120058 AR Literature Course (interactive) 325 = Literature 1/2 (MA) British/Irish/New English (2009W)

When James Joyce's sequence of short stories entitled Dubliners was published in 1914, it met with a distinctly cool reception. This was largely on account of its un-attractive subject, the representation of Dublin life in the early 1900s. Nowadays, Dubliners is considered not only the prime example of the Irish short story but a classic of the genre itself. And in the course of the 20th century critics came to appreciate the explanation Joyce gave to his publisher in 1906, when he wrote: "My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the centre of paralysis. [¿] I have written it for the most part in a style of scrupulous meanness [¿]."