Literary Giants - James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born February 2, 1882 in the Dublin suburb of Rathgar. His parents, John Joyce and Mary Murphy had 12 children, losing two of them to typhoid. When James was 5 they moved to Bray because his father was appointed as a local property tax collector.

When James was 9 he wrote the poem, “Et Tu Healy,” about the death of Charles Parnell. His father was angry about the treatment of Parnell and the failure to secure Home Rule for Ireland. He had the poem printed and sent a copy to the Vatican Library. Because of that he was suspended from work, began drinking and the family ended up in poverty.

James had been educated at a boarding school by Jesuits until his father could no longer pay the fees. He studied at home and briefly at the Christian Brothers school until he was offered a place in the Jesuits’ Belvedere College in 1893. The Jesuits hoped he would join the order but he rejected Catholicism at 16. Even then, he was strongly influenced by the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and it would remain so throughout his life. In 1898 he started at the University College Dublin and studied the modern languages of English, French and Italian. He became active in theatrical and literary circles in the city. His first published work was an article on Ibsen’s New Drama.

After graduating he began to drink heavily. He eked out a living by reviewing books, teaching and singing as he was an accomplished tenor. In 1904 he met Nora Barnacle and would eventually elope with her. He spent 12 years teaching English, the last 10 were in Trieste. His son Giorgio was born there. They moved to Rome but ended up back in Trieste where his daughter Lucia was born in 1907. Here he had his first eye problems and went through more than a dozen surgeries for glaucoma.

In 1915 James moved to Zurich because he was a British Subject living in Austria-Hungary during WWI. It was here that he met Harriet Shaw Weaver who would become his patron. Over the next 25 years she gave him thousands of pounds so he could write instead of teaching.

In 1920 James went to Paris to see Ezra Pound for a week and ended up living there for 20 years. He went to Switzerland for more eye surgeries and his daughter Lucia was treated for schizophrenia. Lucia died in 1982. He was taken care of by Maria and Eugene Jolas. If it were not for their care and the financial support from Weaver he might never had finished his works and had them published. He returned to Zurich in late 1940, to get away from the Nazi occupation of France. January 11, 1941, he underwent surgery for a perforated ulcer. He improved the first day and then got worse despite several transfusions and fell into a coma. He woke up at 2 in the morning on the 13th and asked a nurse to call his wife and son and then slipped back into the coma. He died 15 minutes later without having seen them. He is buried in Fluntern Cemetery in Zurich. Nora died 10 years later and is buried at his side.

Among the works of James Joyce are; 3 novels including A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man , Ulysses and his most famous Finnegan’s Wake; 1 play Exiles; 16 short stories; and 1 book of poetry, Chamber Music.