Abstract

This article assesses Joyce's early pronouncements on beauty, goodness and truth, written under the aegis of St. Thomas Aquinas. Joyce seemed unaware that Aquinas already examined the relation between these characteristics of being, regarding them as identical in reality but differing in their relation to man's spiritual capacities. Joyce relied upon quotations acquired as an undergraduate rather than consult the Summa Theologiae. He confused the relationship between goodness, beauty and truth, introducing moreover a false dichotomy between beauty as the object of a sensible aesthetic appetite and truth as object of the intellectual appetite. The article examines Jacques Aubert's claim that Joyce was heavily indebted to Bernard Bosanquet both for his knowledge of Aquinas and for strong Hegelian leanings: no evidence is found for either.

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