My Papers

There have been many great authors throughout history. The late James Joyce of Dublin is considered to have been one of the greatest authors of all time. He was a recipient of the Nobel Prize for literary achievements. His works have been compared to those of William Shakespeare and John Milton. Joyce is well-known for his unique way of using words and the English Language to convey his writing (Gale).

Born on Candelas Day, February 2, 1882, to a wealthy family who resided on the Southside of Dublin, James Joyce was destined to be great. He was the oldest surviving son of four and attended an exclusive Jesuit School in Ireland. After the birth of his three brothers and six sisters, money started to get tight. By the time Joyce reached the age of ten his father had become a chronic alcoholic and had wasted away the bulk of the family fortune by drinking, gambling, and by his failure to keep a steady job. Eventually, the family of twelve was forced to leave their lavish lifestyle behind and reside in the northern inner city area of Dublin.

Joyce was a pioneer and a model for authors who believed in free written expression. Most of his works feature inventive language, and many of them have been criticized for being too obscure in their references or too blunt in their descriptions of intimate matters, including sexual activity. His writing evolved steadily from adolescent lyrics to precise vignettes to bold combinations of autobiography and satire. Most of his works deal with everyday life in 20th-century Dublin. Joyce once remarked that "the extraordinary is the province of journalists," and most of his writings concentrate on ordinary people, objects, and places.

Although Joyce renounced the Roman Catholic faith, his writings frequently refer to the rich tradition of the Church. He compared the artist and the writer to the priest, who performs certain social and aesthetic functions in a dramatic display. He also compared the literary use of symbols to the religious use of sacraments, which are the outward and visible representations of inward and invisible spiritual states. (One such sacrament is baptism, which represents the favor of God bestowed on an individual.) Joyce called some of his early sketches epiphanies; the term epiphany, often used in a religious context, means an understanding that comes about through a sudden intuitive realization. A Joycean epiphany is a small descriptive moment, action, or phrase that holds much larger meaningÐ'-for example, a single word or gesture that explains a person's entire personality.

Joyce's father, John Joyce, coincidentally met and befriended Friar Commee SJ, Headmaster of Belvedere College, resulting in Joyce and his brothers attending the school on full financial aid. Joyce attended Belvedere College until 1898 when he transferred to Catholic University, a Jesuit Institution. Although Joyce eventually withdrew from the Catholic Faith, he gave recognition to his teachers showing that he still respected what he had been taught. "From them I have learned to arrange things in such a way that they become easy to survey and judge" Ð'- James Joyce (Billig).

After graduating in 1902, Joyce moved to Paris, France where he studied medicine and professional vocals. In a short period of time, he failed at both and returned home to Dublin the following year after receiving the news of his mother's serious illness and eventual death.

James Joyce viewed writing as a hobby at first. It was during the time he was drifting in and out of medical school that he started to write as a profession. During the summer of 1904 he met and married Nora Barnacle. They had two children, Giorgio and Lucia. Nora was not very educated. She had previously worked as a chambermaid in a Dublin hotel. She was not very fond of Joyce's writing