Few writers have as secure a claim to be the major figure of the modernist period in literary history as James Joyce, a position that he prepared himself for with diligence and commitment. During his student days at University College in Dublin he prophetically envisioned his role as the major writer of his age, although he remained for a time undecided as to the form that his writing would take. Even before his twentieth birthday Joyce wrote and arranged to have published (with an essay by his friend F. J. C. Skeffington) an essay titled "The Day of the Rabblement" (1901), which concluded with a prophecy: "Elsewhere there are men who are worthy to carry on the tradition of the old master who is dying in Christiana. He has already found his successor in the writer of Michael Kramer, and a third minister will not be wanting when his...