Umberto Eco, author of The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, has long been interested in the works of Joyce. Eco's essay, as does Santoro-Brienza's, celebrates joyce's deep love of the Italian language and culture. Joyce spoke Italian in his family life to the end of his days; it was the language he used for what was nearest to him. It remained the medium of his ordinary and most intimate living.
Eco's essay, "A Portrait of the Artist as Bachelor", explores Joyce's undergraduate years and influences at the time, and his early plans for his writings, his decision that "Grammar was to be considered as 'the primary science'". Santoro-Brienza's essay, "Joyce's Dialogue with Aquinas, Bruno, Vico, Svevo...", traces Joyce's series of encounters with these writers, his rejection of the then contemporary intellectual and Futuristic movements in lieu of the "often crazy, operatic, and heroic-comic ways" of the Italians.
