Books in the The Florida James Joyce Series series

Modernism's most contentious rivals, James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence, are traditionally seen as opposites. This is the first book to explore the resonances between the two writers, revealing that their lives, works, and careers have striking similarities. Modernists at Odds is a long overdue extended comparison of two of the most compelling writers of the twentieth century.

Assuming the position of the ideal contemporary Irish reader that Joyce might have anticipated, this work argues that the main character, James Duffy, is a "spoiled priest," emotionally arrested by his guilt at having rejected the call to the priesthood. Duffy's intellectual life thereafter progresses through German idealism to eventual nihilism.

Presents, in a single volume, key seminal essays in the study of James Joyce. Representing important contributions to scholarship that have helped shape current methods of approaching Joyce's works, the volume reacquaints contemporary readers with the literature that forms the basis of ongoing scholarly inquiries in the field.

This innovative analysis shows how James Joyce uses the language of prayer to grapple with profoundly human ideas in Finnegans Wake-the dreamlike masterpiece that critics have called his "e;book of the night."e; Colleen Jaurretche moves beyond what scholars know about how Joyce composed this work to suggest why he wrote and arranged it as he did. Jaurretche provides a sequential reading of the four chapters and corresponding themes of the Wake from the perspective of prayer. She examines image, manifested by the letters of the alphabet and the Book of Kells; magic, which Joyce equates with the workings of language; dreams, which he relates to poetry; and speech, glorified in the Wake for its potential to express emotions and ecstasy. Jaurretche bases her study on important thinkers from antiquity to the present, including Origen of Alexandria, Giambattista Vico, and Giordano Bruno. She demonstrates how these philosophers influenced Joyce's view that prayer can imbue language with power. This book is an illuminating and much-needed interpretation of a work that abounds with echoes and cadences of sacred language. Jaurretche's insights will guide readers' understanding of the style and structure of Finnegans Wake.A volume in the Florida James Joyce Series, edited by Sebastian D. G. Knowles