Help My Unbelief: James Joyce and Religion

by Geert Lernout

Overview

From the very beginning James Joyce's readers have considered him as a Catholic or an anti-Catholic writer, and in recent years the tendency has been to recuperate him for an alternative and decidedly liberal form of Catholicism. However, a careful study of Joyce's published and unpublished writings reveals that throughout his career as a writer he rejected the church in which he had grown up. As a result, Geert Lernout argues that it is misleading to divorce his work from that particular context, which was so important to his decision to become a writer in the first place. Arguing that Joyce's unbelief is critical for a fuller understanding of his work, Lernout takes his title from Ulysses, "I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief. That is, help me to believe or help me to unbelieve?", itself a quote from Mark 9: 24. This incisive study will be of interest to all readers of Joyce and to anyone interested in the relationship between religion and literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781441194749
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	04/15/2010
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Geert Lernout is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and Director of the James Joyce Centre. He has published The French Joyce (1990) and Iets Anders: De GoldBerg-Varieties van Bach (2001).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vi

List of Abbreviations vii

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Joyce and the Church According to the Critics 13

Chapter 2 The Holy Roman Apostolic Church 28

Chapter 3 Heresy, Schisma and Dissent 52

Chapter 4 Joyce's Own Crisis of Belief 94

Chapter 5 Loss of Religion in Retrospect: From Epiphanies to Exiles 111

Chapter 6 'You behold in me a horrible example of freethought' 140

Chapter 7 Free Lay Church in a Free Lay State 157

Chapter 8 After Ulysses 191

Conclusion 206

Notes 218

References 222

Index 231

Editorial Reviews

Lernout meticulously pinpoints and researches minor references to religion in Joyce's oeuvre, providing an index of ideas that will undoubtedly be an excellent resource for scholars seeking an explanation for religious allusions which have hitherto been overlooked or unexplained, particularly in Joyce's early work... This is a vast, informative work that will be useful both to new readers and experienced Joyceans alike.--Sanford Lakoff

Lernout's book is an indispensible starting point for an extended examination of religion in Joyce's works and his always intricate perspectives.--Sanford Lakoff

From the Publisher