His last two books,
Ulysses (1922) and
Finnegans Wake (1939), though not as widely read as
Dubliners or
A Portrait, stand as paradigms of aesthetic achievement: often quoted, paraphrased, alluded to, or simply invoked in the name of artistic excellence. Those who do not encounter the influence of Joyce's consciousness through direct exposure to his works most likely absorb it from the writings of one or more of his literary heirs. Elements within the styles of authors as different from one another as Irish novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett, modern American novelists William Faulkner, Thomas Pynchon, and John Irving, and English fiction writers Malcolm Lowry and John Fowles identify them as some of those most overtly shaped by Joyce's canon. But no author today can begin to compose without confronting in some way the impact on modern literature brought about by Joyce's new methods of composition, and, consequently, no reader can take up a work of twentieth-century fiction without feeling the repercussions of Joyce's influence.
Although critics have argued over the precise elements that give Joyce his prominence, most would agree that the power within his writings comes not so much from the topics that they explore as from their complex formal structures.
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