Thomas Merton on James Joyce: The Literature of James Joyce

New York Times bestselling author and monk Thomas Merton explores the literature and spirituality of 20th century’s greatest novelist: 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.

(Photograph of Thomas Merton by Sibylle Akers. Used with permission of the Merton Legacy Trust and the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University.)

This set is part of the Learn25 collection.