Wow! The powerful Christian voice, C. S. Lewis, shares the limelight with an angry, lapsed Roman Catholic, James Joyce, on your featured "best-seller" list of Irish writers. Somehow I think that Joyce would be a wee bit uncomfortable about all of that. I, however, enjoy the irony.
The interesting thing about Joyce is that, while he left the Church, he remained faithful to Thomas Aquinas. Were I a literary scholar and not just a literary hack I would write a monograph demonstrating that Ulysses is to a large extent a Thomistic critique of Catholicism. Stephen on Sandymount Strand is contemplating the saint's commentary on Aristotle's De anima in which Aquinas elaborates on the idea that the knower and the known are one: WE make what we know a part of ourselves and so enrich our being - which is what Mr. Bloom is doing throughout the book. At some Joyce knew that once a Catholic always a Catholic.
Of course, Nora, when approached about burying Joyce in consecrated ground as a good Roman Catholic, balked and bristled.
At any rate, my reading of Joyce leads me to believe that he may have grudgingly held on to some sort of Christian faith, he was nevertheless estranged from Roman Catholicism for many reasons.
Perhaps my reading is wrong. I will have to revisit Joyce with an open mind and reconsider his (and my) attitudes.
Still, though, I enjoy imagining his reaction to his pairing with C. S. Lewis.
I think you're right that he did hold on, however grudgingly, to some Christian faith. And I believe his estrangement from the Church was real (though he went out of his way once to differentiate between his criticism of the Church in Ireland and the Church in France, to which he seemed to have less objection. The devotion to Aquinas, though, is different. He read a page of Aquinas in Latin every day and Yeats said of him that "he thinks every question has been settled by Thomas Aquinas."
Wow! The powerful Christian voice, C. S. Lewis, shares the limelight with an angry, lapsed Roman Catholic, James Joyce, on your featured "best-seller" list of Irish writers. Somehow I think that Joyce would be a wee bit uncomfortable about all of that. I, however, enjoy the irony.
ReplyDeleteThe interesting thing about Joyce is that, while he left the Church, he remained faithful to Thomas Aquinas. Were I a literary scholar and not just a literary hack I would write a monograph demonstrating that Ulysses is to a large extent a Thomistic critique of Catholicism. Stephen on Sandymount Strand is contemplating the saint's commentary on Aristotle's De anima in which Aquinas elaborates on the idea that the knower and the known are one: WE make what we know a part of ourselves and so enrich our being - which is what Mr. Bloom is doing throughout the book. At some Joyce knew that once a Catholic always a Catholic.
ReplyDeleteOf course, Nora, when approached about burying Joyce in consecrated ground as a good Roman Catholic, balked and bristled.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, my reading of Joyce leads me to believe that he may have grudgingly held on to some sort of Christian faith, he was nevertheless estranged from Roman Catholicism for many reasons.
Perhaps my reading is wrong. I will have to revisit Joyce with an open mind and reconsider his (and my) attitudes.
Still, though, I enjoy imagining his reaction to his pairing with C. S. Lewis.
I think you're right that he did hold on, however grudgingly, to some Christian faith. And I believe his estrangement from the Church was real (though he went out of his way once to differentiate between his criticism of the Church in Ireland and the Church in France, to which he seemed to have less objection. The devotion to Aquinas, though, is different. He read a page of Aquinas in Latin every day and Yeats said of him that "he thinks every question has been settled by Thomas Aquinas."
ReplyDeleteOh, and you're right: He would be more than a wee bit uncomfortable being paired with anybody, let alone Lewis.
ReplyDelete