z-logo
open-access-imgOpen Access
Finding a Tongue: Autobiography Beyond Definition
Author(s) -
Juliane PradeWeiss
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
european journal of life writing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2211-243X
DOI - 10.5463/ejlw.6.217
Subject(s) - biography , portrait , reading (process) , openness to experience , linguistics , point (geometry) , literature , psychology , history , philosophy , art , art history , social psychology , geometry , mathematics
The outset of Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man presents a stage of life and language that is commonly evoked and, at the same time, systematically avoided in autobiographies as well as theoretical approaches to language: infancy. This textual strategy refers back to Augustine’s Confessiones, one of the most canonical autobiographies, reading it as a mainstay for an unconventional hypothesis: Rather that understanding infancy as an early stage of, or even before, language, Joyce expounds that the condition called infancy – the openness for receiving language while being unable to master it – accompanies all speech, be it childlike or eloquent. The article analyses Joyce’s text as one instance of a general paradox of autobiographical writing: initial aphasia. Setting out with birth or infancy, autobiographical texts precede articulate discourse. In Joyce, this paradox appears as starting point for a poetical – rather than theoretical – thinking about language, and language acquisition. This article was submitted on September 22nd 2015, and published on April 9th 2017.

The content you want is available to Zendy users.

Already have an account? Click here to sign in.
Having issues? You can contact us here