ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -James Joyce was a major pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness. Some hints of this technique are already present in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), along with interior monologue, and references to a character’s psychic reality rather than to his external surroundings.

Detailed explanation-2: -The term was first used by the psychologist William James in The Principles of Psychology (1890). As the psychological novel developed in the 20th century, some writers attempted to capture the total flow of their characters’ consciousness, rather than limit themselves to rational thoughts.

Detailed explanation-3: -Regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the 20th century, he championed a new style of writing based upon the stream of consciousness technique: when the written form attempts to mimic a character’s immediate flow of thoughts and feelings, adding a heightened sense of realism to the plot.

Detailed explanation-4: -Article. The term ‘stream of consciousness’ was first coined by psychologist William James in The Principles of Psychology in 1893, when he describes it thusly: “consciousness as an uninterrupted ‘flow’: ‘a ‘river’ or a ‘stream’ are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described.

Detailed explanation-5: -Influential English writer Dorothy Richardson, whose stream-of-consciousness style will influence James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, is born on May 17, 1873. Richardson, though seldom read today, was widely read and discussed in her own time.