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The Disobedient Artist: Joyce and Loyola

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

J. Mitchell Morse
J. Mitchell Morse*
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University, University Park
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Extract

The Jesuits never forgave Joyce for refusing to enter their Society, and he never forgave them for inviting him. The influence of this quarrel on his career is well known, and the effects of his Jesuit training on his work are often remarked in a general way. It remains, however, to specify the effects; for only when they are specified can we see clearly just what he rebelled against and why his rebellion took the forms it did. Joyce's books are in fact full of echoes from those of Saint Ignatius Loyola; we might begin by identifying some of them and assessing their significance.

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Type
Research Article
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PMLA , Volume 72 , Issue 5 , December 1957, pp. 1018 - 1035
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1957

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References

1 See, e.g., Stanislaus Joyce, Recollections of James Joyce (New York, 1950), pp. 6–7, 9; Herbert Gorman, James Joyce (New York, 1948), pp. 47, 297, 302; Horace Kallen, Art and Freedom (New York, 1942), ii, 805.

2 Throughout this paper, the numbers in parentheses refer to pages in Joyce's works. I have used the Modern Library editions of Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses; the Viking Press edition of Finnegans Wake (New York, 1939), and the 2nd New Directions edition of Stephen Hero (New York, 1955).

3 See The Text of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, trans. Henry Keane, S.J. (London, 1952), pp. 22–23 and passim. The “first prelude” to any spiritual exercise is a “composition of place. … In contemplation or meditation on visible matters … the composition will be to see with the eyes of the imagination the corporeal place where the thing I wish to contemplate is found. … In meditation on invisible things … the composition will be to see with the eyes of the imagination and to consider that my soul is imprisoned in this corruptible body, and my whole self in this vale of misery.”

4 Letters and Instructions of St. Ignatius Loyola, trans. D. F. O'Leary (St. Louis and London, 1914), i, 95, 98.

5 Constitutiones Societatis Jesu cum Declarationibus (Antwerp, 1635), pp. 233–234: “ut sancta Obedientia tum in executione, tum in voluntate, tum in intellectu sit in nobis semper omni ex parte perfecta; cum magnâ celeritate, spirituali gaudio, & perseverantiâ, quidquid nobis injunctum fuerit, obeundo; omnia justa esse, nobis persuadendo; omnem sententiam ac judicium nostrum contrarium caecâ quadam Obedientiâ abnegando; & id quidem in omnibus, quae à Superiore disponuntur, ubi definiri non possit (quemadmodum dictum est) aliquod peccati genus intercedere. Et sibi quisque persuadeat, quòd qui sub Obedientiâ vivunt, se ferri ac regi à divinâ Providentiâ per Superiores suos, sinere debent, perinde ac si cadaver essent, quod quoquoversus ferri, & quacumque ratione tractari se sinit: vel similiter atque senis baculus, qui ubicumque, & quacũque in re velit eo uti qui eum manu tenet, ei inservit. Si enim obediens rem quamcumque, cui eum Superior ad aucilium totius corporis Religionis velit impendere, cum animi hilaritate debet exequi, pro certo habens, quòd eâ ratione potiùs, quàm re aliâ quavis, quam praestare possit, propriam voluntatem ac judicium diversum sectando, divinae voluntati respondebit.”

6 Ibid., p. 256: “Cum exoptet Societas universas suas Constitutiones, Declarationes, ac vivendi ordinem, omnino juxta nostrũ Institutum, nihil ullâ in re declinando, observari; optet etiam nihilominùs suos omnes securos esse, vel certè adjuvari, ne in laqueũ ullius peccati, quod ex vi Constitutionum hujusmodi aut ordinationum proveniat, incidant; visum est nobis in Domino, excepto expresso Voto, quo Societas Summo Pontifici, pro tempore existent!, tenetur, ac tribus aliis essentialibus Paupertatis, Castitatis, & Obedientiae, nullas Cõstitutiones, Declarationes, vel ordinem ullum vivendi, posse obligatione ad peccatum mortale vel veniale inducere; nisi Superior ea in Nomine Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, vel in virtute Obedientiae juberet: quod in rebus, vel personis illis, in quibus judicabitur, quòd ad particulare uniuscuiusque, vel ad universale bonum multum conveniet, fieri poterit: & loco timoris offensae, succedat amor & desideriũ omnis perfectionis; & ut major gloria & laus Christi Creatoris, ac Domini Nostri consequatur.“ Cf. quotation from Alfonso Rodriguez, S.J., in William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Modern Lib., n.d.), pp. 306–307.

