hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] james joyce was born in this house in brighton square dublin on february 2nd 1882. brighton's square actually a triangle is in the suburb of rathgar to the south of the city at that time it was a fashionable place to live james was the first child of what was to be a family of ten children family life in the early years was comfortable the father owned some other property and had a secure job in the office of collector of taxes they had servants john joyce came from cork he had a quick wit and was generally reckoned to be a good fellow and quite a character among his peers he drank and spent a lot but so did lots of his friends joyce was to mock his father but at the same time he admired his colorful language and followed in his taste for music his love of words and anecdote his talent for mimicry and his comic understanding of human nature he also learned to drink and spend like his father the mother mae was 10 years younger than her husband she was gentle and pretty and james was to have a powerful emotional relationship with her she was strongly catholic in her religious beliefs and in his youth he always turned to her for support and encouragement in 1884 the joyce family moved to bray 10 miles south of dublin they were still comfortably off but john joyce's hold on his finances was slipping gradually he used up his resources and after bray they were to move house more and more frequently always to a less comfortable home however when joyce was six he was sent to the best catholic preparatory school in ireland clongauss wood college about 26 miles west of dublin the masters were jesuits and jesuits were to be joyce's teachers until he finished university the effects of their instruction never left him and he was later to praise them for the sense of order and analysis they gave him he spent three years at clonka's where he was generally happy and particularly in his studies which he found came easily to him successful although he was so young his memories of clongaos remained strong and were to fill the pages of his books his religious feelings his sense of justice and injustice all these were stirred up at the school and impressed on his mind to a remarkable degree he finally had to leave clongao's his fees unpaid after almost a year of no school his father managed to enroll him at belvedere college a jesuit day school in the north of dublin here he was to prove an excellent student here he triumphed in english composition learned french italian latin and mathematics and once more of course came under the sway of the jesuits at belvedere he was very religious almost pious but as he matured and found his own beliefs and ideas veering away from those of his tutors and most of his fellows he was less successful in his work during his time here of course he got to know intimately the streets of the city with their remarkable decaying georgian facades the family lived for a time here in north richmond street not far from the school the house is now rather badly modernized a door further along the street shows more clearly what it might have been like in joyce's time decaying fading like much of dublin in autumn 1898 he enrolled as a student at university college at that time a couple of buildings on saint stephen's green while there joyce rebelled he missed or was late for lectures he did not think highly of the lecturers but he read a great deal and became interested in drama particularly in the drama of ibsen whose work so fascinated him that he learnt norwegian in order to be able to write to ibsen in 1900 he sent an article to the fortnightly review which published it in their april number and paid him 12 guineas a princely sum ibsen sent a message of appreciation of his article it was joyce's first appearance in print a happening he was to find very difficult to repeat over the ensuing years he went to london with his father on the money from his ibsen article they saw eleanor dues in the theater and joyce went to see william archer ibsen's translator the london trip and his increasing knowledge of european literature made him feel more european than irish and this cut him off from his various friends at the university he was writing poems all through this period and read some of them to yates who must have recognized the talent in joyce for he continued to support him in various ways thereafter [Music] he graduated in 1902 and decided to study medicine there was no money to pay his fees with the vague idea of supporting himself by writing he decided to leave dublin for paris to study there he stayed only long enough to attend a few classes at the school of medicine before writing home to ask for money to pay for his return fare he tasted the brothels of paris before he left though it appears he was experienced enough in sexual matters from an early age in dublin he returned to the city again just before christmas he met at this time oliver sidjan goggity a student at oxford goggity was an attractive character for joyce studying medicine and attempting a literary career just as joyce was however goggity although witty talented blasphemous and obscene was also rich which made it easier for him lady gregory a key figure on the irish literary scene whom joyce had met as a student helped him get work reviewing books for the daily express this work enabled him to return to paris and his studies however his mother fell sick and he had to return to dublin again after only a couple of months