James Joyce: Comedy, and Irony as Principle-Weapon
(Or: Toward the Resurrection of Irony)
James Joyce, by César Abin. Image found here.
Today is James Joyce's birthday, and before the day slips away any further, I wanted to start a conversation that I hope will honor him.
In case anyone is wondering, "Principle-Weapon" is intentional.
Some assertions, in no particular order:
*Joyce was often very funny, but his mode was not humor but comedy.
*To quote one of my college English profs: "Comedy is deadly serious."
*Comedy's great subject is the Life Force: the affirmation, preservation and perpetuation of life--hence its seriousness. Its word is Love; its creed is Molly Bloom's final Yes; its churches are the conjugal bed and the kitchen; its parish the front porch.
*Irony is comedy's greatest weapon, exposing, when wielded most effectively, that which does not affirm the Life Force (hence, "principle-weapon").
[UPDATE: Here's an example of what I mean: In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus (Joyce's stand-in) is explaining to his friend Cranley why he (Stephen) has lost his faith. Cranley thinks Stephen's disaffection is with Catholicism and sxo asks him why he doesn't become a Protestant. Stephen's response: "`I said that I had lost my faith,' Stephen said, `but not that I had lost my self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?'" Whatever one may think of Stephen's assessment of the doctrine of being saved by grace through faith, that line always makes me, a good Lutheran, both laugh out loud and ponder a bit.]
*Irony would not be dead if people still accepted that the preservation and perpetuation of life were not merely a Grand Narrative to be suspicious of and instead is and remains both a sacred and a secular Ultimate Concern.
(Inspired by and in part quoted from my response to Jim at this post.)
