英語圏で最も重要な作家の一人ながら、作品が難解と評されるジェイムズ・ジョイス（1882-1941年）。2022年にモダニズムの代表作品と評される『ユリシーズ』が初版刊行から100周年を迎えるにあたり、その業績に注目します。作家の生涯における出来事や時代背景を踏まえ、祖国アイルランドの文化的コロニアリズムからの脱却や、日常的な心理、風景を紡ぐ自然主義的な手法と象徴主義的手法の融合など、作品の主題との関係性を浮き彫りにします。(cf. Dubliners, Ulysses, その他の作品も Oxford World's Classicsより発売中）
 

• Explores the novels and short stories of James Joyce, one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century
• Coincides with the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ulysses, which marked the beginning of the modern novel
• Analyses the literary traditions and social factors influencing Joyce's distinctive complex style
• Interweaves Joyce's life and history with his books

   
James Joyce is one of the greatest writers in English. His first book, A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man laid down the template for the Coming of Age novel, while his collection of short stories, Dubliners, is of perennial interest. His great modern epic, Ulysses, took the city of Dublin for its setting and all human life for its subject, and its publication in 1922 marked the beginning of the modern novel. Joyce's final work, Finnegans Wake is an endless experiment in narrative and language. But if Joyce is a great writer he is also the most difficult writer in English. Finnegans Wake is written in a freshly invented language, and Ulysses exhausts all the forms and styles of English. Even the apparently simple Dubliners has plots of endless complexity, while the structure of A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man is exceptionally intricate.
  
This Very Short Introduction explores the work of this most influential yet complex writer, and analyses how Joyce's difficulty grew out of his situation as an Irish writer unwilling to accept the traditions of his imperialist oppressor, and contemptuous of the cultural banality of the Gaelic revival. Joyce wanted to investigate and celebrate his own life, but this meant investigating and celebrating the drunks of Dublin's pubs and the prostitutes of Dublin's brothels. No subject was alien to him and he developed the naturalist project of recording all aspects of life with the symbolist project of finding significant correspondences in the most unlikely material. Throughout, Colin MacCabe interweaves Joyce's life and history with his books, and draws out their themes and connections.