How to Study James Joyce: 116 (Macmillan Study Skills) - Softcover

This guide to James Joyce's major novels presents a refreshing approach to understanding the work of this challenging and enigmatic giant of twentieth-century literature. Taking the student through a careful, step-by-step analysis of each text, John Blades demonstrates a practical and lively method of critical analysis.

James Joyce is one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, with most of his works acclaimed as masterpieces. Yet many readers find his writing an enigma and consider his texts a formidable challenge. How to Study James Joyce sets out to show you how to get to grips with Joyce's work and how to analyse his novels in depth. Through a series of clear and coherent chapters, John Blades offers fresh interpretations of Joyce's work, encompassing the importance of language and symbolism, and suggesting a step-by-step method by which you can increase your enjoyment and understanding of the texts. An introductory chapter reflects on the biographical and cultural background to Joyce's writing before each of the major texts is examined in detail, beginning with Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and progressing to the more demanding novels, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, showing you how to come to terms with their experimental features and develop an appreciation of their rich and fascinati