The novel closely traces Joyceâs early years. Portrait was written while he was waiting for Dubliners to be published, a process that took eight years and so frustrated Joyce that he once threw the manuscript of Portrait into a fire, causing his family to run to save it. His alter-ego remained Stephen Dedalus, named after Daedalus, the mythological Greek craftsman and father of Icarus. He abandoned the attempt halfway through, and refocused his efforts on Portrait, a shorter, sharper work in the modernist style. Joyce originally planned writing a realist autobiographical novel of 63 chapters titled Stephen Hero. The novel is written in a modernist style, with dialog and narration blending together in a kind of stream-of-consciousness meant to invoke the blurriness of memory. Â 3 in the Modern Libraryâs 100 Best NovelsĪ Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is Joyceâs first novel, published after the previous success of his short story collection Dubliners.

Part of the EncyclopÃ¦dia Britannicaâs Great Books of the Western World Standard EbooksĪ Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James JoyceĨ5,551 words (5 hours 12 minutes) with a reading ease of 71.04 (fairly easy) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce - Free ebook download - Standard Ebooks: Free and liberated ebooks, carefully produced for the true book lover.

Portrait artist as a young man