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Catholic Nostalgia in Joyce and Company

Online ISBN:
9780813038643
Print ISBN:
9780813032856
Publisher:
University Press of Florida
Book

Catholic Nostalgia in Joyce and Company

Mary Lowe-Evans
Mary Lowe-Evans
University of West Florida
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Published online:
14 September 2011
Published in print:
1 October 2008
Online ISBN:
9780813038643
Print ISBN:
9780813032856
Publisher:
University Press of Florida

Abstract

Although numerous critics and scholars have considered the influence of Joyce's Catholicism on his works, most seem to have concluded that Joyce's intention was to subvert the church's power. This book argues, on the contrary, that the net result of Joyce's Catholic nostalgia is an entanglement in rather than a liberation from the labyrinthine ways of theological exposition and Catholic ritual and politics, which has inspired in his readers an enduring admiration for institutional Catholicism. The author explores the ways in which specific Catholic rituals and devotions vigorously promoted by the Catholic Church during the “Crisis in Modernism” (1850–1960) caused a nostalgic reaction in Joyce that informs and permeates his work. She also traces the subtle and direct influence Joyce had on the Catholic thinking of a diverse group of subsequent writers. She demonstrates that Joyce and F. Scott Fitzgerald seem to effect this nostalgia in their work in spite of themselves, while Flannery O'Connor and Thomas Merton purposely elicit it. The book also discusses Joyce's enduring belief in the immortal soul and the religious faith and doubt of Merton.

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