A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man

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Summary: The smithy of the soul of the master artificer Daedalus
Review: This spiritual autobiography contains within it the themes which Joyce would expand and elaborate in his masterwork ' Ulysses'. But this work too is a masterpiece which gives us a portrait of an artist in development , and a picture of the society, the church, the family he would go into exile from . Joyce's center is in his consciousness of language, and his creation and recreation of it. He begins the autobiography in the baby language of beginning, and throughout adjusts styles to the situation and level of life he happens to be in. But the fundamental portrait is of the young artist in development, a development of his knowledge and artistic skills but also a development toward knowledge and estrangement from the world which he comes from. He will leave his family, and his native land and his church not so much for the exile of Trieste or Zurich or Paris or any place in particular but for that situation in which he can be wholly alone to shape in the smithy of his soul the uncreated conscience of his race. Joyce master of ironies sees perhaps the vanity of his own vaunted ambition but nonetheless is true to it to the end. This work is filled with remarkable and beautiful passages, interesting meetings and in a way memorable characters. It opens us to a new world the world of a great artist whose epiphanies on oval leaves will tell of the great transformation and development of his life- in which the spiritual realm is no longer the Catholic and conventionally religious but is usurpred by the great truth telling and beauty- creating realm of Literature. This work is in parts difficult to read, but even if with the help of some kind of crib it should be ventured . For it is a great work indeed.

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Summary: Word drunk
Review: Wordplay is immediately brought to the reader's attention. It is hard to think of a more word drunk person than James Joyce.

Even at Christmas Stephen Dedalus's family argued about Parnell. At school Stephen was accused by the English master of uttering heresy in his essay. He was tormented by other boys when he claimed Byron was a better poet than Tennyson.

James Joyce casts this story of his exquisitely sensitive, exquisitely gifted younger self into a tale of schooling under the Jesuits, being subject to the whims of everyone about him. It is said of the character that at Belvedere, one of the schools he attended, he had battled the squalor around him and the riot of his mind.

At the college everyone makes a retreat for the feast of St. Francis Xavier. Stephen sought to bring his senses under rigorous discipline for spiritual reasons. He tried to mortify sight, hearing, taste, smell. At the end of the restraint and piety he was still easily subject to imperfection to his surprise. His soul had a sensation of desolation, spiritual dryness. A priest asked Stephen if had had a call to the vocation. Stephen was destined not to be in an order, but to be on the outside and to have to make his way.

Finally Stephen is a university student. His mother has to wash him he is so dirty. He searches for the essence of beauty. He talks of Aquinas with the other students. He says he has lost his faith, but not his self-respect. There is beauty. There are women.

Speaking of faith, it seems blasphemous to attempt a review of this masterpiece.

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Summary: The Artificer
Review: _A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man_ by James Joyce marks the conception of one of the most famous characters in literature. Furthermore, it is the first of three novels that James Joyce published.

Simply put, this is: pure art. Nothing is written on a whim. It is obvious that every word has been carefully constructed to reach Joyce's ultimate purpose of drawing a portrait of a young man on the brink of artistic genius. Joyce succeeds with flying colors.

Stephan Daedalus has been an outsider all of his life. As Stephen listens to his father recall his own memories from childhood he finds that he is incapable of living out his youth with the same fervor and zest that his father was able to. His church cannot satisfy his unrest, and he refuses to serve "that in which he no longer believes." He reaches the bottom of the abyss and he then has an epiphany that gives his life direction. He will "forge in the smithy of [his] soul the uncreated conscience of [his] race."

The prose throughout the novel is beautiful. Joyce is truly the greatest writer of English prose I have ever read. His characters are wonderfully conceived and executed. While some readers might scream "overkill," I found the discussions of art to be some of the most interesting, though a bit didactic, passages in the novel.

This is the second time that I have read this novel, and as is always the case with great literature it was better this go around. It is not nearly as good as _Ulysses_; however, it would seem to me that one should read this before jumping into that labyrinth.