Building a Better Vocabulary

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ż Even in these early works, Joyce’s highly developed style

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of the literary tradition and his place in it. He also displays a

thorough understanding of Irish society, the Catholic Church,

popular music and opera, and much more.

z Joyce’s 1922 masterpiece, Ulysses, is also erudite, but it’s a more

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and the action meanders through the city of Dublin, following a

Jewish canvasser named Leopold Bloom, a 20th-century version of

Homer’s Odysseus.

ż The novel is famous for using a different literary style in each

of its 18 chapters and for its use of stream-of-consciousness

narration. This technique allows readers to follow Bloom’s

thoughts as he walks about town, ultimately meeting up with

Stephen Dedalus, the main character from A Portrait of the

Artist as a Young Man.

ż Ulysses contains thousands of recondite references to music,

drama, poetry, and contemporary Irish politics, culture, and

even street geography. Moreover, it’s marked by its literary

experimentation, using new forms to echo ancient ones.

ż Joyce himself said of the work: “I’ve put in so many enigmas

and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries

arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring

one’s immortality.”

z Joyce’s magnum opus, )LQQHJDQV:DNH, published in 1939, is the

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language. Here, for example, is the opening line: “riverrun, past

Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us

by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and

Environs.” Several authors have written “keys” to Finnegans

:DNH to help readers understand its abstruse mythological and

literary references.