James Joyce Araby Essay
AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY of James Joyce's
"ARABY"
Joyce reportedly boasted that Ulysses would keep the professors busy, and indeed it has occupied the bulk of articles pertaining to his work. Dubliners is often seen as a step to that great work, and its stories are often picked over for evidence of their influence on Ulysses. However, a number of tales in this collection have taken a critical life of their own. "The Dead," most obviously, attracts considerable attention, and "The Sisters" has also started to become regarded more seriously by the scholars. "Araby" has also been the loci of a fair amount of scholarship. It has become the standard secondary school Joyce reading, and it has become so frequently anthologized that it is a staple of introductory English Literature classes.
Criticism of "Araby" began in earnest in the early 1960s, largely buoyed by an article by Harry Stone that uncovered the dense symbolism undergirding the story. Since then, criticism of "Araby" seems to fall into three unique threads: First, following Stone’s precedent, is the Symbolic Thread, which seeks to uncover allusions to other authors, the …show more content…
Ben Collins, writing around the time of the Stone/apRoberts debate, argues that the text is governed by "extended similes," which are comparisons that "affect the total meaning of the work" (85). Collins is noteworthy for his attempts to guide Symbolist readings into the plot structure, but he fails to reach a conclusion. More modestly — and more successfully — Stephen Doloff’s recent articles briefly but powerfully make plot connections with Paradise Lost, Rousseau’s Confessions, and the life of Ignatious Loyola. Jerome Mandel wrote a notable article on the story’s relation to medieval romance, and John Freimarck wrote an equally illuminating article on the Grail motifs and their relationship to the
"ARABY"
Joyce reportedly boasted that Ulysses would keep the professors busy, and indeed it has occupied the bulk of articles pertaining to his work. Dubliners is often seen as a step to that great work, and its stories are often picked over for evidence of their influence on Ulysses. However, a number of tales in this collection have taken a critical life of their own. "The Dead," most obviously, attracts considerable attention, and "The Sisters" has also started to become regarded more seriously by the scholars. "Araby" has also been the loci of a fair amount of scholarship. It has become the standard secondary school Joyce reading, and it has become so frequently anthologized that it is a staple of introductory English Literature classes.
Criticism of "Araby" began in earnest in the early 1960s, largely buoyed by an article by Harry Stone that uncovered the dense symbolism undergirding the story. Since then, criticism of "Araby" seems to fall into three unique threads: First, following Stone’s precedent, is the Symbolic Thread, which seeks to uncover allusions to other authors, the …show more content…
Ben Collins, writing around the time of the Stone/apRoberts debate, argues that the text is governed by "extended similes," which are comparisons that "affect the total meaning of the work" (85). Collins is noteworthy for his attempts to guide Symbolist readings into the plot structure, but he fails to reach a conclusion. More modestly — and more successfully — Stephen Doloff’s recent articles briefly but powerfully make plot connections with Paradise Lost, Rousseau’s Confessions, and the life of Ignatious Loyola. Jerome Mandel wrote a notable article on the story’s relation to medieval romance, and John Freimarck wrote an equally illuminating article on the Grail motifs and their relationship to the