Joyce's life was, for a time, that of the starving artist, trying to support a family on an English teacher's wage. Of course, he eventually made a good living from book royalties. He made a sort of Faustian bargain when he left his homeland for good. Ireland, and especially Dublin, had a special place in his heart. Nearly everything he ever wrote was based there, and yet he could not bring himself to return, living instead in Zurich, Rome, Trieste, Paris, Austria and elsewhere in Europe. His support group, the literary circle of the time, as well as his friends, were always changing. He abandoned his family, the original support structure, because he could not handle the political and religious hypocrisies of Ireland. Joyce seems to fit the model of creativity set down by Howard Gardener in his book, Creating Minds. Joyce, as an individual, was extremely talented, drawing on many childhood impressions and experiences. He mastered his domain at a young age and then began to innovate. He was helped along the way by friends and family, but had to sacrifice his homeland.

Ulysses still sells over 100,000 copies a year. In 1993 Joyce's picture along with the opening paragraph of Finnegans Wake was printed on the Irish ten pound note and every year more careful study of his work is done. In the end, Joyce was devastated at the poor reception of his last work, but if he had lived he would have seen his star rise to greater heights than any writer of our century.

Bibliography:

Ellman, Richard. James Joyce. Oxford University Press, New York: 1982.

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The Viking Press, New York: 1964.

Joyce, James. Ulysses. Random House, New York: 1990.

Magalaner, Marvin and Richard Kain. Joyce: The man, the Work, the Reputation. New York University Press, New York: 1956.

Power, Arthur. Conversations With James Joyce. Harper & Row Publishers, New York: 1974.

http://aristotle.algonet.se/artbin/pjoyces.html