In transition: Catholic Overtones in Kay Boyle's "Theme" and Katherine Anne Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall"

In the 1968 Posthumously co-authored Being Geniuses Together, Kay Boyle explains how she came to publish in one of the largest and most important journals of the Modernist era: "a man named Eugene Jolas, whom I did not know, sent me a telegram from Paris saying that he was going to go on with what Ernest Walsh had not been able to finish. He was going to start a magazine, he said; it would be called transition, and would I send him my stories and poems as quickly as possible for the first number."¹ And so began Boyle's contributions to Jolas's avant-garde periodical published out of Paris that gathered together the radical forces of international art. Throughout the late 1920s and into the early 1930s, Boyle consistently submitted her work to transition, which published more women than other journals of its time. Printing a total of twenty stories and poems and establishing herself as a writer in its pages, Boyle was an important presence in this magazine, along with her biggest rival for the best American female writer of short stories: Katherine Anne Porter. Twelve years older than Boyle and three-times published in Century magazine, Porter printed two stories in transition: both written in 1927, "Magic" was first published in the summer 1928 number and "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" in the February 1929 edition. Although the details surrounding Porter's involvement with transition aren't as well documented as Boyle's, most likely her close friends, Josephine Herbst and Matthew Josephson, convinced her to submit the two stories to Jolas, thus advancing her writing career by securing an even wider, international readership.

This article provides readings of Boyle's little-known "Theme," the first story she published in transition, and the second and last story Porter published in Jolas's review, her well-known "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall," to show that these stories appealed to Jolas because they upheld transition's mission of unleashing the unconscious and representing what he called the "language of night," and, in so doing, explored Catholic themes.² In these stories, Boyle and Porter treat Catholicism through probing the interiors of their characters, revealing a deep yearning for a connection with the Divine who, it can be read, is portrayed as a potential lover. This discussion might help support the emerging field of Modernism and Christianity, as outlined by Erik Tonning, Stephen Schloesser, and Pericles Lewis.³ In his 2015 article on Catholic Literary Modernism, Mark Bosco correctly writes that as Modernist studies continue to be re-contextualized in various cultural environments, there is little discussion of its Catholic figurations.⁴ Despite the long-held assumption in the narrative of Modernism that it witnessed the death of God, we can no longer deny the continuing influence of Christianity as a cultural and religious force throughout the Modernist period, as Marjorie Perloff notes.⁵ The Catholic Church indelibly influenced the work and thought of Boyle and Porter, both of whom were Catholic converts—and even Eugene Jolas. Whether embracing or dismissing, celebrating or criticizing, these writers employed Catholicism.

Surprisingly, Eugene Jolas, despite editing a journal seemingly against all conventions, was not just a member of the Catholic Church—a religion steeped in traditions and rituals—but at one point had studied for the priesthood. Born in New Jersey to immigrant parents, Jolas grew up learning both his father's French and his mother's German. His family moved to Alsace-Lorraine when he was young. In this linguistically diverse and religiously divided environment, he was baptized into the Roman Catholic faith to which, he said, he's "adhered—with rebellious interruptions—throughout [his] life."⁶ His mother was a devout Catholic who raised her family in the strict orthodox tenets of the Church. Because of her influence, Jolas developed a deeply religious nature. Thinking him destined for the priesthood, his parents sent him to the seminary at Montigny, near Metz, Lorraine, where he studied from 1908–1909. However, when his family...