James Joyce, the great and bold literary innovator of our time, was also a rebel in life, a self-exile from family, nation, and religion. Criticism of Joyce, when it has not been purely technical, has sought in Joyce's work ideas as radical as his techniques and as rebellious as his life. Mr. O’Brien discovers that Joyce was neither morally revolutionary nor morally neutral. Instead, Joyce emerges as an Irishman clinging to a conception of human nature largely derived from the Irish Catholic background he so vehemently denounced. In this study of Joyce’s work, from his early poems through Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, Mr. O’Brien argues that Joyce eventually achieved, in his books, a comic perspective on the follies of mankind. Originally published in 1968. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

ジェイムズ・ジョイスは革新的な反逆児として語られますが、本書でダーシー・オブライエンは、その内面に潜む伝統的な道徳観を鋭く剔抉します。ジョイスが捨て去ったはずのカトリック的倫理が、実は終生彼の魂を縛り続けていたという指摘は、前衛的な文体の裏側に流れる人間臭い葛藤を浮き彫りにし、読者に鮮烈な衝撃を与えます。 本書の白眉は、難解な大作群を、人類の愚行への喜劇的視点へと昇華させた過程を読み解く点にあります。冷徹な知性と情熱が交錯するこの論考は、ジョイス文学を生身の人間が抱える魂のドラマとして見事に再構築しました。巨匠の真実の姿へ迫るための、情熱に満ちた必携の案内図と言えるでしょう。