A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

featuring Hilary Lithgow, Teaching Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature

Meeting Dates: Tuesdays, June 4 and 11

“Considered by many the greatest bildungsroman in the English language”—Encyclopedia Britannica

“James Joyce’s supremely innovative fictional autobiography is also, in the apt phrase of the biographer Richard Ellmann, nothing less than ‘the gestation of a soul.’ Joyce immerses the reader in his emerging consciousness, employing language that ranges from baby talk to hellfire sermon to a triumphant artist’s manifesto. The result is a novel of immense boldness, eloquence, and energy, a work that inaugurated a literary revolution and has become a model for the portrayal of the self in our time.”—Penguin Random House

“Joyce’s novel remains vital, in contrast to almost all other novels published in 1916, because he forcefully strived toward an idiosyncratic form of expression, a language intrinsic to the story he wanted to tell.”—The New York Times Magazine

“He took on the almost infinite English language. He wrote in a language invented by himself….Joyce brought a new music to English.”—Jorge Luis Borges

Register online or call 919.962.1544

Please note that the image may not reflect the edition being used for the reading group.