一个青年艺术家的肖像(A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)简介：
James Joyce's Portrait of an Artist is one of the most significant literary works of the twentieth century, and one of the most innovative. Its originality shocked contemporary readers on its publication in 1916 who found its treating of the minutiae of daily life as indecorous, and its central character unappealing. Was it art or was it filth?

The novel charts the intellectual, moral, and sexual development of Stephen Dedalus, from his childhood listening to his father's stories through his schooldays and adolescence to the brink of adulthood and independence, and his awakening as an artist. Growing up in a Catholic family in Dublin in the final years of the nineteenth century, Stephen's consciousness is forged by Irish history and politics, by Catholicism and culture, language and art. Stephen's story mirrors that of Joyce himself, and the novel is both startlingly realistic and brilliantly crafted, not to mention that it is one of the founding texts of Modernism and the precursor of the acclaimed Ulysses.

For this edition Jeri Johnson, an eminent Joyce scholar, has written an introduction and notes which together provide a comprehensive and illuminating appreciation of Joyce's artistry.

　　《一个青年艺术家的肖像》是一部充满张力的作品。一方面，乔伊斯大量地取材于自己的个人生活，另一方面，他又极其巧妙地把这部书写成了真正意义上的的虚构作品——读者无法把斯蒂芬与乔伊斯完全等同。而且，在阅读的过程中，对文本的诠释给读者带来了巨大的愉悦。《一个青年艺术家的肖像》的情节既有序，又松散。全书分为五章，虽然没有小标题，根据内容，却可以很清楚地划分为:童年时期的感受、学校生活以及青年时期的成熟、悔罪、摒弃宗教、选择流亡来追求真正的独立。从古典意义的情节上来讲，实在没有多少起伏跌宕。但是，从现代主义的情节上来讲，不但全书都贯穿着一种追求领悟的冲动，甚至每一个章节中，都有着结构上的循环以及这种重复性结构逐步加深的主题意义。　　
　　 如果说，一定要为《一个青年艺术家的肖像》找出一个情节主线的话，那就是，主人公斯蒂芬的自我世界以及这个自我世界在成长过程中的产物。在第一章中，我们看不到开端——高潮——结尾那样井井有条的情节发展，相反，我们体验到的，是婴儿斯蒂芬以及学童斯蒂芬眼中的世界。反复出现的场景动作支离破碎，一如它们印在主人公意识中的模样。甚至从这个时期开始，斯蒂芬就已经显露了“艺术家”的气质与使命。不妨来看一下开篇，我们会发现，斯蒂芬的感觉是全面的，他那儿语中，记录下了精确而真实的感受:他听到了父亲给他讲的故事；他看到了父亲脸上有很多毛；他尝到了柠檬味儿的辫子糖；他的触觉也很灵敏，知道尿床后，先是暖烘烘的，接着就变凉了；他还闻到了油纸的怪味儿。他的创造力变成了他应付世界的办法。当丹蒂姨妈责骂他时，他躲在桌子下，把来自成人世界的威胁与压力变成了“诗歌”。在教会学校中，他始终沉浸在自己的世界中，幻想着文字的盛宴。