A Portrait of the Artist as a Young ManA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-autobiographical novel by James Joyce, first serialized in The Egoist from 1914 to 1915 and published in book form in 1916. It depicts the formative years in the life of Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter ego of Joyce and a pointed allusion to the consummate craftsman of Greek mythology, Daedalus. A Portrait is a key example of the Künstlerroman (an artist's bildungsroman) in English literature. Joyce's novel traces the intellectual and religio-philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus as he begins to question and rebel against the Catholic and Irish conventions he has been brought up in. He finally leaves for Paris to pursue his calling as an artist. The work pioneers some of Joyce's modernist techniques that would later come to fruition in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. The Modern Library ranked Portrait as the third greatest English-language novel of the twentieth century. |
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Common terms and phrases
altar altar wine amid answered Athy beauty began body boys Brother Michael called Casey chapel Clongowes cold confession Cranly asked Cranly's cried damned Dante dark Davin Dedalus door Dublin esthetic eternity eyes face faint Father Arnall Father Dolan feel fell fellows felt fingers fire flame Fleming flyleaf gazed grey hand head hear heard heart hell Heron holy instant Ireland jesuit Jesus Jimmy Magee Kitty O'Shea knelt knew laugh Leicester Abbey light lips listening little schemer looked Lynch MacCann Mike Flynn mind morning mortal sin mother murmur night pain passed prayed prayer prefect of studies priest rector remember repeated round Saint seemed shame side silence sinner sins slowly smell smiling soft soul soutane Stephen Stephen Dedalus stood strange student tell Temple thing thought told turned Uncle Charles voice walked weary window words
Bibliographic information
| Title | A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Modern library of the world's best books Modern library |
| Author | James Joyce |
| Publisher | Egoist Limited, 1916 |
| Original from | the University of California |
| Digitized | May 31, 2018 |
| Length | 299 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |