"The (im)possibility of realism in Chamber Music (1907)"

This paper deals with Chamber Music, the first work by Joyce to be published – Elkin Mathews, London, 1907. The core of the essay is developed around the idea that the stylistic structure of the thirty-six poems of this collection, together with setting motifs (thematically and expressively speaking) which will recur throughout Joyce’s subsequent literary production, anticipates the “realistic” trends (objectivity, impersonality) then central within the Irish writer’s prose. The point dealt with will be further elaborated through a series of direct references to the internal organisation of the poetic collection and to its textual dimension.