The remarkable collection of stories that make up Dubliners was described by Joyce himself as a series of chapters in the moral history of his community and the arrangement of the tales reveals "a progression from childhood to maturity, broadening from private to public scope," as Harry Levin noted in his introduction to The Portable James Joyce.
In fact, it is the scope of life that Joyce has limned in these stories - ranging from the opening tale, "The Sisters," in which the boy is confronted with death as …
The remarkable collection of stories that make up Dubliners was described by Joyce himself as a series of chapters in the moral history of his community and the arrangement of the tales reveals "a progression from childhood to maturity, broadening from private to public scope," as Harry Levin noted in his introduction to The Portable James Joyce.
In fact, it is the scope of life that Joyce has limned in these stories - ranging from the opening tale, "The Sisters," in which the boy is confronted with death as he overhears the conversation of his elders, through the memorable "Ivy Day in the Committee Room" with its depiction of small-time politicians recalling their great lost leader, Parnell, to the exquisitely poignant "The Dead," wherein through the chance singing of a song a husband learns of a long-ago romance in his wife's life. While the geographic boundary of these fifteen stories may be middle-class, Catholic Dublin, the artistic boundary is set only by Joyce's far-reaching genius.
This definitive text restoring Joyce's manuscript style and his later corrections has been prepared by Robert Scholes in consultation with Richard Ellmann, Joyce's biographer.
