A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man By James Joyce

In the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, literature is defined as “writings in prose or verse: writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest.” The definition of literature has been up for debate for centuries, and at first, as explained in an article written by Arthur Krystal and published in Harper’s Magazine titled “What is Literature?”, literature was defined as “… any writing formed with letters.” Then, it became an opportunity for some to feel academically superior to others. For example, England made certain authors like Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton were among the list of writers whose works were considered part of the literature movement. Furthermore, technological advancements …show more content…
However, one cannot be certain how many of the actual events or characters were exaggerated and created. For example, the main character’s last name, Dedalus, was inspired from an artist in Greek mythology, who in order to save his son and himself, designed wings to help them escape a tower they were locked in, but the character was based personality-wise on James Joyce. Also, specialized function can be seen even when describing something as ordinary as a football team playing on a cold day. Joyce writes: “The evening air was pale and chilly and after every charge and thud of the footballers the greasy leather orb flew like a heavy bird through the grey light” (5). The author elevates or gives beauty to an otherwise ordinary event by using words like “pale” or “greasy leather orb” because in other cases people could have described the same event as, “It was a cold day and I saw the football team practicing.” Additionally, the novel lacks pragmatic function because it is up to the reader to attach meaning or purpose to the book. A student like me could have only read the novel as an assignment for a class, or an avid reader of James Joyce could have read it to be entertained. In this instance, the book’s purpose changes according to the reader. Finally, the novel allows for ambiguity because one could have said it was more or less an autobiography or a collection of memories from the life of James Joyce. Nevertheless, this interpretation could go beyond and say it was about the challenges one faces as one forms their own identity. Better yet, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was about a soul corrupted who fell to the temptations of the world and became a heretic. Because of the different interpretations or meanings readers can generate from this novel, it would be considered literature. In conclusion, the University of Freiburg was successful in explaining the reason