The two Jameses: a Joycean politics of criticism as commemoration

Abstract

This article considers how, and to what extent, James Connolly is represented in the works of James Joyce and evaluates the place of Connolly in Joyce through an exposition of Andrew Gibson and Len Platt’s characterisation of a “London method” and “Irish method” of Joyce criticism. Examining the relative absence of Connolly from Joycean representation in comparison to overt commemorations such as those of Yeats et al., I claim that historical criticism on Joyce displays a will-to-connection between Connolly and Joyce that makes present the absence of the former. Where Connolly appears in Joyce, I suggest it is as a ghost called into presence through suggestive absence and a drive to commemoration in critical readings, inscribed not only in a Joycean politics but also in a politics of Joyce criticism. At a critical historical juncture for a reappraisal of Connolly and in the light of recent movements for self-determination such as in Scotland, this article examines how it is Joycean criticism that forges a narrative of connection to Connolly, outlining a genealogy of Joycean criticism centring on politics and nation and drawing on examples from across the Joycean canon to posit a politics of criticism that is illuminating of both the historical method and historical moment.

Keywords:

• James Joyce
• James Connolly
• criticism
• politics
• commemoration
• historical method

Notes

1. Gibson and Platt, Joyce, Ireland, Britain, 15.

2. Joyce, Finnegans Wake, 303.8–12.

3. Joyce, Ulysses, 1.648–49.

4. Gibson and Platt, Joyce, Ireland, Britain, 15.

5. Ibid., 18.

6. Ibid., 18.

7. Ibid., 14.

8. Ibid., 15.

9. McGreevy, “1916 Rising an Event of World Importance”.

10. McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake, 73, 303. Richard Barlow notes that this list is in chronological order, with Parnell situated between and mediating the political eras of O’Connell and Connolly: see Barlow, “Silent Exile? James Joyce and the Easter Rising”, 22, 28, n. 39. For the Joycean perspective on Parnell, see “The Shade of Parnell”, written in Trieste in 1912 for Il Piccolo della Sera, and collected in Barry (ed.), Occasional, Critical, and Political Writing.

11. See Fairhall, James Joyce and the Question of History, 99; and Joyce, Finnegans Wake, 214.18.

12. Fairhall, James Joyce and the Question of History, 92.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid., 93.

15. Ibid., 103.

16. Gibson and Platt, Joyce, Ireland, Britain, 22.

17. Fogarty, “Parnellism and the Politics of Memory,” 105, 116.

18. Ibid., 108.

19. Ibid., 115.

20. Ibid., 117.

21. Ibid., 117.

22. Mangianello, Joyce’s Politics, 127–128.

23. Gibson, James Joyce, 24.

24. Ibid., 110.

25. Gibson, “Macropolitics and Micropolitics in ‘Wandering Rocks’,” 49, n. 40.

26. Gibson, Joyce’s Revenge, 84.

27. Ibid., 85.

28. Ibid., 91.

29. Costello, James Joyce: The Years of Growth, 214–215.

30. Gibson, Joyce’s Revenge, 91, n. 43.

31. Ibid., 97.

32. Fairhall, James Joyce and the Question of History, 96.

33. Ibid., 96.

34. Ibid., 145.

35. Ibid., 182.

36. Treating is a form of electoral corruption, involving the practice of providing hospitality during an election with the intention to influence voting.

37. Fairhall, James Joyce and the Question of History, 103.

38. Fogarty, “Parnellism and the Politics of Memory,” 108.

39. Ibid., 117.

40. Fairhall, James Joyce and the Question of History, 103–104.

41. Ibid., 105.

42. Ibid.

43. Gibson, The Strong Spirit, 50.

44. Ibid., 49.

45. Ibid., 45.

46. Ibid., 48.

47. Ibid., 49.

48. Ibid., 52.

49. Nolan, James Joyce and Nationalism, 14.

50. See Williams, Reading Joyce Politically, 14.

51. Ibid., 18–23.

52. See MacCabe, James Joyce and the Revolution of the Word, 168.

53. O’Casey, The Story of the Irish Citizen Army, 52.

54. Williams, Reading Joyce Politically, 20.

55. See Lusk and Maley, Scotland and the Easter Rising.

56. Barlow, “Silent Exile? James Joyce and the Easter Rising,” 24–25.