Ulysses and the Irish god
By: Frederick K. Lang.
Publisher: Bucknell University Press; Associated University Presses
Published: 1993
Place of publication: Lewisburg [Pa.]; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 317
Subjects: Joyce, James, 1882-1941; Joyce, James, 1882-1941 -- Religion; Catholic Church -- In literature; Christianity in literature; Ireland in literature; God in literature
Description: This is the most comprehensive and original of the studies dealing with Joyce's response to the idea of God accepted in Ireland and to the sacred images and rituals prevalent there. It shows how in Ulysses he undermines and exploits the crucial elements of his rejected faith: how he recalls the omnipotent Father to reveal his artistic powers, the incarnated Son to celebrate his own human images, and the consecrated host to imply his hidden spiritual presence. Frederick K. Lang has closely analyzed both Joyce's texts and his sources, including important sources previously unidentified. First, he reveals that Joyce's transubstantiation of theology and liturgy in Ulysses is foreshadowed in his first short story.

There, by setting the Latin Mass in an Irish home, Joyce casts doubt upon the Church's ability to transform matter, and, in his revised version of the story, he casts further doubt by including parallels with the Greek liturgy, a rite he regarded as subversive of the Latin Mass. Next, Lang reinterprets Joyce's theory of literary art in light of its specific origins in Aquinas and the New Testament, and in doing so he reveals the precise meaning of the term "epiphany." He proceeds to demonstrate that the earlier theory, including the concept of epiphany, underlies the Hamlet theory, and that the famous reference to "love" is linked to God's narcissism and creativity. How the literary artist resembles God is implied not only in the Hamlet theory but in the references to orthodox and heretical views of the Father-Son relation and the Eucharist, views that explain Joyce's reincarnation as both Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom.

In Ulysses the word "reincarnation" has an additional meaning. Not only does Joyce's soul assume new flesh, but so does the Word of God. Along with the feast of Christ celebrated in Ireland on 16 June 1904, the novel assimilates first the Mass, then the black mass, and finally the Good Friday liturgy. At the end of Ulysses, Molly Bloom emerges as "the genuine christine" prophecied on the first page. Joyce's offering of her body, blood, and water evokes both the Crucifixion and the Eucharist, and thus makes flesh a Gospel read in Irish churches on the day he chose as Bloomsday. This book is lucid and provocative. Free of theory and jargon, it not only gives Joyce scholars fresh information and new interpretations, but would interest and enlighten any reader of Ulysses.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 297-302) and index.