John Stanislaus Joyce (December 17, 1884 – June 16, 1955) was an Irish teacher, scholar, diarist and writer who lived for many years in

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into pr ...

. He was the younger brother of

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the Modernism, modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important ...

. He was generally known as Stanislaus Joyce to distinguish him from his

father A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. An adoptive fathe ...

, who shared the same name.

Early life

Born in County Dublin, Stanislaus was considered a " whetstone" by his more famous brother, who shared his ideas and his books with him. He was three years younger than James, and a constant boyhood companion. Stanislaus rebelled against his native Ireland as his brother had done, and, in 1905, he joined James's household in

on Via Caterina, 1.

Career

Joyce worked as an English-language teacher in the Berlitz School alongside his brother. In 1903, he had already begun to keep a diary that recorded his own thoughts on philosophical and literary matter as well as those of his brother; he later resumed this diary in Trieste. This ''Book of Days'', as he called it, sheds light on James Joyce's life between the years 1906 and 1909. The diary indicates that Stanislaus, truly " his brother's keeper", was called upon to rescue his brother from financial difficulties time and time again. After 1908, he maintained his own address, although he may have lived with his brother again for a time in 1909. Arrested as a subversive on December 28, 1914, at the beginning of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, he was interned by the Austrians at Katzenau, near

Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital ...

. After his release, he moved in with his sister Eileen's family. Stanislaus took his brother's teaching position at Trieste's Scuola Superiore di Commercio "Revoltella" in 1920; this school later became assimilated into the University of Trieste and he continued on as a non-tenured professor of English until his death. Due to his anti-

Fascist Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the ...

views, Stanislaus moved to

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

sometime in 1941, where he may have been protected from the Germans by various wealthy Italian and American families.

Books

Joyce later published ''Recollections of James Joyce'' (1950); published after his death on June 16 (" Bloomsday") were ''My Brother's Keeper'' (1957), ''Dublin Diary'' (1962), and ''Complete Dublin Diary'' (1971). In the 1950s, Stanislaus had also assisted Richard Ellmann, his brother's biographer, with Ellmann's monumental ''James Joyce'' (1959). He also wrote an introduction for the translated version of Italo Svevo's ''As A Man Grows Older''. Stanislaus often fought with his brother, as well as with his brother's wife

Nora Barnacle Nora Barnacle (21 March 1884 – 10 April 1951) was the muse and wife of Irish author James Joyce. Barnacle and Joyce had their first romantic assignation in 1904 on a date celebrated worldwide as the "Bloomsday" of his modernist novel ...

, but they shared a common literary philosophy despite the fact that Stanislaus had received less advanced schooling than his brother. Stanislaus, however, channelled these instincts into sober academic study rather than wild flights of literary fancy. Of his brother, Stanislaus wrote,

It seems to me little short of a miracle that anyone should have striven to cultivate poetry or cared to get in touch with the current of European thought while living in a household such as ours, typical as it was of the squalor of a drunken generation. Some inner purpose transfigured him.

Personal life

On 13 August 1928 Stanislaus married Nelly Lichtensteiger. They had one son, James, who was born in February 1943.

Death

Stanislaus died in the Free Territory of Trieste, and is buried in

at the ''Via della Pace'' cemetery.

Sources

My Brother's Keeper
{{DEFAULTSORT:Joyce, Stanislaus 1884 births 1955 deaths Irish diarists Schoolteachers from Dublin (city) Writers from Trieste Italian schoolteachers Expatriates from the United Kingdom in the Austro-Hungarian Empire