Did Joyce read Chesterton at all? I'm studying Ulysses

>>8634907
Joyce read everything, he put Bloom to shame

>>8634913
How did he do it?
Wasnt he on med school?

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OP here, doing a little more research just deepens the mystery. Joyce was an on-again, off-again friend of TS Eliot, whom he met when Eliot visited Paris in 1920. Eliot, meanwhile, lived in London, and while there he also butted heads with Chesterton quite a bit. However, when Eliot himself converted to Christianity in 1929, he and Chesterton mended fences, and thenceforth Chesterton was a regular contributor to the Criterion, Eliot's quarterly magazine.

With Eliot to link them, it seems ridiculous that Joyce wouldn't have had occasion to think about Chesterton. Yet I still can't find any commentary on him from Joyce. I'll keep looking.

>>8634961
internet didnt exist back then and he had no gf

This is rather interesting.

Perhaps Joyce wasn't interested in Chesterton's writings because of the latter's Christian believes.

I don't think either of them read the other. If Joyce indeed read Chesterton, he wasn't influenced by his writing.

Paradox, while one of Chesterton's strengths, was not particular to him. Wilde also enjoyed them quite a bit, and Joyce was certainly influenced by him.

It seems strange, perhaps, that Joyce mentions Shaw but not Chesterton, since both of them are almost always mentioned together. But as I said, If Joyce ever read Chesterton, he wasn't very impressed by him.

>>8635183
Oh, I have no doubt that Joyce wouldn't approve of Chesterton. He's basically everything that Joyce dislikes. Not to mention that he's converting to Catholicism just as Joyce is leaving the Church.

That just makes me wonder, though, why there's no mention of him. You'd think Joyce would want to mock him a bit, the way he mocks almost everything else when he writes Ulysses.

>>8635183
>Perhaps Joyce wasn't interested in Chesterton's writings because of the latter's Christian believes
I wouldn't think so. Even though Joyce was lapsed and critical of Catholicism, he was still very much engaged with the Catholic mindset and culture. He liked Aquinas a lot, if I recall correctly. Joyce wouldn't agree with Chesterton, but I don't think he'd be disinterested.

Joyce's theater company in Zurich put on one of Chesterton's plays. Other than that there's no connection. I don't see there being much influence on his writing. A function of his ego mostly.

Chesterton was never a major writer, so I don't see why he would have.

>>8634907
I don't think it's fair to say that Joyce was obscure at that stage. Anyway, Chesterton's religious views may have put him off.

>>8634907
Because Chesterton is a meme

>>8634913
>you will never discuss literature with joyce
feels bad

>>8635936
He was not necessarily "obscure", but he certainly was not as famous as, say, Wilde, Shaw, or even Chesterton.

>>8634907
I'm positive that Joyce would have read Chesterton, both because of GKC's prominence as a journalist and a critic, and because Joyce read damn well nearly everything.

>>8634907
Why dont you just ask to your teacher?

>>8636325
oh no a good in-depth thread about literature

>>8635203
>>8635183
Joyce thought Aristotle and Aquinas were the greatest minds ever. He would have loved Chesterton.

Even if he was no longer a practicing Catholic, he claimed to have always loved the Catholic liturgy. And he would probably always defend Catholicism, simply out of spite for the Protestant Anglos (this is what Finnegans Wake is about).

>>8636077
>you will never discuss joyce's literature with joyce
damn. . . .

>>8636571
Joyce's political background may have put him in the "catholicism as imperialists" camp, in which case Finnegans Wake would also be a jab at them since they tried to stop pagan practices like wakes. I think it's debateable.