Composition
Portrait is a rewrite of Joyce's earlier attempt at the story as written in Stephen Hero, with which he grew frustrated in 1905. The story was changed considerably to emphasize the psychological experience of Stephen Dedalus. For instance, several of his siblings were major characters of the earlier version, but are almost completely absent in Portrait. The incomplete first draft of Stephen Hero was published posthumously in 1944.
Read more about this topic: A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“Boswell, when he speaks of his Life of Johnson, calls it my magnum opus, but it may more properly be called his opera, for it is truly a composition founded on a true story, in which there is a hero with a number of subordinate characters, and an alternate succession of recitative and airs of various tone and effect, all however in delightful animation.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)
“Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.”
—Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890)
“Pushkin’s composition is first of all and above all a phenomenon of style, and it is from this flowered rim that I have surveyed its seep of Arcadian country, the serpentine gleam of its imported brooks, the miniature blizzards imprisoned in round crystal, and the many-hued levels of literary parody blending in the melting distance.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)