James Joyce

By Tom Kirvan

In a country that has produced the likes of such literary giants as Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, and W.B. Yeats, Ireland also was home to one of the most brilliant writers of the 20th century – James Joyce.

Born in Dublin in 1882 into a middle-class family, Joyce was the eldest of 10 children. He graduated from the University College Dublin in 1902 before moving to mainland Europe to begin his writing career that was launched with the publication of a book of poems and then a short story collection that included “Dubliners” and “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.”

During World War I, Joyce lived mainly in Switzerland, focusing his writing attention on the novel, “Ulysses,” which tells the story of a single day, June 16, 1904 in Dublin, following three main characters, advertising agent Leopold Bloom and his wife Molly, and young intellectual Stephen Dedalus. The novel served as a modern parallel to Homer’s “The Odyssey,” with each chapter mirroring a part of the Greek poet’s epic poem.

“I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality,” Joyce said of “Ulysses,” which literary critics rank as one of the greatest works in the English language.

James Joyce*

Joyce – who died of a perforated ulcer on January 13, 1941 at the age of 58 – devoted more than 17 years on his last work, “Finnegans Wake,” a novel that explores the collective unconscious through a dream-like narrative centered on the Earwicker family. The book, while hailed in some quarters for its stylistic innovations, also provoked criticism for being challenging to read, comments that prompted a notable response from Joyce.

“A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery,” wrote Joyce, adding that “the actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.”

*Encyclopædia Britannica (n.d.). James Joyce [Image]. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 7, 2026 from https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Joyce#/media/1/306875/188964