A Portrait of the Animal as a Young Artist: Animality, Instinct, and Cognition in Joyce’s Early Prose
Publication Date
2017
Description
This essay situates James Joyce within the competing discourses of Catholic theology, evolutionary biology, and Nietzsche’s philosophy, with emphasis on their attitudes towards the body and the animal-human boundary. Joyce’s use of “instinct” in his early works (Dubliners, Stephen Hero, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) helps us understand his movement from a view of animals and the human body as frightening or paralyzing to a more open acceptance of the body and its impulses. This transition from portraying the body as an impediment in Dubliners to a source of knowledge or cognition in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man helps us better understand Joyce’s early prose and his embrace of both animal and human bodies in his later works.
Journal
Humanities
Volume
6
Issue
3
First Page
56
Department
English
Link to Published Version
http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/6/3/56
DOI
10.3390/h6030056
Recommended Citation
Rickard, John S. "A Portrait of the Animal as a Young Artist: Animality, Instinct, and Cognition in Joyce’s Early Prose." Humanities 6.3 (2017): 56.