Abstract: James Joyce, a distinguished Irish writer, was in pursuit of the innovation of the literary forms in the course of the creation. As a representative of the literary trend-modernism in the early 20thcentury, Joyce, with great intensity, challenged the convention and put his creative theories into literary practice in his masterpiece A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Focusing on time, consciousness and writing techniques, Joyce vividly showed the modern qualities of the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus. In the essay, Joyce’s literary practice is studied in two aspects, that is, Joyce’s application of his aesthetic theory and the function of his modern creative techniques in the overall arrangement in the novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Youngman.

Key words: JamesJoyce, APortraitoftheArtistasaYoungman, literarypractice, aesthetictheory