Placing Joyce
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2025
The story of how Joyce moved from an apparently unassuming strain of naturalism in his early fiction to the kaleidoscopic deconstruction of language and form in his final work, is one of the great arcs of world literature. Joyce produced landmark publications that would disrupt and re-imagine the writing of fiction across the globe, while remaining centered on the social conditions of early twentieth-century Dublin. His achievement is staggering: he re-wrote the terms of engagement for modern short fiction, the Bildungsroman, and the novel; he made a critical intervention in the Irish Literary Revival and became a touchstone of modernism; he invented new modes of naturalism and narration; he re-mapped classical and mythical influence on literary form; and, finally, he created his own riotous subversion of the English language. Associated with the heyday of European modernism, rooted in Irish history and culture, engaging in anti-imperial politics, with frank and challenging depictions of bodies and sex, Joyce’s oeuvre, despite censorship and snubbing, has had colossal influence over the past century and more.
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