Walking through Dublin….

Dublin, St. Stephen green

Dublin, Earl Street

James Joyce Bridge

…and Sandycove

Joyce tower

JAMES JOYCE (Dublin, 2 February 1882- Zurich, 13 January 1941)

Biography

♣Born into new Catholic middle class

♣Educated in Dublin by the Jesuits

♣1902-1903 Travels to Paris

♣1904 meets future wife, Nora

Bernacle

♣1904 travels to Trieste, Rome, Zurich,

Paris

♣Died on 13 January 1941

“In many ways Joyce invented

Dublin, and those of us living there

now have to live in it according to his

myopic lens”

Edward Barrington

Symposium, London, June 24, 2000

Relationship

between

James Joyce and Italo Svevo

When Italo Svevo, the most important author of the Italian Decadentism,

needed to learn the English language, he took lessons from James Joyce.

Joyce at this time was living in Trieste, northen Italy.

Italo Svevo (pseudonym of Ettore Schimdt), who was

ignored by Italian critics, showed his novels to his

teacher.

The relationship between the two authors became, from

that moment, a great friendship.

James Joyce’s novels

Ulysses

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Dubliners

Italo Svevo was one of the inspirations for the character of Leopold Bloom in Ulysses

Italo Svevo’s novels

La Coscienza di Zeno (Confessions of Zeno) Senilita’

(As a man growes older)

Una vita

(A life)

Joyce and Svevo used in their

novels new techniques such as the

impersonality of the author and the

psychological analysis.

Sigmund Freud’s influence

- stream of consciousness

- free direct speech

- interior monologue

Ulysses Episode 1 – Telemachus

STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of

lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing gown, ungirdled,

was sustained gently-behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft

and intoned:

-- Introibo ad altare Dei.

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:

-- Come up, Kinch. Come up, you fearful jesuit.

Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and

blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding country and the awaking

mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and

made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen

Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and

looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length,

and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the bowl

smartly.

La Coscienza di Zeno

from the chapter “Story of a commercial association”

That day the weather had turned fine again. A splendid spring sun was shining,

and, in the still-soaked countryside, the air was clear and healthy. My lungs, taking

the exercise I hadn't allowed myself for several days, swelled. I was all health and

strength. Health is evident only through comparison. I compared myself to poor

Guido and I climbed, higher and higher, with my victory in the very struggle where

he had fallen. All was health and strength around me. The country, too, with its

young grass. The long and abundant watering, the other day's catastrophe, now

produced only beneficent effects, and the luminous sun was the warmth desired

by the still frozen earth. Surely, the more we moved away from the catastrophe,

the more disagreeable that blue sky would be, unless it could darken in time. But

this was the forecast of experience and I didn't remember it; it grips me only now

as I write. At that moment there was in my spirit only a hymn to my health and all of

nature's: undying health.

JAMES JOYCE AND ITALO SVEVO

EDUCATIONAL GOALS FOR STUDENTS :

1- To study the historical movement of the early years European literature of ‘900

2- To get to know the most important novels of Joyce and Svevo

3- To compare the two authors

4- To manage a conversation (analysis and discussion) about the contents of the module

5- To answer to the questions about the most important contents of the module

6- To answer to the questions about the texts of Joyce and Svevo