A Portrait of Hugo Claus as a Young Artist: The Influence of James Joyce on The Sorrow of Belgium

This article traces the influence of James Joyce's A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Ulysses (1922) on Hugo Claus's Het Verdriet van België (1983). It notes extensive similarities between the novelists, including the parallels between Flanders and Ireland, the authors' backgrounds, styles, and narrative structures. Identifying patterns of convergence too extensive to be accidental, it argues that Claus hints at the formative influence of Joyce but ultimately places it under erasure to conceal a debt that had become too great for the ego of an artist who wished to define an emerging national consciousness.