A Brief Biography of James Joyce : http://www.jamesjoyce.ie/detail.asp?ID=19
1882 |
On 2 February James Joyce is born to Mary and John Stanislaus Joyce in Rathgar, a suburb south of Dublin's city centre. Also in 1882, the Invincibles assassinate the chief-secretary and under-secretary in Phoenix Park; later Joyce will frequently allude to this event in both Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. |
1884 |
In Galway, Nora Barnacle is born to Thomas and Annie Barnacle on 21 March. On 17 December Stanislaus Joyce, James's brother, is born. |
1888 |
James Joyce enters Clongowes Wood College in September. |
1891 |
In June, Joyce withdraws from Clongowes due to his father's inability to pay the prestigious Jesuit school's fees. Charles Stewart Parnell, a dynamic and charismatic leader of Ireland's Home Rule movement, dies in October, after a scandal over adultery splintered his party a year earlier. Joyce writes the poem "Et Tu, Healy," about the betrayal of Parnell by Tim Healy, a close supporter. |
1893 |
The family's declining means forces a reluctant John Joyce to send James and his brothers to the Christian Brothers' school. In April of this year, however, Joyce enrolls in Belevedere College, another Jesuit school, thanks to the assistance of Father John Conmee. |
1895 |
Joyce enters the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary in December, and is elected prefect less than one year later. |
1896 |
Joyce listens to Father John A. Cullen's graphic depiction of eternal damnation in sermons given during the course of a retreat beginning on 30 November. Joyce would later re-create this retreat and these sermons in vivid detail for A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. |
1897 |
Owing to his performance on exams and in an essay competition, Joyce wins academic accolades attended by monetary awards. |
1898 |
Joyce finishes at Belevedere. During the summer, he begins visiting brothels in the Monto section of Dublin, a seedy part of town north of the Liffey. In the autumn of 1898, Joyce matriculates at University College Dublin. |
1899 |
Yeats's The Countess Cathleen opens on 8 May, amidst controversy. Joyce, attending the opening performance, refuses to join the majority of his peers in condemning the play as heretical, unethical, and anti-Irish. Later this year Joyce presents a paper, entitled "Drama and Life," to the University's Literary and Historical Society. |
1900 |
Joyce publishes an article on Ibsen's When We Dead Awaken in the Fortnightly Review. Ibsen sends a letter of thanks to the undergraduate Joyce, who is profoundly moved to receive a message from his literary idol. |
1901 |
Joyce writes "The Day of the Rabblement," attacking the Irish theatrical movement, but is unable to publish it in the University's magazine. Joyce's friend, a radical feminist named Francis Skeffington, also has an article turned down for publication that year. The two classmates decide to publish their work at their own expense, hiring a local printer to produce a pamphlet containing both "The Day of the Rabblement" and Skeffington's essay, "A Forgotten Aspect of the University Question." |
1902 |
Joyce graduates from UCD and leaves for Paris, intending to study medicine. |
1903 |
A telegram informing him of his mother's illness summons Joyce back to Dublin. Mary Joyce dies on 13 August. |
1904 |
Joyce meets Nora Barnacle in June. That September, he lives for a brief time with Oliver St. John Gogarty and Samuel Chenevix Trench in the Martello tower at Sandycove. On 8 October, James and Nora leave Dublin for continental Europe. After a number of misadventures, the couple eventually finds themselves in Pola, where Joyce teaches English at a Berlitz School. |
1905 |
In March the Austro-Hungarian Empire expells all foreigners from Pola, and the Joyces move to nearby Trieste, where Joyce finds work in another Berlitz School. Nora Barnacle gives birth to the couple's son, Giorgio, in Trieste on 27 July. In October Stanislaus Joyce, Joyce's brother, joins Jim, Nora, and Giorgio in Trieste at James Joyce's urging. |
1906 |
The Joyces move to Rome, where Joyce works at a bank and gives private English lessons. Despite the substantial increase in income, Joyce finds himself miserable in Rome. |
1907 |
The Joyces return to Trieste. Nora Barnacle gives birth to a daughter, Lucia, on 26 July. Joyce finishes "The Dead," the final story of Dubliners. Joyce begins to revise Stephen Hero as A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. |
1909 |
Joyce returns to Dublin twice on business. |
1914 |
The Egoist begins to print Portrait in serial form on Joyce's birthday. Dubliners is published in June. |
1915 |
Joyce writes Exiles. The family leaves Trieste for Zurich. |
1916 |
In Dublin, Patrick Pearse and fellow Republicans declare Irish independence during the Easter Rising. Six days of insurrection leave over 500 dead, and intense shelling from British gunboats in the Liffey wreaks destruction in city centre. The execution, and subsequent martyrization, of 15 rebel leaders galvanizes Irish resistance to British rule. Pearse, Joyce's former Irish teacher, and Roger Casement, who figures in the "Cyclops" episode of Ulysses, are among those executed for treason. (Casement, whose appearance in "Cyclops" [U 12.1542-7] suggests a link between imperialism in Ireland and imperialism elsewhere in the so-called "Third World," was not actually present at the Easter Rising, but had unsuccessfully attempted to secure German military assistance for the insurrection.) Among the over 300 civilian casualties of the Uprising is Joyce's former schoolmate Skeffington, an ardent pacifist who is shot by a British soldier while attempting to quell a mob of looters. Yeats writes "Easter 1916" later in this year. A Portrait of the Artist is published in the States in late December. |
1917 |
Harriet Shaw Weaver, a feminist activist and editor of The Egoist, begins her anonymous patronage of Joyce. Stricken with glaucoma, Joyce undergoes eye surgery in August. |
1918 |
In the United States, The Little Review begins to publish episodes of Ulysses in serial form. |
1919 |
Joyce attempts to initiate an adulterous affair with Marthe Fleischmann; no conclusive evidence exists to indicate whether or not his attempts were successful. Joyce and family return to Trieste following the end of the war. |
1920 |
Joyce and family relocate to Paris. A court case in the U.S. halts the Little Review's publication of Ulysses. Joyce meets Sylvia Beach. |
1922 |
Sylvia Beach's Parisian bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, publishes Ulysses. The Irish Free State achieves its independence from Britain; a partition is established excluding the six counties of Northern Ireland from the remainder of the island. |
1923 |
Joyce starts to compose "Work in Progress," later to be published as Finnegans Wake. |
1928 |
Joyce meets Samuel Beckett. |
1929 |
Shakespeare and Company publishes Our Exagmination round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress. |
1930 |
James Joyce and Nora Barnacle marry. John Joyce, the writer's father, dies. |
1932 |
The Joyces' grandson, Stephen James Joyce, is born to Giorgio and his wife Helen. Lucia suffers a mental breakdown and is hospitalized. |
1933 |
Judge John Woolsey lifts the ban on Ulysses in the United States. Judge Woolsey's decision provides a rigid legal definition for obscenity: obscene material is that which excites "impure and lustful thoughts" in a man "with average sex instincts." According to Woolsey, Ulysses does not conform to this definition of the obscene. While Woolsey's decision is not a particularly insightful piece of literary criticism, it is a landmark document in the history of literature and the law in the U.S. |
1934 |
The first American edition of Ulysses is published by Random House. Dr. Carl Jung begins to treat Lucia. |
1939 |
Joyce publishes Finnegans Wake. |
1940 |
The Joyces leave France for neutral Switzerland. |
1941 |
Suffering from a perforated ulcer, Joyce dies in Zurich on 13 January. |
1951 |
Nora Joyce dies in Zurich. |
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