dublin where his mother was dying was increasingly a difficult place for joyce to live his mother wanted him to take communion and confess his sins at easter and he refused her no matter how guilty it made him feel in paris he had finally left catholicism behind him and here was the mother he loved dying of cancer and begging him to repent he took as he was too regularly throughout his life to drinking it was a dublin custom after all and his friends were his drinking companions it helped him over the death of his mother which occurred four months after his return it helped him in his struggle against the irish literary establishment after all he had not much to show for himself and suddenly the daily express fired him his confidence required a boost dublin to joyce was far more than a hometown is to most people and even to most writers the remarkable buildings in the city had been put up in the heyday of the british domination of ireland protestants held sway where the bulk of the people were catholics and although there had been constant troubles throughout the 19th century there seemed little prospect of major change joyce in his walks to and from school and college picked up in intimate detail those features that made the city so distinctive and which were to form the background to his major novels the customs house with its notable dome was built in the late 18th century and features dramatically from many viewpoints in the city of course the river liffey which flows through the center here viewed downstream of the customs house is a focal point in dublin as are the numerous bridges over which joyce and his characters continually applauded these buildings known as the four courts were built about the same time as the customs house and dominate the upper part of the river [Music] trinity college our university until recently considered to be a protestant stronghold was founded by queen elizabeth the first and with its extensive grounds sits right in the heart of the city south of the river [Music] the character of the housing is equally remarkable built mostly in red brick the style is the finest georgian terrace upon terrace square after square rooms are spacious and the window is large nowadays great effort and a lot of money is going into their restoration but by the end of the 19th century dublin boasted the finest slums in europe these buildings built to house rich people had decayed into the picturesque hovels of the poor one gets the feeling from joyce's writing that every brick and stone of the city echoed in his mind [Music] our remarkable collection of photographs from this turn of the century period gives us an idea of the rougher parts of the city which joyce certainly knew [Music] the modern commercial part of the city bustled with life a main thoroughfare north of the river is o'connell street with the dramatic building of the post office in the center [Music] this is the dublin with which joyce was forever to escape from to look back on with distaste the place he could leave but the people their eccentricities their incredible warmth and wit their absurdities their religion and politics all these haunted him for the rest of his life by 1904 when he began to write in earnest he was only 21 but his memory was already packed full with the millions of images which had so impacted upon him from his earliest days the faces gestures personalities of these people he absorbed and recorded and was to recollect with fiendish accuracy this young man with his arrogant stance and sharp eyes and his suggestion of promise as yet unfulfilled seemed suddenly to spring to life in 1904 having had an autobiographical story called a portrait of the artist turned down by the editors of a new magazine he began to write stephen hero on february the second he worked hard at it and by mid-summer had produced a large volume [Music] and almost won a singing competition one a couple of years before by the famous irish tenor john mccormick joyce performed in concerts and even considered singing as a career he was so highly thought of that a prominent singing teacher offered him free lessons he had by then tired of the idea this street leads towards trinity college if you continue up here and turn to the right or south round the college green you are in nassau street walking there on june 10 1904 joyce saw a tall good-looking young woman with auburn hair and a proud stride this was nora barnacle he spoke to her and she allowed a conversation to develop she was employed at finn's hotel the name is only just visible nowadays further down the road it was a kind of rooming house not very smart but when he knew where she lived he didn't let go their relationship developed nora barnacle was born in galway city she was simple in the way that the unsophisticated life of a provincial town is simple she had no intellectual pretensions no understanding of literature but though she often mocked him she was to stick by him with her rather comic name of barnacle joyce's father is reported to have said when he heard of her she'll never leave him as nora was to be the love of his life and the day they went walking together for the first time june 16th was to become bloom's day in ulysses this was a significant time for joyce nora brought him much that he needed in a wife faithfulness tenderness wit she was both innocent and earthy and although she was not an intellectual companion she had enough strength and dominance to compensate he was determined to go abroad again but