Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the first novel written by Irish writer James Joyce. It is written in a modernist style and traces the intellectual and religious awakening of young Stephen Dedalus. Stephen Dedalus is Joyce’s fictional alter ego, named after the Greek god Daedalus. This work is widely regarded as one of Joyce’s best novels.

Stephen Dedalus

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel that focuses on the life of Stephen Dedalus. The novel explores Stephen’s mental, emotional, and creative development. The novel also examines his family life, including his resentment toward his sister. The novel is also filled with a variety of societal pressures, from the pressures of adolescence to the social inequities of Dublin.

Incense of Stephen’s Green

Joyce uses smell as a key motif in his narrative. In Chapter II of Incense of Stephen’s Green, the artist notices the moral odour of a church and a faint incense rising from many hearts. This figurative smell has many elements of previous chapters, but it is important to recognize that this is Stephen’s own opinion, which is important in interpreting the poem.

Joyce’s alter ego

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-autobiographical novel by James Joyce. It tells the story of Stephen Dedalus, a young artist who leaves behind his religious and sexual beliefs in order to pursue an aesthetic awakening. The story explores a wide range of themes, including the quest for artistic independence, the complexities of religion, and the relationship between art and faith.

James Joyce’s sense of smell

The novel’s title suggests that James Joyce has a prescient sense of smell. The narrator, Stephen, is aware of the smell of his father’s face, the smell of a wet bed, and the “queer smell” of an oilsheet. In the following scenes, Stephen is aware of the smell of his mother, and she sings a song to him. He is also aware of the smell of her piano.

Flaubert’s intertextuality

The novel Memoires of a Mad Man was written by Flaubert at age 16, recounting his devastating passion for Elisa Schlesinger, the eleven-year-old wife of a music publisher. It would take Flaubert 35 years to reveal his true feelings for her, but it would be the model for his later character Marie Arnoux in L’Education sentimentale, which was written in Novembre 1842 and 1843-45.