The first to deal with this latter theme realistically, Joyce made a bold show as a “Europeanizer” and openly criticized “patriotic” art. It did no more than gesture toward Europe, and it registered very little of the atrophied state of middle- and lowerclass city life. The emphasis of the Revival in its early stages on legendary or peasant themes and its subsequent espousal of a vaguely nationalistic and unorthodox religious spirit kept it at a certain distance from popular pieties. Very few were Catholics, and none was from the urban middle class, except James Joyce. The leaders of the Irish Literary Revival were born of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy.
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