could not decide about taking nora he continually moved house over the summer and finally ended up on september 9th in the martello tower at sandy cove today a joyce museum the tower was rented by oliver sidjan gogotti the two perts as they saw themselves were not destined to remain long in harmony together a third man called chevnik's trench shared with them and had a nightmare imagining himself to be attacked by a panther gogoty fired a pistol at some pots and pans above joyce's head to dispatch the panther the pans all fell on the terrified joyce who considered it was a sign of dismissal and in a grand gesture got dressed and left there and then he had to walk all the way back in the dark to the city within a day nora had consented to leave with him and they made a most unlikely journey through london and paris again where he had to borrow money from an old friend to zurich where they arrived on october 11th there he had been promised a job teaching english at the berlitz school unfortunately the director of the school knew nothing about him and had no vacant place in zurich it was a desperate moment somehow buoyed up perhaps by nora he managed to write there the 11th chapter of steven hero while another job was fined for him in trieste they arrived in trieste on october 20th and immediately joyce got involved with three drunken english sailors they were arrested and joyce taken along to the police station to interpret for them upon arrival at the station the police just for good measure put joyce in jail too a very unhelpful british consul finally got him out of course it turned out that in trieste there was no job for him in the berlitz school after all it was another calamity he sought private pupils and borrowed money where he could he was very good at doing that finally the day was saved by a man who was setting up a new english school at pola about 150 miles to the south of trieste he agreed to take joyce and they went to pola for a few months by march of the following year they were back in trieste at the berlitz school nora was pregnant joyce liked trieste it was a dramatic city with a busy port and fine buildings joyce particularly like the cathedral of san giusto and situated up on a nearby hillside the beautiful castle of miramar of course with his remarkable gift for languages he was soon completely fluent in the local dialect for ten years he and nora lived in trieste and here he developed the desperate pattern of life which seemed to be the only one open to him given the example of his father he drank heavily he was always in debt and constantly borrowing money he tried to cope with nora who didn't take to life away from ireland and was slow to learn italian he wrote giorgio was born in july 1905 [Music] in october 1905 his brother stanislaus was persuaded to join them at the berlitz school in trieste he was the only person in the family with whom joyce was close he was for a good part of their stay in trieste largely responsible for holding the shaky menage together and in spite of joyce's impossible behavior he somehow remained loyal chamber music the first collection of poems was published in 1907. it had been a great struggle to get it out but it was nothing to the struggles that were to follow joyce returned to dublin for six weeks in july 1909 taking their little boy giorgio with him he visited seven eccles street the house of jf byrne his friend from college days it was to be bloom's house in ulysses he reviewed a short play at the abbey theater for an italian newspaper and he signed a contract for the publication of his short story collection dubliners more visits to dublin followed prompted by such matters as a cinema scheme financed by two italians the volta cinema was somehow to make a fortune for joyce but it flopped as did other schemes to sell irish tweed to the italians with joyce as the agent the dubliners publishing saga was to go on for several more years it was crude and too personal for the publishers joyce's many acquaintances were finding themselves unflatteringly portrayed in his stories and objected vigorously he hated them all with a bitter and undying hatred in return he finally left dublin for good in 1912 back in trieste he struggled with a portrait of the artist as a young man a five-chapter novel version of stephen hero he developed his ideas for ulysses in 1913 he had a letter from ezra pond offering help in getting his work published pound found the portrait first rate and persuaded an english magazine editor to publish it in serial form pan's support was a crucial turning point in joyce's career one good thing followed another dubliners was finally published in june 1914 such felicity was marred by the outbreak of war joyce and his family went to zurich stanislaus was considered politically dangerous and put in a prison camp by the authorities in zurich joyce found some pupils but in the years he spent there a new mode of financing his life began to take shape in the form of gifts of money from supporters or patrons this meant that in general the family finances began to improve though joyce always managed to spend too much no matter what he had in 1915 a miss harriet shaw weaver took over the magazine which had serialized a portrait of the artist as a young man she decided to publish the whole book herself as others would not she also began anonymously to support joyce and eventually acknowledged the help she was to continue giving him for many years to come joyce was immensely grateful to her