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The book explores the portrait in Modernist literature by focusing on the novels The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce and Doña Inés (a love story) by José Martínez Ruiz - Azorín. In order to put the theme in the necessary cultural, historical and theoretical perspective, the first two chapters are dedicated to the autonomous pictorial portrait and to different types of portraits in literature. The remaining three chapters offer a close reading of the three chosen literary works from the point of view of the portrait: the diverse manifestations of the portrait are registered, their functions are pointed out and analysed, the relationships existing between them are established, and, finally, the problems that the portraits pose are determined. As a result, the comparative analysis of the novels of Wilde, Joyce and Azorín outlines their common commitment to the representation of a contradictory, constantly developing and self-reflexive human individual. The three protagonists reject the authorities, value their individual freedom highly and perceive their identity as subject to their past. By revealing the capacity of the portrait to expound the issues pointed out above, the research deems it an adequate embodiment of Modernist worldview.The present book is a revised version of a PhD thesis defended at Sofia University in 2012.

Modernism (Literature) --- English literature.