A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: James Joyce, the Myth of Icarus, and the Influence of Christopher Marlowe

Abstract

Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) concludes at the point when Stephen Dedalus – a character substantially modeled on Joyce himself – is about to leave the Ireland of his childhood and young-adult years. Presented as a means of maintaining independence and distance as a writer, this move marks the culmination of a process of self-discovery. However, beyond this basic narrative dimension, A Portrait is hardly a simplistic novel. In this respect, the novel’s oft-discussed patterns of imagery, and its complex, sometimes ambiguous, use of irony, for instance, continue to invite new interpretations. The present article, in fact, aims to provide insight into the function of Christopher Marlowe as a role-model and precursor – to-date unrecognized in Joyce criticism – of the idealized subversive artist, a writer whose work and cultural image contributed to the Stephen Dedalus-James Joyce persona as constructed in A Portrait.