and they conducted a massive correspondence in zurich as his financial straits eased word proceeded on ulysses for some time in this house in universitat strasse though not for long for as was his habit he moved house a lot a further trouble beset him he had long had poor eyesight and occasional attacks of glaucoma and other diseases of the retina in zurich these attacks increased in frequency they gave him great pain reduced his sight and for the rest of his life meant a series of operations and general deterioration in his eyesight somehow he bore it his life in zurich was punctuated by the usual series of quarrels and upsets with the many friends he made he charmed them with his wit and his songs and even his dancing when he was drunk unfortunately it was difficult to avoid offending him and he bore grudges and took revenge with considerable gusto joyce planned to move to london in 1920 he stopped in paris on the way and stayed for 20 years they stayed because ezra pound had paved the way for him and in 1920 paris was the lively center of the literally world they stayed first at a hotel in the rue de universite it was a difficult move for the family as the children spoke no french and at home they all continued to converse in italian joyce was to be always concerned over his children who found it increasingly difficult to live in his shadow his daughter lucia later developed schizophrenia and giorgio tried to become a singer without much success at the center of literary life in paris was the bookshop known as shakespearean company situated then on the rue du pitron and later on the rue de ludion it was run by an american sylvia beech the daughter of a presbyterian minister in princeton she took to joyce and he to her and she was to be of great importance in the publishing and selling of his work through her he met all the important writers of his day from t.
s eliot to hemingway and scott fitzgerald he was later to treat even sylvia beach with mistrust and complaint ulysses moved on a pace in paris it had already been part published in serial form in a new york magazine called the little review it eventually came to the notice of the secretary of the new york society for the prevention of vice he lodged a complaint about ulysses in 1920 it was the beginning of the series of trials and censorship that were to beset the book over the next 20 years these difficulties added of course to joyce's fame if they hindered the financial gains he might otherwise have made had the book been published freely in 1922 ulysses was published on a subscription basis by miss speech reaction to ulysses was swift and fulsome there were friends and critics who commended it as a work of genius changing the face of modern literature others find it obscene and blasphemous and held it up to scorn with ulysses art in 1922 he began work the following year on his final great work finnegan's wake it was not finished until 1938 and published by faber in 1939 [Music] while the intervening years were financially more stable and joyce's literary reputation sword his complicated daily life roared on he did not become an easier friend to have though he continued to attract people his children stumbled through their lives lucia finally went mad with joyce going to enormous lengths to help her joyce and nora were finally married in 1931. it seems he was interested in his son and grandson bearing his name legitimately the publication of finnegan's wake was the end of his writing career in the second world war the family took refuge in switzerland once more and it was in zurich that joyce died of a perforated ulcer on january 13 1941 [Music] james joyce dramatically exiled himself from his homeland and fought to escape from his religious background and much else besides that was narrow provincial and irish as he saw it yet his work is basically an incredible recreation of that very dublin world in which he lived for the first 21 years of his life it is also in its way our recreation and unraveling of all our lives and in consequence a unique contribution to world literature [Music] [Music] joyce is primarily to be remembered as a writer of prose short stories and novels though he also produced in his early years small collections of poems he wrote one play because of the rather obtuse way he wrote and the often confusing subject matter his work has never been and may never become popular joyce might be saddened by this because he obviously wrote to entertain however the influence his work has had on later writers is quite astonishing poems chamber music 1907 anything written by so remarkable a writer is joyce is interesting however the poems here are in no way crude or deliberately provocative but are simply poetic in the best sense a writer finding his feet poems penny each 1927 this collection of poems written over a long period again shows the gentler sensitive side of joyce's writing collected poems 1936 play exiles 1918 joyce was an avid supporter of the norwegian playwright henrik ibsen his play exiles given its first performance in england in 1926 it was previously performed in munich is about two intelligent friends who love the same woman it was received by the critics with derision and he wrote no more plays it is still performed today however and is now well regarded short stories dubliners 1914 in this collection joyce writes in a relatively conventional style on the subjects that were to become central to his novels novels a portrait of the artist as a young man 1916.
