A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man

Published in serial form in 1914-1915, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is celebrated as one of the great literary pioneers of the twentieth century. Joyce was one of the first writers to make extensive and convincing use of stream of consciousness, a stylistic form in which written prose seeks to represent the characters' stream of inner thoughts and perceptions rather than render these characters from an objective, external perspective. Another stylistic technique for which Joyce is noted is the epiphany, a moment in which a character makes a sudden, profound realization whether prompted by an external object or a voice from within that creates a change in his or her perception of the world.