James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born on 2nd February 1882 in the Dublin suburb of Rathgar. He is an icon not just of the Irish but for book lovers everywhere although many complain that his prose is difficult to engage with and enjoy as much as they would wish. One of the most influential of the modernist avant-garde school of the early 20th century he is best admired for Ulysses, published in 1922, a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominent among these the stream of consciousness technique he perfected. Other major works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). Here we concentrate on his poems, often under rated and thought of as lesser works. They are simply as good as what you would expect from the thoughts, mind and pen of James Joyce. James Joyce died in Zurich on January 13th 1941 after surgery on a perforated ulcer. His style and work are perhaps best summed up in his own words "For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal."