PARTISAN REVIEW
Such matters cannot begin to be detennined unless there is more
attempt among critics to combine an inside and outside view of Joyce
so that they can see to what extent his work is shaped by clarity, in–
tegrity, and so on, by meaningful intentions which the critics can ac–
cept as ideas, and to what extent it represents Joyce being forced by
his situation to make the best of his talents and temperament, and
arbitrarily and ingeniously bringing together all the diverse, incom–
patible, but brilliant and exciting material that found life in his amaz–
ing mind. The perspective for an outside view exists, but there has
been little recent disposition to develop it. In the present volume only
Farrell alludes to it. It involves, of course, "paralysis" and "stasis" and
"quiddity," the condition of Ireland after Parnell, the Thomist con–
ception of beauty, the non-contextual realm of essences, the Catholic
attitude toward history, the flight in contemporary culture, for his–
torical reasons, from the historic sense to the cosmic sense, and many
other elements which make a comprehensible frame within which
Joyce's work can be illuminatingly placed, and which is necessary for
understanding it from the inside, as well.
'
Because of the different kinds of knowledge and experience re–
quired for such a view, critical works on Joyce to which a number of
people contribute are very necessary. But the wastefulness of the pre–
sent volume suggests that such symposia should be carefully planned,
with topics agreed upon long in advance, and with the contributors in
frequent touch with each others' works. One can imagine not only a
volume made up of the investigations of experts in theology, philology,
medieval mysticism, etc., but also a volume in which less specialized and
more literary critics attempt a frank, full and even risk-taking dis–
cussion of some of the unexamined assumptions which have been un–
easily transmitted in Joycean criticism for so many years.
Robert Gorham Davis
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