A Portrait of the Artist as a Ghost: Joycean Echoes in Philip Roth’s Depiction of the Artist

Abstract

Abstract: This essay traces the origin of the ghost’s metaphor in Philip Roth’s The Ghost Writer (1979) and argues that, under the influence of James Joyce, Roth molds his poetics through his most famous fictional double and his artistic journey. At the same time, he shapes an authorial figure that questions the act of writing in the twentieth century.