Dr Anupama Nayar
Christ University, Bengaluru
Christ University, Bengaluru
Paper Title: Joycean Novels: A Broad Secularizing Project
Abstract
This paper will
discuss how the Irish novelist James Joyce used the Novel form as an interface
of religion and secularism in fiction. Though his literary secularism was a
phenomenon which crossed national as well as religious boundaries, it was not
as stable as a political platform. If anything, the secularism of his novels is
a nuanced, complex phenomenon, as he was deeply haunted by the fabric of
religious upbringing which he had only partially disowned. Joyce’s works as well as life reflect an ambiguous
relationship to religious texts, themes, and institutions. A non-teleological
concept of modernity is what is present in the works of Joyce especially in his
novels, A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man and Ulysses. Here, the
secular and the religious exist in an intimately antinomian, mutually defining
opposition in many aspects of cultural life, including literature. In Joyce's Ulysses,
for instance, Biblical allegory impinges on the secular engagement with
Irish nationalism. Beyond the mere textual influence
of religious metaphors, in Ulysses Joyce also engages religious
identities and beliefs as a social and political problem in the modern Ireland.
The paper will argue that the complex nexus of political and religious
concerns led to diverse responses by Joyce which he successfully represents in the
two novels, A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man and Ulysses.
Dr Anupama Nayar is Assistant Professor, Department of English, Christ University, Bengaluru.