James Joyce's Ireland Book

This new portrait of the great Irish writer places Joyce in the context of Irish society during his lifetime. It explores the social, physical and intellectual atmosphere within which he wrote, and reveals the diverse ways in which he was shaped by, and responded to, his Irishness. The book is at once biography, work of reference and critical study. David Pierce looks at the history and topography of Dublin and its environs, and writes of its people, culture, religion, social structure, its songs, climate and colours. He discusses the nature of Victorian Ireland, Joyce's Cork background, his family and education, his attitudes towards Catholicism and sexuality, and the significance of Parnell and Tom Moore on his work. He analyses the influence of Joyce's wife, Nora, particularly in Ulysses and Exiles, and the writer's topographical imagination, as revealed in Dubliners, He explores Joyce's celebration of Dublin as an Edwardian city and considers his critique of modern Ireland. The book concludes with a discussion of Finnegans Wake in the context of Joyce's exile in Europe, his attitudes towards European Jews, and his views of the Irish Civil War.Read More