New York Times bestselling author and monk, Thomas Merton, exploring 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," Joyce's voice will 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.
"The Merton talks (any and all) are special because in addition to the sound quality being acceptable and the content being as rich as is found reading his books, one can get a sense of the kind of person Merton was that is hard to get just from reading: warm, down-to-earth, funny."
Stephen Cook, Mansfield, TX, US
"We are privileged to be ,flies on the wall, of his classroom as Merton leads the novices into the deeper insights of the Benedictine tradition. Highly recommended. "
Richard Bell
"I've read many published works of Merton and, even though his work is now decades old, more than ever, they speak to our world today. To hear him speaking in his own voice adds a dimension of humanness to him that writings alone cannot convey. Also, his sense of humor, something we seem to never catch a glimpse of in print, clearly comes to us."
