STUDY GUIDES General Editors: John Peck and Martin Coyle Macmillan Study Guides A Handbook of Writing for Engineers Joan van Emden Effective Communication for Science and Technology Joan van Emden Key Concepts in Politics Andrew Heywood Linguistic Terms and Concepts Geoffrey Finch Literary Terms and Criticism (second edition) John Peck and Martin Coyle The Mature Student's Guide to Writing Jean Rose Practical Criticism John Peck and Martin Coyle The Student's Guide to Writing John Peck and Martin Coyle The Study Skills Handbook Stella Cottrell Studying Economics Brian Atkinson and Susan Johns Studying History (second edition) Jeremy Black and Donald M. MacRaild How to Begin Studying English Literature (second edition) Nicholas Marsh How to Study a Jane Austen Novel (second edition) Vivien Jones How to Study Chaucer (second edition) Rob Pope How to Study Foreign Languages Marilyn Lewis How to Study an E. M. Forster Novel Nigel Messenger How to Study a Thomas Hardy Novel John Peck How to Study James Joyce John Blades How to Study Linguistics Geoffrey Finch How to Study Modern Poetry Tony Curtis How to Study a Novel (second edition) John Peck How to Study a Poet (second edition) John Peck How to Study a Renaissance Play Chris Coles o How to Study Romantic Poetry (second edition) Paul 'Flinn How to Study a Shakespeare Play (second edition) John Peck and Martin Coyle How to Study Television Keith Selby and Ron Cowdery HOW TO STUDY JAMES JOYCE John Blades © John Blades 1996 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIT 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-0-333-59205-2 ISBN 978-1-349-13183-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-13183-9 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 1098765432 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 Contents General editors' preface VB Acknowledgements viii 1. Some reflections on the background to Joyce's novels 1 2. Dubliners: 'a nicely polished looking-glass' 9 3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: 'an order in every way appropriate' 57 4. Ulysses: 'in the heart of the hibernian metropolis' 103 5. Finnegans Wake: 'the purest kidooleyoon' 140 6. Writing an essay onJoyce 157 Further reading 163 For Elaine General editors' preface Everybody who studies literature, either for an examination or simply for pleasure, experiences the same problem: how to under stand and respond to the text. As every student of literature knows, it is perfectly possible to read a book over and over again and yet still feel baffled and at a loss as to what to say about it. One answer to this problem, of course, is to accept someone else's view of the text, but how much more rewarding it would be if you could work out your own critical response to any book you choose or are required to study. The aim of this series is to help you develop your critical skills by offering practical advice about how to read, understand and analyse literature. Each volume provides you with a clear method of study so that you can see how to set about tackling texts on your own. While the authors of each volume approach the problem in a different way, every book in the series attempts to provide you with some broad ideas about the kinds of texts you are likely to be studying, and some broad ideas about how to think about litera ture; each volume then shows you how to apply these ideas in a way which should help you construct your own analysis and inter pretation. Unlike most critical books, therefore, the books in this series do not simply convey someone else's thinking about a text, but encourage you and show you how to think about a text for yourself. Each book is written with an awareness that you are likely to be preparing for an examination, and therefore practical advice is given not only on how to understand and analyse literature, but also on how to organise a written response. Our hope is that although these books are intended to serve a practical purpose, they may also enrich your enjoyment of literature by making you a more confident reader, alert to the interest and pleasure to be derived from literary texts. John Peck Martin Coyle Acknowledgements The author and publishers wish to thank the following for permis sion to use copyright material: the Estate ofJ ames Joyce for extracts from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Hero, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake and the stories in Dubliners by James Joyce; copyright © the Estate ofJ ames Joyce. Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportu nity. 1 Some reflections on the background to Joyce's novels HAVE you ever asked anyone what happens when they read a novel? Naturally, all sorts of responses are possible. Some might answer that in a novel they explore another world and escape into it. Some might say that they react with the characters in it, identifying closely with them, maybe responding to their actions, morally or emotionally perhaps. Others are absorbed by the plot, avidly following and anticipating its turns, while others again savour the background or the setting. And there are those too who rave about the language or the author's style. In fact, I think as we read a novel we respond to all of these as well as to other aspects - and all at the same time. And it is always a personal response to the text. Different readers will come up with different views, interpretations, of the same text and even the same reader will react to the same text in a different way each time he or she reads it. We each bring our own individual experiences to the text of a novel, and reading seems to me to be the process of interaction between the two. This is true whether we read for pleasure or because we must study a novel for an exam. However, studying a novel for an exam should not preclude the possibility of deriving pleasure from it. Indeed, I believe the opposite: that the point of studying a novel is really to increase the reader's pleasure from it. The aim should be to increase our awareness of how all these vari ous aspects of a novel operate together, by examining features like themes, language, structure and background, and in such a way that our response is both broadened and intensified by our study. I have stressed the importance of a personal response to the text of a novel, and I am convinced that before you go deeper into a novel by reading a study such as this one, you should make a record of your own feelings about it, especially your first impres-