James Joyce's Painful Case

In order to demonstrate that one story from the Dubliners is not only a turning point in that book but also a microcosm of a wide range of important Joycean influences and preoccupations, Cóilín Owens examines the dense intertextuality of "A Painful Case." Assuming the position of the ideal contemporary Irish reader that Joyce might have anticipated, Owens 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. The contrast of nihilist thought and Christian belief is Owens's main focus, and he demonstrates how this dichotomy is evident at various points in the life of James Duffy. From this springboard, Owens constructs a larger discussion of Joyce's cultural influences, including Schopenhauer, Wagner, Tolstoy, and others. He considers many other complex interrelationships that inform Joyce's text--theology, philosophy, music, opera, literary history, Irish cultural history, and Joyce's own poetry--and offers detailed elucidations informed by historical, geographical, linguistic, and biographical information.

Author: Cóilín Owens
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Published: 08/22/2017
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.89lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.61d
ISBN13: 9780813054711
ISBN10: 0813054710
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Collections | European | English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
- Literary Criticism | Subjects & Themes | Historical Events
- Literary Criticism | Modern | 20th Century

About the Author
Cóilín Owens is professor emeritus of English at George Mason University, coeditor of Irish Drama, 1900-1980, and editor of Family Chronicles: Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent.