Although University College was known as a Jesuit institution, the emphasis on religious instruction had recently been deemphasized in order to please the emerging taste for the classics. This emphasis on humanistic studies, coupled with Joyce's mature changes in temperament, enabled him to depart from religious study almost entirely; he preferred to pursue a growing interest in the myths which Wagner used for his operas. He was also fascinated by the dramas of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.
This latter interest was not shared by the conservative members of the faculty. In fact, Joyce received considerable criticism for an essay which he delivered before the college's Literary and Historical Society, denouncing Greek and Shakespearean drama in favor of the works of more modern playwrights, such as Ibsen. Undaunted by the attacks on his aesthetic opinions, Joyce further asserted himself by revising his presentation into an essay entitled "Ibsen's New Drama," which appeared in the Fortnightly Review in 1900.
Throughout the remainder of Joyce's university years, he continued to take issue with popular artistic tastes. Intolerant of the emerging Irish Theater Movement, which he believed was producing offensive provincial dramas, he wrote a scathing article, "The Day of the Rabblement," in which he encouraged people to reject the paltry works of Irish dramatists and explore the works of great beauty and truth which were being produced by new European writers.
