*Aspects of the Novel

The major idea to come out of this book of criticism is the idea of “flat” characters and “round” characters. Forster believed that Dickens was a strong writer of both types.He also asserts that novles should strive to be more than just stories. He differentiates between “form” and “content.” He differentiates between a story (“the king died.”) and a plot (“the queen then died of grief.”).

James Joyce (1882-1941)

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an expatriate Irish writer and poet, widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. He is best known for his short story collection Dubliners (1914), and his novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), and Finnegans Wake (1939).Although most of his adult life was spent outside the country, Joyce's Irish experiences are essential to his writings and provide all of the settings for his fiction and much of their subject matter. His fictional universe is firmly rooted in Dublin and reflects his family life and the events and friends (and enemies) from his school and college days. Due to this, he became both one of the most cosmopolitan and one of the most local of all the great English language modernists.

For the exam, absolutely be able to identify the passages from Ulysses and A Portrait.

Dubliners

The only story that's very likely to appear from Dubliners is "The Dead."

The characters include:

* Kate Morkan and Julia Morkan - Sisters who throw an Epiphany party. * Lily - Maid, insulted by Gabriel Conroy when he asks about her love life. * Gabriel Conroy - Professor, the main character of the story. * Gretta Conroy - Gabriel's wife. * Miss Ivors - Fellow professor, very patriotic about Ireland. * Michael Furey - Gretta's first childhood love.

**The famous closing paragraph:

"A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

Portrait of the Artists as a Young Man

It is the story of the growth and education of Stephen Dedalus, named after the Grecian mythological craftsman Daedalus.

A Portrait is one of the key examples of the Künstlerroman in English literature. Joyce's novel traces the intellectual and religio-philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus as he begins to question and rebel against the Catholic and Irish conventions he has been brought up in. He finally leaves for Paris to pursue his calling as an artist.

Passages to be familiar with:

The opening:

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo

His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he had a hairy face.

He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne lived: she sold lemon platt.

O, the wild rose blossoms On the little green place.

He sang that song. That was his song.

O, the green wothe botheth.

When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother put on the oilsheet. That had the queer smell.

The famous declaration of Stephen Dedalus:

APRIL 26. Mother is putting my new secondhand clothes in order. She prays now, she says, that I may learn in my own life and away from home and friends what the heart is and what it feels. Amen. So be it. Welcome, O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.