James Joyce and the (Post)Modern Irish Conscience
This study explores the body of literature surrounding the Easter Rising of 1916 to account for that revolution's influence upon the development of Irish fiction. Using Ulysses and Finnegans Wake as my primary examples, I argue that James Joyce's literary innovations emerged partially in response to the ideology expressed by prominent nationalists. Over the past thirty years, postcolonial studies of Joyce's fiction have revealed the extent to which the author's aesthetic innovations occurred in dialogue with, and in opposition to, both British Imperialism and Irish Nationalism. While such work has proven profitable, scholars have yet to sufficiently account for Joyce's response to the Easter Rising, one of the defining moments of modern Irish history. This study endeavors to find that response by tracing the dialectic between the ideology of the Rising and Joyce's emergent postmodern aesthetic. Through rhetorical analysis of poetry, essays, speeches, and letters produced by the Rising's most prominent leaders, and texts written by other Irish nationalists, I argue that the Military Council of 1916 established the grounds for their rebellion in reference to a "grand narrative" of Irish national destiny, fashioned around the telos of the Irish Republic. Drawing from numerous sources, including historical precedent, modern and ancient Irish literature, Marxism, and the mythoi of Celtic and Judeo-Christian traditions, the leaders forged an ideology that stressed both the moral authority of their cause and the inevitability of its completion. Joyce's response to the ideology and its structure is irony, employing metafictional and satirical techniques that destabilize both the text and the ideology the text rejects.Drawing from the major texts produced by the Rising's leaders and other prominent nationalists, I analyze the primary narrative elements of the ideology through examination of three interrelated thematic categories: the essential distinctness of the Irish people, the authority of history and tradition, and the transcendence of patriotic self-sacrifice. The remainder of the study proceeds sequentially through these thematic headings, exploring each in reference to Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Tracing the appearance of each theme in Joyce's final major works, I contend that Joyce interrogates the ideology through use of experimental literary techniques, most notably that of metalepsis. The chapters are the following: Introduction: Who Fears to Speak of Easter Week; Chapter One: "Blotty Words" and "Bloody Wars"; Chapter Two: The Sassenach Wants His Morning Rashers; Chapter Three: History as Her is Harped; Chapter Four: Ruling Passion Strong in Death; Conclusion: Our National Epic.
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