James Joyce (18821941)

The Irish-born author James Joyce was one of the greatest

literary innovators of the 20th century. His best-known works
contain extraordinary experiments both in language and in
writing style.
In these works Joyce developed a technique of writing called
stream of consciousness. Using this technique, he ignored
orderly sentence structure and attempted to reproduce in words
the rambling processes of the human mind.
James Joyce, one of several children of John Stanislaus Joyce,
was born in Dublin on Feb. 2, 1882. He was educated in Dublin
at Jesuit schools and graduated from what was then known as
Royal University. From boyhood he was fascinated by the
sounds of words and by the rhythms of speech and song.
When he was in his early twenties, Joyce left Ireland to live in
continental Europe. Although he divorced himself from both his
homeland and his church, the major source of his literary
inspiration was to be his early life in Dublin and the years he
spent in its Jesuit schools.
He lived for a time in Paris and then settled in Trieste, Italy.
Later he married Nora Barnacle, of Galway, Ireland. Their son
and daughter, George and Lucia, were born in Trieste.
Joyce, who is said to have known 17 modern and ancient
languages, at times eked out a living as a language instructor.
During World War I he took his family to Switzerland, which

was neutral in the war. There his struggle for recognition as a

writer was complicated by near-blindness. He underwent a long
series of operations and had to wear a patch over one eye, which
was damaged.
Chamber Music', a book of poems, was Joyce's first published
work (1907). It was followed in 1914 by Dubliners', a
collection of cruelly realistic short stories that deal with life in
Joyce's native city. In 1916 Joyce's first full-length book in the
stream of consciousness technique, A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man', was published as a novel. It is an autobiographical
work, though Joyce named the central figure Stephen Dedalus.
Stephen Dedalus is also a central character in Ulysses', an
enormous work printed in book form in 1922 in Paris, where
Joyce made his postwar home. The book re-creates a single day
in Dublin in 1904. The language of Ulysses' is often as
disjointed as the images in a dream. It is full of puns, slang, and
metaphors. Portions of the book were considered obscene and
Ulysses' was banned for many years in English-speaking
countries. Joyce's last work was Finnegans Wake', published in
1939 after parts of it had been serialized as Work in Progress'. It
is written almost in an invented language. His critics complained
that Joyce had reached the ultimate in obscurity in the writing of
Finnegans Wake'.
Among other works by Joyce is a book of poems, Pomes
Penyeach' (1927). Part of the first draft of A Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man' appeared in 1944 as Stephen Hero'.

Joyce spent his last months in Switzerland, where he went in

1940 to escape the German occupation of France. He died in
Zurich on Jan. 13, 1941.

William Butler Yeats (18651939)

One of Ireland's finest writers, William Butler Yeats served a
long apprenticeship in the arts before his genius was fully
developed. He did some of his greatest work after he was 50
years old.
Yeats was born in Dublin, Ireland, on June 13, 1865, the eldest
son of an artist. Although the family soon moved to London, the
children spent much time with their grandparents in County
Sligo in northwestern Ireland. The scenery and folklore of this
region greatly influenced Yeats's work. For a while he studied
art, but during the 1890s he became active in London's literary
life and helped found the Rhymers' Club.
Yeats's early work was not especially Irish. Soon, however, he
began to look to the ancient rituals and pagan beliefs of the land
for his artistic inspiration. He tried to merge this interest with his
aristocratic tastes to create an original Irish poetry and to
establish his own identity.
In 1896 Yeats met Lady Gregory, an aristocrat and playwright
who shared his interest in Ireland's past, especially in its

folklore. In 1899 they formed a literary society that was the

predecessor of the Abbey Theatre. Among his plays were The
Countess Cathleen' (1892) and Cathleen ni Houlihan' (1902),
with Maud Gonne originating the title role. In 1899 he had
proposed to her, but she refused to marry him. He later proposed
to her daughter, who also refused. A free Ireland was the object
of the actress' passion, and Yeats's love for her kindled his
interest in the country's political struggles. From 1922 until 1928
he was a senator in the Dil ireann, or Irish parliament. (See
also Ireland.)
Believing that poems and plays would create a national unity
capable of transforming the country, Yeats devoted himself to
literature and drama. In his work for the Abbey, which opened in
1904, he persuaded John Millington Synge to return to Irish
folklore for subject material, and Synge wrote some of the finest
Irish plays ever produced. Yeats, Synge, and Lady Gregory were
among the leaders of the Irish literary revival. In 1923 Yeats was
awarded the Nobel prize for literature. (See also Irish
Literature.)
Occultism played a significant role in Yeats's life. He was a
member of the Theosophical Society and was impressed with
the works of Emanuel Swedenborg, William Blake, Stphane
Mallarm, and Charles Baudelaire. In 1917 he married Georgie
Hyde-Lees, who was thought to be a medium.
As time passed, Yeats's poetry became more polished and
profound. The Tower' and The Winding Stair' were his last
great poetic works. In his last years he lived on the Irish coast in
an old tower that served as a symbol in much of his later poetry.
In a prose work called A Vision', Yeats set forth his theories of

history and of human personality. Always controversial, Yeats

caused much discussion with his edition of The Oxford Book of
Modern Verse', published in 1936. Some critics thought the
selections in the anthology were too individualized, reflecting
Yeats's own interests and attitudes.
Yeats died on Jan. 28, 1939, in Roquebrune, France. His body
remained buried there throughout World War II, but in 1948 it
was brought back to Ireland for burial in County Sligo. In a
poem composed in his memory, W.H. Auden wrote, Earth,
receive an honored guest; William Yeats is laid to rest.
W. B. Yeats
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

Lord Kelvin (18241907)

William Thomson, who became Lord Kelvin of Largs
(Scotland) in 1892, was one of Great Britain's foremost
scientists and inventors. He published more than 650 scientific
papers and patented some 70 inventions. He is known for
developing a temperature scale in which 273.15C (
459.67F) is absolute zero. The scale is known as
the absolute, or Kelvin, temperature scale.
William Thomson was born on June 26, 1824, in Belfast,
Ireland. The family moved to Glasgow, Scotland, in 1832, and
young Thomson entered the university there when he was 10.
He was a brilliant student. By the time he was 21 he had studied
in Glasgow, Cambridge (England), and Paris and had published
12 scientific papers.
In 1846 he became a professor of natural philosophy at
Glasgow. There he established the first physics laboratory in
Great Britain. His investigations into the properties of matter
made him famous.
Thomson supervised the laying of the first transatlantic cable in
1866. To improve cable communication, he also invented and
put into use the mirror galvanometer for signaling and the
siphon recorder for receiving. For his work he was knighted by
Queen Victoria. (See also Cables.)
Sir William traveled widely in Europe and the United States,
lecturing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., in

1884. He had an interest in yachting and the sea that inspired

him to invent, patent, and manufacture a compass used by the
British admiralty, a calculating machine that measured tides, and
sounding, or depth-measuring, equipment. He co-authored the
textbook Treatise on Natural Philosophy', which was published
in 1867 and was a major influence on future physicists.
Before his death at Largs on Dec. 17, 1907, Lord Kelvin had
become an honorary member of many foreign academies and
held honorary degrees from many well-known universities. He
served as president of the Royal Society from 1890 to 1895.