7 St. Ignatius and the Ratio Studiorum, ed. Edward A. Fitzpatrick (New York and London, 1933), pp. 93–94.

8 Ibid., pp. 164–165, 168.

9 Constitutiones, pp. 118–119: “Doctrinae igitur differentes non admittantur. … unio verò & conformitas mutua diligentissimè curanda est; nec, quae ei adversantur, permittenda.”

10 See Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (New York, 1950), pp. 154–157.

11 Leiters and Instructions, i, 67. Cf. i, 95,98, on Christ's pay to His soldiers.

12 Spiritual Exercises, p. 27.

13 See, e.g., The Minor Poems of the Vernon Manuscript, Part I, ed. Carl Horstman, EETS, No. 98; The Minor Poems of the Vernon Manuscript, Part II, ed. F. J. Furnivall, EETS, No. 117; An Old English Miscellany, ed. Richard Morris, EETS, No. 49; English Lyrics of the XIIIth Century, ed. Carleton Brown (Oxford, 1932); Political, Religious, and Love Poems, ed. F. J. Furnivall, EETS, No. 15; Selections from Early Middle English, ed. Joseph Hall (Oxford, 1920); Robert of Brunne's “Handlyng Synne” …, ed. F. J. Furnivall, EETS, No. 119.

14 Ch. lxiv (Migne, Patrologia Latina, clviii, 210 B): “Videtur mibi hujus tam sublimis rei secretun transcendere omnem intellectus aciem humani: et idcirco conatum explicandi qualiter hoc sit, continendum puto. Sufficere namque debere existimo rem incomprehensibilem indiganti, si ad hoc ratiocinando pervenerit ut earn certissime esse cognoscat; etiamsi penetrare nequeat intellectu, quomodo ita sit: nec idcirco minus his adhibendam fidei certitudinem, quae probationibus necessariis, nulla alia repugnante ratione asserentur; si suae naturalis altitudinis incomprehensibilitate explicari non patiantur.”

15 Spiritual Exercises, p. 27.

16 Ibid., pp. 130–134. Cf. George Orwell on “blackwhite,” 1984 (New York: New American Lib., 1953), p. 161.

17 In terms of area, Los Angeles is the largest city in the United States; in Finnegans Wake, the villains always think in terms of space. Beeton was one of many small communities swallowed up by Los Angeles' growth. On “poncif,” see Baudelaire, Fusées, xiii; also “Du chic et du poncif” in his notes on the Salon of 1846.

18 Spiritual Exercises, pp. 26–27.

19 Dorothea Waley Singer, Giordano Bruno, His Life and Thought (New York, 1950), p. 179.

20 Kevin Sullivan of Columbia Univ. informs me that the original of this phrase is “Laus Deo semper: a pious ejaculation often affixed to themes by Jesuit students.”

21 See Clarence C. Green, “The Paradox of the Fall in Paradise Lost,” MLN, liii (Dec. 1938), 557–571.

22 See “The Day of the Rabblement,” quoted by Gorman, p. 73.

23 Within a Budding Grove, Modern Lib. ed., Pt. i, p. 318.

24 Spiritual Exercises, p. 23.

25 Rudolph Von Abele, “Ulysses: The Myth of Myth,” PMLA, lxix (June 1954), 364.

26 Axel's Castle (New York and London, 1931), pp. 200–202; James Joyce: A Critical Introduction (Norfolk, Conn., 1941), pp. 131–132.