Joyece

Nacido hacia finales del siglo XIX (1882), Joyce distinguió su genialidad desde tempranas publicaciones como consta en los cuentos cortos Dublineses (1914). Sin embargo, su maestría narrativa e innovación estructural se dará en novelas tales como Ulises (1922), Retrato del Artista Adolescente (1916) y Finnegans Wake (1939), para muchos, el clímax de la narrativa joyceana.

Leer a este irlandés es compenetrarse en un Dublín ajeno a nuestro entendimiento y, sin embargo, demasiado cercano y similar al mundo (al menos) hispanoamericano. El acérrimo catolicismo, las hablantinas alrededor de las tabernas, las fiestas interminables, los dobles mensajes. Un mundo irlandés al estilo de Joyce al cual le imprime el sabor de los mundos internos, de los viajes (Dantescos o Shakespeareanos, el lector decide) por el universo inexplicable de la conciencia.

El genio de Joyce se da en lo cotidiano: en el recuento extraordinario de los eventos que se suceden en cascada en la mente de un personaje y que arrastran al lector por tierras plagadas de referencias de difícil alcance para el lector común.

El camino de Joyce por la literatura se traza en la mente y la voz interna de sus personajes. La literatura de Joyce se caracteriza por dos estrategias narrativas o temas: "la parálisis" y "la epifanía".

J. Joyce define ambos conceptos en su Teoría estética. A continuación coloco citas que los explican:

EPIFANÍA

“Joyce's theory of epiphanies, perhaps his most original contribution to critical theory, is closely related to his discussion of the beautiful. […] The process is largely one of recognition arising out of a thorough penetration, an intimate knowledge of an aesthetic object, and it is the fullness of this knowledge that the artist must capture and embody in his work:

By an epiphany he meant a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vul-garity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself. He believed that it was for the man of letters to record these epiphanies with extreme care seeing that they themselves are the most delicate and evanescent of moments.

It should be emphasized that the process by which such moments of intrinsic recognition take place is by no means discursive or analytic. Rather it is synthetic and immediate, indeed, intuitive in its operation. This seizing of the crucial revelation rests at the center of the artist's interaction with his subject-matter, and has marked application in Joyce's technique. Based on his essentially static conception of beauty, it offers one of the foremost examples in Joyce's writing where theory and practice cohere to a common end.

PARÁLISIS

“Joyce himself stated that his purpose in Dubliners was "to write a chapter of the moral

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