Atelier Aterui: Journey to the Far East: Reading Joyce in the Jesuit Context Featuring St. Francis Xavier

Journey to the Far East:
Reading Joyce in the Jesuit Context
Featuring St. Francis Xavier

Eishiro Ito

Abstract

     This paper aims to reconsider how the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) influenced James Joyce and his works, especially focusing on the society's missionary work in the Far East. St. Francis Xavier reached Japan on August 15, 1549 and proselytized there until November 1551. He died of fever in December 3, 1552 in Shangchuan Island, China. After Xavier’s death many Jesuits were engaged in missionary activities to Japan between 1549 and 1644 and to China between 1579 and 1724. The Jesuits introduced Western science, astronomy and arts to Asian countries, while they were very active in conveying Asian knowledge and philosophy to Europe.
     Joyce went to two Jesuit secondary schools, Clongowes Wood College (est. 1814) and Belvedere College (est. 1832; also known as St. Francis Xavier's College). Indisputably the Jesuit education affected Joyce in his formative years. The life of St. Francis Xavier was highlighted in Chapter III of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in which the retreat at Belvedere College is described. In Ulysses Leopold Bloom live at 7 Eccles Street, that is, within 5 minutes' walk from Belvedere College at 6 Great Denmark Street and Saint Francis Xavier Church at 38 Upper Gardiner Street.
     It is St. Francis Xavier or the Society of Jesus that initially connected James Joyce with East Asia. It will be our common responsibility to correlate Joyce’s works with the Far East further.

Keywords: James Joyce, The Society of Jesus (Jesuits), St. Francis Xavier,
          missionary activities, Japan, China, colonialism

The full version is available in James Joyce Journal, Vol.16, No.2.
(The James Joyce Society of Korea), Winter 2010, 53-78.