In a diary entry for 1930, W. B. Yeats recalls a day early in the Irish Revival when he and Douglas Hyde were out walking and heard people at work in a field singing words that Hyde recognized as his own. Yeats says he begged Hyde to ‘‘give up all coarse oratory’’ and to write more such songs as a way to ‘‘help the two Irelands, Gaelic Ireland and Anglo-Ireland so unite that neither shall shed its pride.’’¹ The two Irelands Yeats speaks of go by many names in addition to the ones he uses, among them ‘‘native and settler,’’...

Along with a few biographical details, the essays, book reviews, and other items collected inThe Critical Writingsgive a preliminary answer to the question asked at the end of Chapter 1: to what extent did Joyce embrace a militant Catholicism? The collection contains pieces that Joyce wrote before leaving Ireland in 1904, including book reviews written during his 1902–1903 sojourn in Paris, as well as his later work, written in Italy between 1907 and 1912. The first group of writings deals primarily with literature from a point of view bluntly antagonistic to Irish nationalism. Appearing to demonstrate the...

Insofar as Joyce wrote the stories inDublinerswith the idea that they would help transform the country, they all reflect a central notion of the Revival, but the movement itself also has a prominent place in the volume. The collection follows an arrangement that suggests the Revival’s growth: the Revival is simply alluded to in ‘‘A Little Cloud’’; and then later on, in ‘‘A Mother’’ and ‘‘The Dead,’’ it appears as a major subject. Though the relationship between Catholics and Protestants might not be considered a major subject inDubliners, this issue crops up early in the volume and...

The published pages ofStephen Herocontain a nearly complete version of the part of the novel that Joyce called ‘‘the University College episode’’ and that he later condensed into Chapter V ofA Portrait of the Artist. The episode, which often focuses on the manifestations of the Revival within UCD, contains Joyce’s most extensive account of the movement. It distinguishes a Griffithite political strain of cultural nationalism from an apolitical strain such as Moran advocated. Perhaps because Joyce inclined toward Griffith rather than Moran, the political strain figures more prominently inStephen Heroand is treated more sympathetically. For...

In his 1952 introduction toExiles, Padraic Colum took issue with critics’ habit of dwelling on the play’s debt to contemporary continental drama, particularly Ibsen. The situations in Joyce’s play, he said, ‘‘being motivated by a Catholic and not by a Protestant conscience, are different from the situations in an Ibsen play’’ (E8). The preoccupation with Joyce’s interest in Ibsen has obscured not only the Catholic elements inExilesbut also the play’s connections with the Irish theatre movement, the Revival, and Ireland generally.

The stage directions identify the setting ofExilesas the ‘‘suburbs of Dublin’’ in the...

Richard and Robert’s youthful attempt to create a new life in Ireland resembles the moments in Irish history that Joyce cites in his ‘‘Saints and Sages’’ lecture when Protestants and Catholics joined forces in a national cause. Their alliance also exemplifies the popular Revival vision of the two cultures working together to reshape the country. The implication ofExiles, however, is that, whatever their relationships may have been in the past, the two cultures have become so divided that cooperation between them no longer is possible. InUlyssesJoyce lays greater stress than ever before on that division. Nowhere in...