Catholic Nostalgia in Joyce and Company

Although numerous critics and scholars have considered the influence of Joyce's Catholicism on his works, most seem to have concluded that Joyce's intention was to subvert the church's power. Mary Lowe-Evans argues, on the contrary, that the net result of Joyce's Catholic nostalgia is an entanglement in rather than a liberation from the labyrinthine ways of theological exposition and Catholic ritual and politics, which has inspired in his readers an enduring admiration for institutional Catholicism.

Mary Lowe-Evans, professor emerita of English at the University of West Florida, is the author of Crimes against Fecundity: Joyce and Population Control and Frankenstein: Mary Shelley's Wedding Guest.