“Portals of Discovery”: Historical Allusions in Joyce’s Portrait

The Irish context informs the process of composition of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Joyce’s use of historical allusions is an essential literary device when recontextualising the novel in its original cultural dynamics. Varied in form and elusive to the eye, allusions function as textual signs that introduce multiple layers of contextual meaning, unveiling the main characters’ contradictions and the workings of coercive ideologies. Joycean allusions thus act as metonymic portmanteau signs; they become the true “portals” of discovery of a less apparent portrait: that of Ireland as a British colony.