He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. Joyce's novel Ulysses is a landmark in which the episodes of Homer 's Odyssey are paralleled in a variety of literary styles, particularly stream of consciousness. Other well-known works are the short-story collection Dubliners , and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Finnegans Wake His other writings include three books of poetry, a play, letters, and occasional journalism.
Joyce was born in Dublin into a middle-class family. Despite the chaotic family life imposed by his father's unpredictable finances, he excelled at the Jesuit Belvedere College and graduated from University College Dublin in In , he met his future wife, Nora Barnacle , and they moved to mainland Europe. He briefly worked in Pola and then moved to Trieste in Austria-Hungary , working as an English instructor.
Except for an eight-month stay in Rome working as a correspondence clerk and three visits to Dublin, Joyce lived there until After the war, he briefly returned to Trieste and in moved to Paris, which was his primary residence until Ulysses was first published in Paris in , but its publication in the United Kingdom and the United States was prohibited because of its perceived obscenity.
Copies were smuggled into both countries and pirated versions were printed up until the mids when publication became legal. Joyce started his next major work, Finnegans Wake , in , publishing it sixteen years later in Between these years, Joyce travelled widely.
He and Nora were married in a civil ceremony in London in He made several trips to Switzerland, frequently seeking treatment for his increasingly severe eye problems and psychological help for his daughter, Lucia.
