This portrait of James Joyce places the writer in the context of Irish society during his lifetime. At once biography, reference, criticism, and contextual study, the book is enhanced by a selection of illustrative material including maps, sketches, and paintings, and contemporary and specially comissioned photographs. Ranging widely over the body of Joyce's work (and referring especially to "Finnegan's Wake"), it also includes a chronology of Joyce's life, brief biographies of his friends and contemporaries, and bibliography.

David Pierce focuses on the many different ways that Ireland, its people, and its history and culture shaped and were reflected in Joyce's work. He discusses the nature of Victorian Ireland, Joyce's Cork background, his family and education, his attitudes toward religion and sexuality, and the significance of Parnell and Tom Moore in Joyce's writing. He analyzes the influence of Joyce's wife, Nora, particularly in "Exiles" and "Ulysses".

He looks at "Dubliners" in terms of Joyce's topographical imagination and understanding of social class, explores the author's celebration of Dublin as an Edwardian city, and shows the significance of cultural changes in the period. Examining three episodes of "Ulysses", he highlights Joyce's critique of modern Ireland. The book concludes with a discussion of "Finnegan's Wake" in the context of Joyce's exile in Europe, his attitudes towards European Jews, and his views of the Irish Civil War.

Format: Hardcover
Published: in UK in 1992
Publisher: Yale University Press
Pages: 256
Language: English
ISBN 13: 9780300050554
ISBN 10: 0300050550