Abstract
The paper deals with the images of the two cities crucial for Joyce´s artistic career, Dublin and Paris, and counterpoints the backwardness of the former (partially constructed by Joyce himself) with the progressiveness of the latter (greatly ignored by him) - counterpoints very much at work in Joyce´s own aesthetics on more than one level. Some biographical passages in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are used to reveal some of the more ambiguous aspects in Joyce´s own attitude toward these two habitats.