James Joyce

In this new work, Andrew Gibson sets out to reverse the traditional view of Joyce and his work as the paradigm of international modernism in literature. Where criticism has usually consigned Ireland to secondary status in Joyce's work, Gibson firmly relocates the writer and his work in Ireland, showing them at all points to be intricately bound up in Irish history, politics and culture. Crucially, he views Joyce's departure for Europe as allegiance to an Irish emigratory tradition that is centuries old, rather than the abandonment of the old country. Accounts of Joyce's life and work have tended to give rather short shrift to his profound engagements with Irish history and politics. Gibson argues that there have been important reasons for this, themselves often historical and political. Tracing the development of Joyce as a critic and writer, he maps this development to specific political and historical events. Beginning with the political traditions and allegiances that formed part of Joyce's family background, he pinpoints the fall of Parnell, the collapse of political hope, and the transfer of political energies to cultural activity as crucial in the writer's early formation. Joyce's immense renown has been due above all to his reputation as an experimental, modernist writer. His works' open-endedness and seemingly infinite availability to differing interpretations has allowed criticism to constantly update his politics. The book argues that Joyce's most important concerns were historically material and specific. Yet, it also recognises that Joyce himself encouraged and fostered the view of his work as modernist, which became the dominant tradition in Joyce studies.

ISBN 1861892772   Pages 192 ISBN13 9781861892775 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Reaktion Books   Weight (grammes) 308 Imprint Reaktion Books   Published in London Format Paperback   Series title Critical Lives Publication date 28 Apr 2006   Height (mm) 200 Writer of introduction Kiberd, Declan   Width (mm) 130 Library of Congress PR   Spine width (mm) 13 DEWEY 823.912   Academic level General DEWEY edition DC22

1		History, politics, the Joycean biography		11
2		Parnell, Fenianism and the Joyces		18
3		Youth in nineties Dublin		27
4		An intellectual young man, 1898-1903		35
5		The artist as critic		42
6		16 June 1904		50
7		Continental exile		60
8		Looking back : Dubliners		68
9		A second outpost of empire		77
10		The battle of the book		89
11		Ireland made me : a portrait of the artist		95
12		Joyce, Ireland and the war		107
13		Writing Ulysses		115
14		The national epic		121
15		Monsieur Joyce in Paris		132
16		Joyce and free statehood		138
17		Joyce enterprises		145
18		A wild, blind, aged bard		151
19		The megalith		157

With an introduction by Declan Kiberd 'Written in a compact and graceful style, Gibson's book can be read in two or three happy and absorbing afternoons ... Despite, or perhaps because of, its partialities, James Joyce makes for engrossing and highly satisfying reading. Gibson's knowledge of Irish history, like his prose, is impeccable, and his application of a distinct point of view about Joyce to his life and career illuminates many aspects of them anew ... a fine study. James Joyce Literary Supplement Gibson's book has much to recommend it ... This is an important study that should send us all back to the master's scriptures with wiped eyes and big questions. -- Gerry Dukes Irish Independent The care with which Gibson analyses the play Exiles in his study is essential reading, as is his change in perspective regarding Ulysses itself, where he emphasizes the novel's profoundly Irish historical and existential freight. El Pais, Uruguay

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