Experimentation And Expression-Techniques In Progress In James Joyce's Stream Of Consciousness Writing

James Joyce, one of the most prominent modernistic fictionists in twentieth century, is famous for his stream-of-consciousness novels in which almost every possible modernistic literary device is used. He focuses his writing on the mental experience of ordinary people, or in other words, the consciousness, and is concerned at all costs to represent the exact mentality of the characters. He treats the spiritual"paralysation"of modern people as his permanent theme and sees the modern world as chaotic and disorderly. His characters are often common people, sometimes are even nonentity, such as the character Leopold Bloom in Ulysses. He argues that the ordinary should be the proper domain of the artist, and that the subject matter of art should not be limited only to the sublime; anything that pleases the aesthetic sensitivity can be relevant to the beautiful. He practices in his literary works his faith that an artist is"a priest of eternal imagination, transmuting the daily bread of experience into the radiant body of ever living life"(Joyce, 1947: 490). The major achievement that Joyce has accomplished is that of his employment of stream-of-consciousness genre and a wide range of techniques. Joyce's stream-of-consciousness novels have exerted such a profound influence on the literary tradition as well as on the novel writing in later generations. In this connection, the research of James Joyce's novels, the milestone in the history of Western modern literature, is of great necessity and current significance. This thesis is a tentative analysis of Joyce's fundamental aesthetic views and largely the development of stream of consciousness writing in his first three novels: Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and the most important one, Ulysses. It starts from exploring Joyce's aesthetic principles, so as to understand the reasons of his choosing stream of consciousness as the matter of subject. Then, it deals with the specific practice of stream of consciousness in each of the three novels through close studies of the original texts; and by the comparison from certain perspectives: structure, theme, narrative method, and language, a conclusion has been reached that there is a dynamic developing process for techniques in Joyce's stream-of-consciousness fiction.The thesis is composed of five parts. Part 1 offers the background information of the fictionist's life and writing, and reviews the general history of the Joyce criticism both in the West and in China. Part 2 discusses the basic aesthetic principles of Joyce. He has been greatly influenced in formulating his aesthetic views by both the ancient classic philosophers, such as Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and his contemporary philosopher, Henri Bergson. Part 3 re-defines the stream of consciousness as a genre rather than a particular technique and clarifies some long-existing misconceptions of this literary term. It also presents the origin of the coinage of the term and illustrates some important techniques exploited in the stream-of-consciousness fiction, such as the interior monologue. Part 4 compares on a large scale the differences among the three novels from four major aspects: structure, theme, narrative method, and language, so as to identify the development of the stream-of-consciousness writing in these novels. And part 5 reasserts the theme of the thesis that the artist's fundamental aesthetic principles are among the determinative factors in his novel writing and also concludes the developing process of his employment of techniques in his stream-of-consciousness novels.Through profound analysis and discussion, this work attempts to unveil the development of the fictionist's works and his techniques, thus making contributions to the study of Joyce in China.