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In 1890, William James published "Principles of Psychology" and started a whole movement in literature. He also coined the term, "Stream of Consciousness." I wrote my master's thesis on this back in the 1990's and discussed the idea that we have begun to write from the mind of a character instead of devoting all the narrative to dialogue, etc. The Dubliners was written while Joyce was trying to become an author, but was still writing columns and newspaper pieces. He discovered this style but never acknowledged it because of his own reservations about psychology itself and the fact that it was opposed by the Church. We tend to lose sight of things that affected literature in different eras. The learning involved in psychological narrative was far more significant than anything about "Modernism" and, indeed, psychological narrative influence Modernism. The Modernism that critics associate with James Joyce's writing is only significant when you try to trivialize his great contribution to English literature. Modernism itself was a product of the change in how text was sent from one city or country to another in very terse messages that were often punctuated by "STOP!" Eveline is a beautiful example of early Joyce. You will learn more from it if you set aside ideological viewpoints such as feminism and try to see the entire story as, simply, a work of literature.
Posted by scrivenor on Nov 3, 2009. |


