Poems

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Summary

It is only James Joyce's towering genius as a novelist that has led to his comparative neglect as a poet. And yet his poems not only occupy a pivotal position in Joyce's career, they are also magnificently assured achievements in their own right. 'Chamber Music' is an extraordinary début, fusing a broad swathe of styles with characteristically sharp irony and joyful verbal exuberance. 'Pomes Penyeach' confronts painful personal issues of adultery, jealousy and betrayal and so paves the way for the more detached and fully realized treatment of these feelings in Joyce's masterpiece, Ulysses. Also included here is 'Ecce Puer', written for his new-born grandson, as well as juvenilia, satires, translations, limericks and a parody of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

About the author

James Joyce

James Joyce was born in Dublin on 2 February 1882, the eldest of ten children in a family which, after brief prosperity, collapsed into poverty. He was none the less educated at the best Jesuit schools and then at University College, Dublin, and displayed considerable academic and literary ability. Although he spent most of his adult life outside Ireland, Joyce's psychological and fictional universe is firmly rooted in his native Dublin, the city which provides the settings and much of the subject matter for all his fiction. He is best known for his landmark novel Ulysses (1922) and its controversial successor Finnegans Wake (1939), as well as the short story collection Dubliners (1914) and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). James Joyce died in Zürich, on 13 January 1941.

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