The stories in

Dubliners

are generally considered to have charm, delicacy, and some mystery and symbolical tension. Their style is controlled, deliberately simple, unpolished, not lacking in skill, yet in places the stories betray the ineptitude of the inexperienced, young author.  Joyce was only twenty-two, and he had written only a handful of sentimental poems, when AE (George Russell) asked him if he wanted to contribute some stories to the

Irish Homestead

. AE sent him an example from the paper, a story called “The Old Watchman” by Berkeley Campbell. In response, Joyce wrote “The Sisters”, published on 13 August 1904, a rough and rather puzzling sketch of a young boy and a priest who dies, with very little plot and no real ending. It followed rather closely the basic setting…

2168 words

Citation: Van Mierlo, Wim. "Dubliners". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 April 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5482, accessed 19 March 2024.]

5482 Dubliners 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.