Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton on James Joyce

Born in 1882 to a Catholic family in Dublin, James Joyce wrote some of the most acclaimed masterpieces of modern literature: Ulysses, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Dubliners, and Finnegans Wake. Educated by Jesuits and deeply influenced by Thomas Aquinas, Joyce wove Catholicism into his works. Delivered in 1968, these four lectures on Joyce’s writing are now available to the public for the first time ever. This one-of-a-kind set includes an introduction by Dr. Michael Higgins, a renowned Merton biographer and scholar of literature and religion. Before becoming a Trappist monk, Thomas Merton studied English at Columbia and taught literature at St. Bonaventure University. Merton understood the essential relationship between literature and theology; indeed, God has chosen to reveal himself to us through literature. In these lectures, Merton focuses on Joyce’s short-story collection Dubliners. You will look at the timeless story “The Dead” and how it embodies Joyce’s concept of aesthetics and the epiphany. Then, as you listen to Merton read the classic “Araby,” you will hear Joyce’s voice truly come alive. This course is ideal both as an introduction to Joyce and as an exciting work of scholarship by one great author on another.