The Celtic Unconscious

"While Joyce and England has been well-treated ... the area of Joyce and Scotland has been relatively overlooked. This gap is filled by Barlow's work ... This volume will be of use not only to Joyce scholars, but to those working on postcolonial texts. It provides a lot of thought-provoking material on Scottish philosophy's links to Irish literature," —Mark McGahon, Irish Studies Review

"Proceeding through historicist and comparativist approaches, this study is a potentially field-changing addition to the sizeable body of criticism which discusses Joyce's work within political contexts and debates of colonialism, semi-colonialism, and postcolonialism." —The Year's Work in English Studies

"Richard Barlow's new study is the first monograph to focus on the presence of Scotland in James Joyce's works. . . . Keeping his attention firmly trained on Scottish material, the rest of the book explores a range of fascinating and complex subjects, mostly literary, some historical, all of which surface in the Wake. . ." —breac

"The coverage of Scottish allusions in Joyce would in itself establish this work as highly valuable, but its greatest strength lies in the author's dexterity and success in using his new findings to support spectacular new readings, particularly of Finnegans Wake." —James Joyce Literary Supplement

"As Barlow's book demonstrates . . . in impressive detail and meticulous analysis, Joyce's work evinces an assiduous interest in Scottish literature and philosophy . . . each of these chapters is a significant contribution to understanding Joyce's literary and philosophical intertexts" —Scottish Literary Review

" . . . fascinating insights . . . in the immensely readable The Celtic Unconscious, in which Richard Barlow reconsiders Joyce's engagement with Scotland and Scottish culture in his fiction, and especially in Finnegans Wake." —The Times Literary Supplement

"This entertaining and nuanced work argues convincingly for the centrality of Scotland in Joyce's Celtic consciousness and in so doing is a significant intervention not only in Joyce studies but in Irish studies more generally. While underlining the importance of Ireland in Scotland's history, Richard Barlow's original, lively, and painstakingly researched volume throws valuable light on key figures and works from Scottish culture and from the Scottish literary and philosophical canon present in Joyce's writings. It brings Joyce's works to life in new and altogether unexpected ways." —John McCourt, Università Roma Tre

"Irish-Scottish studies is now a recognized field with a growing footprint, part of a larger concern with archipelagic relations. But where others have merely dabbled, Barlow has dug deep and brought buried meanings to the surface. His grasp of the complexity and subtlety of Joyce's engagement with Scotland, its levels and layers, its sediments and strands, particularly in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, is exemplary." — Willy Maley, University of Glasgow

"This excellent study firmly and convincingly establishes the importance and roles of Scotland, Scottish history, and Scottish literature in Joyce's works. And it shows Joyce's awareness of both Ireland and Scotland as hybrid societies." —Vincent J. Cheng, Shirley Sutton Thomas Professor of English, University of Utah

"Provocative, suggestive, and deeply read in Joycean sources and criticism, this book is a new map of the cultural crossings between two parts of an archipelago whose contours are centuries deep. This is an excellent addition to Joyce studies and an important intervention in the reception of Scottish writers from Burns to MacDiarmid." —Nicholas Allen, Franklin Professor of English, University of Georgia