James Joyce and the embodiment of blasphemy : The banning of Stephen Hero in Spain

Abstract

James Joyce’s work is noted for its subversion of the form and structure of the novel, as well as for its critical attitude towards contemporary Irish politics and the hold of the Roman Catholic Church. His rhetoric of subversion has generated numerous confrontations with official and unofficial censors, who rejected his works on aesthetic, political, moral and religious grounds. In Stephen Hero Joyce undermines what he considered to be one of the main repressive forces in Ireland : the Catholic Church. As could be expected, his scornful attacks upon religious beliefs, the Church and its members were not favourably received in Spain during Franco’s regime. This article focuses on the difficulties Stephen Hero had with the Spanish censorship office in 1960, on the occasion of a request to import a mere fifty copies of an Argentine edition of the book. A look at the censorship files will show the reasons why Stephen Hero was banned in Spain, the detailed negative reports written by the censors, and the particular subversive remarks the censors had much trouble with. Compared with the more sympathetic reading they offered of the “less radical” A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the banning of Stephen Hero highlights the sharper and more incisive critique that Joyce wanted to present in his early draft.