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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Classics)
James Joyce's coming-of-age story, a tour de force of style and technique
The first, shortest, and most approachable of James Joyce’s novels, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man portrays the Dublin upbringing of Stephen Dedalus, from his youthful days at Clongowes Wood College to his radical questioning of all convention. In doing so, it provides an oblique self-portrait of the young Joyce himself. At its center lie questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. Exuberantly inventive in style, the novel subtly and beautifully orchestrates the patterns of quotation and repetition instrumental in its hero’s quest to create his own character, his own language, life, and art: “to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”
This Penguin Classics edition is the definitive text, authorized by the Joyce estate and collated from all known proofs, manuscripts, and impressions to reflect the author’s original wishes.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
The first, shortest, and most approachable of James Joyce’s novels, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man portrays the Dublin upbringing of Stephen Dedalus, from his youthful days at Clongowes Wood College to his radical questioning of all convention. In doing so, it provides an oblique self-portrait of the young Joyce himself. At its center lie questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. Exuberantly inventive in style, the novel subtly and beautifully orchestrates the patterns of quotation and repetition instrumental in its hero’s quest to create his own character, his own language, life, and art: “to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”
This Penguin Classics edition is the definitive text, authorized by the Joyce estate and collated from all known proofs, manuscripts, and impressions to reflect the author’s original wishes.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Community Reviews
There is a germ of things and thoughts that determines flight/fall of oneâs being ⦠If Hamlet had it on his sleeve, albeit disinclinedly, then Stephen has it in his shadows, which threaten himself to pass by from a mere distance.
The germ here very much breathes in the âvagueness of his wonderâ, as Stephen would call it; in the stillness of the stare he would elicit when the most important moments of his beingâs life are discussed or dished out by others but not himself. In this sense of wonderment, which would easily eventually be seen as bewilderment of sorts, Stephen lets the germ to grow.
The style of Joyceâs writing here determines quick and fast the slow dropping of words from a certain order, one by one, and persist longer; so that words, as they re-appear, in the parallel tributary of more words and more thoughts, appear in the crystal form of the piece.
Nonetheless for Joyce, the meaning of the tale does not lie in explicating the essential, but it hovers around in the symbolism of the immanent.
Is âvaguenessâ then the point of departure through which Stephen initiates himself in the world; âWas that boyish love? Was that chivalry? Was that poetry?â Is it the very âdross of earthâ that eventually evokes a splitting stinging pain of âconscienceâ. And isnât it in the quagmire of a peculiar setting which Stephen claims to reject in imbibing that his disinterested âsoul is bornâ?
If there is a so called epiphanic moment for the reader of Stephenâs account, it certainly gets enmeshed within the stylistic-structural âfallâ and âflightâ the protagonistâs henceforth constitution of a âsoulâ whose aesthetic consciousness unfolds in the saudadic manifestation of memory enabling him to render art:
âAnd if he had judged her harshly? If her life were a simple rosary of hours, her life simple and strange as a birdâs life, gay in the morning, restless all day, tired at sundown? Her heart simple and willful as a birdâs heart?â
The shadowy vagueness and the disinterested disposition of the son or the student begins to take up something on his own -- âpaperâ beckons the âpencilâ beckons the words that are winged by memories that Stephen endears his life with.
âA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Manâ is the kind of a book which attempts to resist valuation; what could be termed as epiphanic moments of being, may not readily match the readerâs impulse, for the latter would have to partake in it as an experience for its own accord.
The germ here very much breathes in the âvagueness of his wonderâ, as Stephen would call it; in the stillness of the stare he would elicit when the most important moments of his beingâs life are discussed or dished out by others but not himself. In this sense of wonderment, which would easily eventually be seen as bewilderment of sorts, Stephen lets the germ to grow.
The style of Joyceâs writing here determines quick and fast the slow dropping of words from a certain order, one by one, and persist longer; so that words, as they re-appear, in the parallel tributary of more words and more thoughts, appear in the crystal form of the piece.
Nonetheless for Joyce, the meaning of the tale does not lie in explicating the essential, but it hovers around in the symbolism of the immanent.
Is âvaguenessâ then the point of departure through which Stephen initiates himself in the world; âWas that boyish love? Was that chivalry? Was that poetry?â Is it the very âdross of earthâ that eventually evokes a splitting stinging pain of âconscienceâ. And isnât it in the quagmire of a peculiar setting which Stephen claims to reject in imbibing that his disinterested âsoul is bornâ?
If there is a so called epiphanic moment for the reader of Stephenâs account, it certainly gets enmeshed within the stylistic-structural âfallâ and âflightâ the protagonistâs henceforth constitution of a âsoulâ whose aesthetic consciousness unfolds in the saudadic manifestation of memory enabling him to render art:
âAnd if he had judged her harshly? If her life were a simple rosary of hours, her life simple and strange as a birdâs life, gay in the morning, restless all day, tired at sundown? Her heart simple and willful as a birdâs heart?â
The shadowy vagueness and the disinterested disposition of the son or the student begins to take up something on his own -- âpaperâ beckons the âpencilâ beckons the words that are winged by memories that Stephen endears his life with.
âA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Manâ is the kind of a book which attempts to resist valuation; what could be termed as epiphanic moments of being, may not readily match the readerâs impulse, for the latter would have to partake in it as an experience for its own accord.
first jj book, was not as intimidating as i feared
needed to consult roommate on some religion stuff, probably still missed so much of it, esp with the politics⦠speaking of politics, ireland pride etc would probably hit harder if i understood more
the parts that didnât lose me were v good though, i want to read a sparknotes analysis of this book
needed to consult roommate on some religion stuff, probably still missed so much of it, esp with the politics⦠speaking of politics, ireland pride etc would probably hit harder if i understood more
the parts that didnât lose me were v good though, i want to read a sparknotes analysis of this book
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