Joyce's Messianism: Dante, Negative Existence, and the Messianic Self

200 Pages·2004·13.781 MB·English

by  Gian Balsamo

JOYCE'S
ESSIANISM
JOYCE’S MESSIANISM
Dante, Negative Existence, and the Messianic Self
GIAN BALSAMO
n his study of negative existence and how it
affects James Joyce’s principal characters, Gian
.. Balsamo joins the ongoing debate about the Irish
writer’s relationship to Dante and considers the cen-
trality of messianism to that relationship. Finding in
Dante a negative poetics that becomes a model for
Joyce, Balsamo suggests that the inception and cessa-
tion of life—two occurrences that conventionally are
deemed impossible to experience personally and
directly—typically frame the existential experiences
of Joyce’s main characters. Balsamo perceives Steph-
en, Leopold, and Shem as messianic figures because
they rebel against this convention, clustering their
lives around the very events of inception and burial.
Balsamo traces the engagement of each of the
three characters in a negative existence immune from
the rules and limitations of ordinary experience. Each
struggles to express rather than exorcise the fecun-
dity of his own mortality; each reinvents his biogra-
phy as involving the pivotal transaction of death—
be it a mother’s, a son’s, or even that of his own body
—in return for catharsis.
Drawing on the writings of Giambattista Vico,
Saint Augustine, Emile Durkheim, and Noam Chom-
sky, Balsamo challenges the current debate by iden-
tifying the messianic thread that ties together the
biographies of Joyce’s three characters. Faced with the
fissure between history and poetic vocation, Stephen
embraces the sacrificial poetry of silence. Faced with
the domestic squalor provoked by the loss of his son,
Leopold renews at every meal the cathartic exchange
of food and semen. Faced with a destiny of death and
decomposition, Shem reenacts the tradition of the
medieval cycle drama, stretching his own body like a
parchment on a cross and then rubricating it like a
sacred manuscript.

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JOYCE'S MESSIANISM
Dante, N egative Existence,
and the Messianic Self
GIAN BALSAMO
abs
University of South Carolina Press
© 2004 University of South Carolina
Published in Columbia, South Carolina,
by the University of South Carolina Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
08 07 06 05 04 54321
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Balsamo, Gian, 1949—
Joyce’s messianism : Dante, negative existence, and the messianic self / Gian Balsamo.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-57003-552-0 (alk. paper)
1. Joyce, James, 1882—1941—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321—
Appreciation—Ireland. 3. Joyce, James, 1882-1941—Knowledge—Literature. 4. Dante Ali-
ghieri, 1265-1321—Influence. 5. Negativity (Philosophy) in literature. 6. English fiction—
Italian influences. 7. Negation (Logic) in literature. 8. Messianism in literature. 9. Self in liter-
ature. I. Title.
PR6019.09Z52566 2004
823'.912—dc22
2004013880
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