Part 1: Introduction

Joyce's life and works

The backgrounds of Dubliners

A note on the text

Part 2: Summaries

Stories of childhood

Stories of adolescence

Stories of mature life

Stories of public life

Death (and resurrection?)

Part 3: Commentary

The semantics of Dubliners

Structure in Dubliners

The texture of Dubliners

Part 4: Hints for study

General questions

Questions on individual stories

Suggestions for answers

Part 5: Suggestions for further reading

The author of these notes

Joyce's life and works

James Joyce was born on 2 February 1882 in Rathgar, a south Dublin

suburb, the oldest boy among the ten children of John Stanislaus Joyce

(1849-1931)-an improvident rate collector and 'praiser of his own

past', ever present in James's works from Dubliners to Finnegans Wake

(where he is called 'Earwicker")-and Mary Jane ('Mae') Murray

(1859-1903). James was baptised in the Roman Catholic faith on

5 February at the church of St Joseph, Terenure.

In 1887 the Joyce family moved to Bray, a seaside town fifteen miles

south ofDublin, where they werejoined by Mrs 'Dante' Heam Conway

from Cork. Mrs Conway was to act as governess to the children and play

an important part in the Christmas scene of Portrait oflhe Artist. From

1888 to 1891 Joyce studied at Clongowes Wood College, Sallins, County

Kildare, a well-known Jesuit school. In 1891, on the occasion of the

death of Charles Stewart Parnell ('the uncrowned king of Ireland') on 6

October-henceforth to become 'Ivy Day'-Joyce composed his first

printed work, in honour of the hero: Et Tu, Healy.

In 1892 the family, in financial difficulty, moved first to Blackrock and

then to Dublin city. After a brief interlude with the Christian Brothers

on North Richmond Street, Joyce resumed his Jesuit schooling-

without fees-at Belvedere College. He was to remain there from 6

April 1893, until 1898. In 1898 he entered University College, Dublin,

where he read French, Italian and English, and made friends with

George Clancy, Vincent Cosgrave, Francis Skeffington, Thomas Kettle,

John Francis Byrne, Oliver Gogarty and others. On 1 April 1900, the

Fortnightly Review published his essay 'Ibsen's New Drama' for which

the playwright wrote to thank Joyce. The following year, St Stephen 's

refused another essay, attacking the Irish Literary Theatre: 'The Day of

the Rabblement'. This was privately printed in November 1901.

In 1902, Joyce left for Paris in order to study medicine, although he

soon retumed to Dublin. His second trip to Paris in 1903 was cut short in

April when he received a telegram: 'Mother dying come home. Father'

Mrs Joyce died in August.

In 1904 Joyce started work on the first draft of Stephen Hero. During

that year he fell in love with Nora Bamacle, a Galway girl who worked at

Finn's Hotel in Dublin. He took her out on 16 June (the day of Ulysses).

On 13 August he published the first story of Dubliners, 'The Sisters', in

A.E.'s (George Russell's) Irish Homestead. In September he stayed at the

Sandycove Martello Tower with Oliver Gogarty and a man named

Samuel Trench, but soon quarrelled with them. In October Joyce

departed with Nora to Zurich, where he expected to teach at the Berlitz

school. As the position was not available however, he took another one

in Pola. In 1905 he obtained a teaching post in Trieste where he carried

on with the composition of Dubliners. His son, Giorgio, was born on 27

July 1905. Soon after this Joyce was joined in Trieste by his brother

Stanislaus, on whom he was to depend heavily for financial support for

many years to come. It was in December of that year that he sent the

twelve stories of Dubliners to the publisher Grant Richards. Although

the manuscript was accepted, difficulties arose with the printer in 1906.

Joyce was now in Rome where he worked in a bank-ajob he disliked.

By February 1907 he was back in Trieste. That year saw the publication

of Joyce's poems under the title Chamber Music and the birth of a

daughter, Lucia Anna.

The next six years were marked by the beginning of Joyce's eye

troubles; his last two trips to Ireland-to Dublin in 1909 (where he

suffered an acute attack ofjealousy, to be remembered in Exiles) and to

Galway and Dublin in 1912; and the start of his correspondence with

EzraPoundin 1913. In 1914A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Manwas

published serially in the The Egoist (the work was published in book

form in 1916, in New York). In 1907 Dubliners had been rejected by

Richards; it was then accepted and rejected by Maunsel, the Dublin

publishing company with which Joyce had signed a contract for it in

1909; and finally taken up again by Richards and published in London.

In 1915 the Joyces moved to Zurich; they retumed to Trieste in 1919,

and then chose Paris as their residence in 1920. Joyce's play Exiles was

published in 1918 in London and New York, where The Little Review

began to serialise Ulysses. But it was not until 1922 that the full text was

published in book form, in Paris. The French translation, in which Joyce

assisted, appeared in 1929.

In 1923 Joyce started Work in Progress (which became Finnegans

Wake), the first fragments of which were published in Paris the following

year, in Ford Madox Ford's Transatlantic Review. Most ofthe book was

subsequently published in various magazines. His second collection of

poems, Pomes Penyeach, was published in 1927.