In Joyce\u27s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man the technique of free indirect style comprises an entire sliding scale, a speech transmission continuum, ranging from imitating (siniulating) voices to imitating (copying) texts, which represent the niovement from psychological presentation to parody. Thus, although much of the charm of this nove] resides in the play of free indirect style and of subtle intertwinements of the authorial and figura! idiom, this text also functions as Joyce*s warning against literal reading. A Portrait is not just a novel about an author learning to write; it is also a nove] learning to write itself. Its free indirect discourse goes beyond thejuxtaposition of individual idiolects, entering broader stylistic...