Awareness of Asianess of Irishness:
Joyce among Irish Orientalists
Eishiro Ito
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Abstract
This paper aims to explore how Irish Orientalism influenced James Joyce and his contemporaries. M. Mansoor mentions in The Story of Irish Orientalism that Irish Orientalists “contributed so much to the administration and maintenance of the Commonwealth” (13). Joyce claimed that the Irish language, unlike English, “is oriental in origin, and has been identified by many philologists with the ancient language of the Phoenicians” (CW 156). He also noted that many Irish men have greatly contributed to English art and thought by translating and introducing some Oriental masterpieces (CW 171). Why have many Irish people been interested in Oriental studies?
Young Joyce was known to have been influenced by Irish Orientalists like James Clarence Mangan, George Russell and W. B. Yeats and learned Theosophy and Oriental studies in Dublin. Irish Orientalists in Joyce’s time were often the nationalists who needed to differentiate Irish culture from Anglicized culture. Orientalism in Ireland had developed with a strong connection with their nationalism against the British Empire. One exception is Lafcadio Hearn, a Greek-Irish, who married a Japanese wife and wrote many articles about Japan. Oriental studies focusing on Joyce can prove that the cultural exchanges between East and West have been carried out interactively. Keywords: James Joyce, James Clarence Mangan, George Russell, W. B. Yeats, Lafcadio Hearn |
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full version is available in The Journal of Policy Studies, Vol.15, No.2. Iwate Prefectural University, March 2014, 147-59. Copyright 2014
Eishiro Ito
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