Overview
R.J. Schork examines the function of the countless saints—genuine and bogus,famous and obscure, ancient and modern—who hover over James Joyce's fiction. Schork identifies these saints, traces their inspiration in Joyce's Irish Catholic upbringing, establishes their context in the Catholic tradition, and explores the mostly humorous and irreverent roles they play in Joyce's work."Schork has provided not only a 'Lives of Joycean Saints' and a 'Joycean Lives of the Saints'; he marshals a staggering amount of data to enable readers of Joyce's works to read the texts hagiographically. What has been almost hopelessly obscure to most readers becomes much richer through Dr. Schork's meticulous and insightful work."—Michael O'Shea, Newberry College, Newberry, South Carolina
"An indispensable addition to the continuing project of Joycean exegesis, bringing Protestant and post-Vatican II Catholics up to speed on the plethora of holy men and women whose presence is everywhere in Joyce's texts as it was in his Ireland. . . . It will be of signal assistance to undergraduates and Joyceans alike."—Eloise R. Knowlton, Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan