Rome

In late May 1906, the head of the Berlitz school ran away after embezzling its funds. Artifoni took over the school but let Joyce know that he could only afford to keep one brother on.^[151] Tired of Trieste and discouraged that he could not get a publisher for Dubliners, Joyce found an advertisement for a correspondence clerk in a Roman bank that paid twice his current salary.^[152] He was hired for the position and went to Rome at the end of July.^[153]

Joyce felt he accomplished very little during his brief stay in Rome,^[154] but it had a large impact on his writing.^[155] Though his new job took up most of his time, he revised Dubliners and worked on Stephen Hero.^[156] Rome was the birthplace of the idea for "The Dead", which would become the final story of Dubliners,^[157] and for Ulysses,^[158] which was originally conceived as a short story.^{[lower-alpha 24]} His stay in the city was one of his inspirations for Exiles.^[160] While there, he read the socialist historian Guglielmo Ferrero in depth.^[161] Ferrero's anti-heroic interpretations of history, arguments against militarism, and conflicted attitudes toward Jews^[162] would find their way into Ulysses, particularly in the character of Leopold Bloom.^[163] In London, Elkin Mathews published Chamber Music on the recommendation of the British poet Arthur Symons.^[164] Nonetheless, Joyce was dissatisfied with his job, had exhausted his finances, and realised he would need additional support when he learned Nora was pregnant again.^[165] He left Rome after only seven months.^[166]

Second stay in Trieste

Joyce returned to Trieste in March 1907, but was unable to find full-time work. He went back to being an English instructor, working part-time for Berlitz and giving private lessons.^[167] The author Ettore Schmitz, better known by pen name Italo Svevo, was one of his students. Svevo was a Catholic of Jewish origin who became one of the models for Leopold Bloom.^[168] Joyce learned much of what he knew about Judaism from him.^[169] The two became lasting friends and mutual critics.^[170] Svevo supported Joyce's identity as an author, helping him work through his writer's block with A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.^[171] Roberto Prezioso, editor of the Italian newspaper Piccolo della Sera, was another of Joyce's students. He helped Joyce financially by commissioning him to write for the newspaper. Joyce quickly produced three articles aimed toward the Italian irredentists in Trieste. He indirectly paralleled their desire for independence from Austria-Hungary with the struggle of the Irish from British rule.^[172] Joyce earned additional money by giving a series of lectures at Trieste's Università Popolare on Ireland and the arts,^[173] as well as on William Shakespeare's play Hamlet.^[174]

In May, Joyce was struck by an attack of rheumatic fever,^[175] which left him incapacitated for weeks.^{[lower-alpha 25]} The illness exacerbated eye problems that plagued him for the rest of his life.^[181] While Joyce was still recovering from the attack, Lucia was born on 26 July 1907.^[182]^{[lower-alpha 26]} During his convalescence, he was able to finish "The Dead", the last story of Dubliners.^[184]

Although a heavy drinker,^[185] Joyce gave up alcohol for a period in 1908.^[186] He reworked Stephen Hero as the more concise and interior A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. He completed the third chapter by April^[187] and translated John Millington Synge's Riders to the Sea into Italian with the help of Nicolò Vidacovich.^[188] He even took singing lessons again.^[189] Joyce had been looking for an English publisher for Dubliners but was unable to find one, so he submitted it to a Dublin publisher, Maunsel and Company, owned by George Roberts.^[190]

Visits to Dublin

In July 1909, Joyce received a year's advance payment from one of his students and returned to Ireland to introduce Giorgio to both sides of the family, his own in Dublin and Nora's in Galway.^[191] He unsuccessfully applied for the position of Chair of Italian at his alma mater, which had become University College Dublin.^[192] He met with Roberts, who seemed positive about publishing the Dubliners.^[193] He returned to Trieste in September with his sister Eva, who helped Nora run the home.^[194] Joyce only stayed in Trieste for a month, as he almost immediately came upon the idea of starting a cinema in Dublin, which unlike Trieste had none. He quickly got the backing of some Triestine businessmen and returned to Dublin in October, launching Ireland's first cinema, the Volta Cinematograph.^[195] It was initially well-received, but fell apart after Joyce left.^[196] He returned to Trieste in January 1910 with another sister, Eileen.^[197]^{[lower-alpha 27]}

From 1910 to 1912, Joyce still lacked a reliable income. This brought his conflicts with Stanislaus, who was frustrated with lending him money, to their peak.^[201] In 1912, Prezioso arranged for him to lecture on Hamlet for the Minerva Society between November 1912 and February 1913.^[202] Joyce once more lectured at the Università Popolare on various topics in English literature and applied for a teaching diploma in English at the University of Padua.^[203] He performed very well on the qualification tests, but was denied because Italy did not recognise his degree from an Irish university. In 1912, Joyce and his family returned to Dublin briefly in the summer.^[204] While there, his three-year-long struggle with Roberts over the publication of Dubliners^[205] came to an end as Roberts refused to publish the book due to concerns of libel. Roberts had the printed sheets destroyed, though Joyce was able to obtain a copy of the proof sheets.^{[lower-alpha 28]} When Joyce returned to Trieste, he wrote an invective against Roberts, "Gas from a Burner".^[207] He never went to Dublin again.^[208]

Publication of Dubliners and A Portrait

Joyce's fortunes changed for the better in 1913 when Richards agreed to publish Dubliners. It was issued on 15 June 1914,^[209] eight and a half years since Joyce had first submitted it to him.^[210] Around the same time, he found an unexpected advocate in Ezra Pound, who was living in London.^{[lower-alpha 29]} On the advice of Yeats,^[212] Pound wrote to Joyce asking if he could include a poem from Chamber Music, "I Hear an Army Charging upon the Land" in the journal Des Imagistes. They struck up a correspondence that lasted until the late 1930s. Pound became Joyce's promoter, helping ensure that Joyce's works were both published and publicized.^[213]

After Pound persuaded Dora Marsden to serially publish A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in the London literary magazine The Egoist,^[214] Joyce's pace of writing increased. He completed A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by 1914;^[215] resumed Exiles, completing it in 1915;^[216] started the novelette Giacomo Joyce, which he eventually abandoned;^[217] and began drafting Ulysses.^[218]

In August 1914, World War I broke out. Although Joyce and Stanislaus were subjects of the United Kingdom, which was now at war with Austria-Hungary, they remained in Trieste. Even when Stanislaus, who had publicly expressed his sympathy for the Triestine irredentists, was interned at the beginning of January 1915, Joyce chose to stay. In May 1915, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary,^[219] and less than a month later Joyce took his family to Zürich in neutral Switzerland.^[220]