Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce
- The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Note on the Cambridge Companion to James Joyce, Third Edition
- Chronology of Joyce’s Life
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Dubliners
- 2 Stephen Hero and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- 3 Ulysses
- 4 Reading Ulysses Historically
- 5 De-Confusing Confession at Finnegans Wake
- 6 Joyce’s Shorter Works
- 7 Joyce the Irishman
- 8 Joyce the European
- 9 Joyce, Colonialism, and Nationalism
- 10 Gender Politics
- 11 Sex and Sexuality
- 12 Joyce and the Everyday
- 13 Joyce and Nature
- 14 Periodical Publication and Modernism
- 15 Writing, Reading, Revising, Editing, Archiving
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to …
2 - Stephen Hero and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Recursion, Time, Emergence, and the Nation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2025
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce
- The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Note on the Cambridge Companion to James Joyce, Third Edition
- Chronology of Joyce’s Life
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Dubliners
- 2 Stephen Hero and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- 3 Ulysses
- 4 Reading Ulysses Historically
- 5 De-Confusing Confession at Finnegans Wake
- 6 Joyce’s Shorter Works
- 7 Joyce the Irishman
- 8 Joyce the European
- 9 Joyce, Colonialism, and Nationalism
- 10 Gender Politics
- 11 Sex and Sexuality
- 12 Joyce and the Everyday
- 13 Joyce and Nature
- 14 Periodical Publication and Modernism
- 15 Writing, Reading, Revising, Editing, Archiving
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to …
Summary
This chapter traces the emergence of Joyce’s aesthetic from Stephen Hero to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, analyzing the development of Stephen Dedalus as would-be artist in the context of Irish colonial experience. It pays particular attention to the influence of Oscar Wilde. Both Wilde’s Picture of Doran Gray and Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist belong to the Bildungsroman tradition, that is, to the novel of development, which their narratives challenge and transform by presenting the central character’s growth to maturity as deviating from cultural expectations rather than fulfilling them. Joyce’s narrative, however, points toward a new nation’s emergence.
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- The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce , pp. 31 - 46Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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