English Studies

G R A D U A T E D E G R E E P R O G R A M M E : E N G L I S H S T U D I E S
Course contents
Recommended
reading
Supplemetary
reading
Literature. The prerequisites are defined by the Faculty Statute.
The course explores the main features of Joyce’s poetics by studying his
major works. Grounded on the belief that Joyce’s entire oeuvre can be
perceived as ‘work in progress’, the first part of the course focuses on
Dubliners by looking at different aspects of the book’s central theme of
‘paralysis’, as well as by examining Joyce’s fictional methods in this early
work, the most important of them being an alternation of naturalistic and
symbolic elements in the text.
The analysis then moves on to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by
emphasizing its importance within the traditions of the Bildungsroman and
Künstelerroman. In this sense, the development of the artistic consciousness
of Joyce’s Stephen Dedalus is seen as his attempt to move away from Plato
to Aristotle, from his initial idealistic vision of the world to his final
materialistic perception of it. This study also emphasizes the importance of
Stephen’s aesthetic theory at the end of the novel, as well as the narrative
innovativeness of A Portrait in relation to Stephen Hero, the text which
preceded it.
Ulysses is read primarily in view of its stylistic and linguistic complexity
both in relation to Dubliners and A Portrait, and in the context of Modernist
literature in general.
Primary literature:
Joyce, James, Dubliners
Stephen Hero
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Ulysses
Secondary literature:
Bloom, H. (ed.) (1987). James Joyce's Ulysses. New York, New Haven and
Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers.
Killeen, T. (2004). Ulysses Unbound: A Reader's Companion to James
Joyce's Ulysses. Wicklow: Wordwell.
Power, M. and Schneider, U. (1997). New Perspectives on Dubliners.
Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi.
Schutte, W. M (ed.) (1968). Twentieth Century Interpretations of A
Portrait of The Artist as A Young Man: A Collection of Critical Essays
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall; Englewood Cliffs.
Blades, J. (1991). James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
London: Penguin.
Ellmann, R. (1982). James Joyce: New and Revised Edition. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Norris, M. (1998). A Companion to James Joyce's Ulysses: Biographical
and Historical contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Five
Contemporary Critical Perspectives. Boston; New York: Bedford/St.
Martin’s.
Senn, F. (1995). Inductive Scrutinies: Focus on Joyce. Baltimore: Johns
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