Publication date:
28 February 2018Publisher
Edward Everett RootISBN-13: 9781912224029
This new book by the eminent critic provides an informative and timely survey of contemporary approaches to Joyce and modern Irish writing over almost 40 years.
In a fresh opening survey Pierce explores the new departure for fiction heralded by A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and this is followed by essays on the hybrid landscape in Ulysses and on the distinctive style and humour of the 'Eumaeus' episode. Other pieces focus on the appeal of Irish short-story writer, Benedict Kiely, anthologies of Irish writing, and Irish writing in the years 2006-9.
The second half of The Joyce Country is devoted to twenty-six reviews of books about Joyce written from the 1980s to the present and grouped under several headings including 'Joyce's European Cities', 'Joyce, Yeats and the Matter of Ireland', 'Ulysses in Perspective', and 'Joyce and Modernism'.
"In The Joyce Country, David Pierce brings to bear his deep-seated knowledge of the workings of the novel on Joyce's works. His illuminating, graceful, and original interpretations of Joyce's texts and of recent Joycean criticism underscore the importance of attentive reading. To peruse this book is at once to be schooled in how to analyse Joyce's texts, to be prompted to revisit them in fresh and challenging ways, and to be persuaded anew of their abiding importance."- Anne Fogarty, Professor of James Joyce Studies, University College Dublin.
"David Pierce's latest collection represents a new approach to scholarly stock-taking. It is a wonderfully reflexive, discursive, and deeply informative book which will delight scholars of Joyce and modern Irish writing. A tour de force offering a handy access to Pierce's influential criticism." - Jolanta Wawrzycka, Professor of English at Radford University, Virginia and Trustee of the James Joyce Foundation.