Other editions of book Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) is the first novel of Irish writer James Joyce. A Künstlerroman in a modernist style, it traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter ego of Joyce and an allusion to Daedalus, the consummate craftsman of Greek mythology. Stephen questions and rebels against the Catholic and Irish conventions under which he has grown, culminating in his self-exile from Ireland to Europe.

In this largely autobiographical coming-of-age story, James Joyce describes the awakening young mind of a middle-class Irish Catholic boy named Stephen Dedalus. The story follows Stephen's development from his early troubled boyhood through an adolescent crisis of faith--partially inspired by the famous "hellfire sermon" preached by Father Arnall and partly by the guilt of his own precocious sexual adventures--to his discovery of his ultimate destiny as a poet. Written in a unique voice that reflects the age and emotional state of its protagonist, the novel explores questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. With richly symbolic language and a boldly original style, this most personal of Joyce's works confirms his place as one of the world's greatest writers.

James Joyce's first novel, a poignant coming of age tale, is brought to the reader anew in this splendidly produced edition. First published in 1916, this story follows the unconventional and iconoclastic Stephen Dedalus, a young artist and thinker strongly modelled upon Joyce. In part autobiographical, the story charts the departure of Dedalus from traditional Irish views of Catholicism. As a result of this stifling, Stephen embarks on a journey of self-exile to Europe, where his artistic awakening and development proceeds apace. As with other works of Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man is notable for its original stylistic elements: through the use of free indirect speech, we witness the steady evolution of Dedalus's mind as he encounters and absorbs new locales and experiences. The change of outlook and philosophy, whereby the young man embraces aestheticism and a love of beauty, comes in spite of the advice of his best friend Cranly to make compromise with the deeply held traditions of his Irish homeland. Poignantly, the book opens with the following quotation from Ovid's Metamorphosis: Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes. ("And he turned his mind to unknown arts.")

In this largely autobiographical coming-of-age story, James Joyce describes the awakening young mind of a middle-class Irish Catholic boy named Stephen Dedalus. The story follows Stephen's development from his early troubled boyhood through an adolescent crisis of faith-partially inspired by the famous hellfire sermon preached by Father Arnall and partly by the guilt of his own precocious sexual adventures-to his discovery of his ultimate destiny as a poet. Written in a unique voice that reflects the age and emotional state of its protagonist, the novel explores questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. With richly symbolic language and a boldly original style, this most personal of Joyce's works confirms his place as one of the world's greatest writers.

2011 Reprint of 1916 Edition. This is a semi-autobiographical novel by James Joyce that describes the formative years of the life of Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter ego of Joyce and an allusion to the consummate craftsman of Greek mythology, Daedalus. A novel written in Joyce's characteristic free indirect speech style, "A Portrait" is a major example of the Künstlerroman (an artist's Bildungsroman) in English literature. Joyce's novel traces the intellectual and religious-philosophical awakening of young Stephen Dedalus as he begins to question and rebel against the Catholic and Irish conventions with which he has been raised. He finally leaves for abroad to pursue his ambitions as an artist. The work is an early example of some of Joyce's modernist techniques that would later be represented in a more developed manner by "Ulysses" and "Finnegan's Wake". The novel, which has had a huge influence on novelists across the world, was ranked by Modern Library as the third greatest English-language novel of the 20th century.