Lesson plan
Dubliners
Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, written from 1904 to 1907. First published in 1914, Dubliners presents a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle-class life in and around Dublin in the early twentieth century. The stories were written when Irish nationalism was at its peak, and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences. Joyce felt Irish nationalism, like Catholicism and British rule of Ireland, was responsible for a collective paralysis—a theme permeating much of the work. He conceived of Dubliners as a "nicely polished looking-glass" held up to the Irish and a "first step towards [their] spiritual liberation". Joyce's concept of epiphany is exemplified in the moment a character experiences self-understanding or illumination. The first three stories in the collection are narrated by young boy protagonists; the subsequent stories are written in the third person and deal with the lives and concerns of progressively older people, in line with Joyce's division of the collection into "childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life". Many of the characters in Dubliners later appeared in minor roles in Joyce's novel Ulysses.
Article summary
Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, written from 1904 to 1907. First published in 1914, Dubliners presents a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle-class life in and around Dublin in the early twentieth century. The stories were written when Irish nationalism was at its peak, and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences. Joyce felt Irish nationalism, like Catholicism and British rule of Ireland, was responsible for a collective paralysis—a theme permeating much of the work. He conceived of Dubliners as a "nicely polished looking-glass" held up to the Irish and a "first step towards [their] spiritual liberation". Joyce's concept of epiphany is exemplified in the moment a character experiences self-understanding or illumination. The first three stories in the collection are narrated by young boy protagonists; the subsequent stories are written in the third person and deal with the lives and concerns of progressively older people, in line with Joyce's division of the collection into "childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life". Many of the characters in Dubliners later appeared in minor roles in Joyce's novel Ulysses.
Key claims
- publication date: 1914 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95
Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- The record states that the publication date is "1914". What evidence would count against this claim?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
- Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1361900288
Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.