Stephen's Classical and Scholastic Roots

Stephen Dedalus, the aspiring poet, amateur philosopher, and protagonist of James Joyce's APortrait of the Artist as a Young Man, while speaking to his dean about philosophy, tells him, Formy purpose I can work on at present by the light of one or two ideas of Aristotle and Aquinas . .. I need them only for my own use and guidance until I have done something for myself by theirlight (164). Here, Joyce is invoking an attitude, common to modernist literature, of blendingtraditional and classical perspectives to create new ideas. Although Joyce's work is renownedfor its deviations from narrative convention, he was also learned in ancient and scholasticthought. Joyce's notebooks have shown scholars that the author was familiar with the writing ofAquinas and that he studied Aristotle's Poetics. (Eco 332) One cannot break from the past, afterall, without knowing well what it is one's breaking from. The skeletal structure of Portrait isitself taken from a classical myth, that of Daedalus and Icarus. Stephen's growth as a artisticinventor is paralleled by the industriousness of his eponym, the legendary artificer Daedalus.

The epitaph that opens the book is a quote from the Daedalus section of Ovid's TheMetamorphoses , which translated means, "He turned his mind toward unknown arts." LikeDaedalus, who used his cunning to create unprecedented devices, such as a set of wax wingsused to escape from the prison of King Minos, Stephen uses his cunning to create art and a newidentity deracinated from his Irish heritage. If the classical model for Stephen's identity isDaedalus, however, then his philosophical thoughts, as he admits to the dean, come fromAristotle and Aquinas. Later in the same chapter, Stephen muses with his friend Lynch on pity,tragedy, and the beautiful: the basic tenets of aesthetic studies. The precocious Stephen occupieshimself outside the classroom by criticizing and formulating an aesthetic theory based on hisclassical and medieval readings. Another classmate, Donovan, lets it slip that Stephen is evenwriting an essay on the topic, though Stephen seems to deny it ( I hear you are writing someessay about esthetics. Stephen made a vague gesture of denial" [186]). From the conversationwith Lynch, we can discern that aesthetics is a subject that greatly engrosses Stephen, theburgeoning artist, and one in which he far surpasses his peer.From his expatiation in this chapter, it is possible to construct, in general terms, Stephensbeliefs on the nature of art. Such conjecture, however, can be perilous. First, there are only a fewpages of conversation we can use to extrapolate the entire system of thought of an individual.The conversation on art holds a relatively small claim on the chapter, lasting about seven pages,let alone on the entire book. Rather than a formal, elaborate discourse, it is a picture of anambitious student sharing his philosophic realizations with a sympathetic friend. Second, thefact that these are spoken words, not a formal, written argument Stephen would intend forpublication, should make us skeptical of how invested he is in what he is saying. If we doassume that Stephen is telling us what he actually believes, we must still keep in mind thatStephen himself is a work-in-progress. As Umberto Eco puts it, ". . . Joyce's works might beunderstood as a continuous discussion of their own artistic procedures. A Portrait is the story ofa young artist who wants to write A Portrait" (329). Joyce's novel is aKnstlerroman, a novelabout the development of an artist. Stephens immaturity is the whole point. He is an artist

creating an artist. It is also important to note that the Portrait is semi-autobiographical. Thatdoes not mean, however, that we can freely ascribe Stephens aesthetic beliefs to Joyce. Asobserved by David Jones, there is much debate among Joycean scholars concerning degree ofinfluence and by Aristotle and Aquinas in the section (291). This article, therefore, will not try tointerpret the fidelity of Stephen's polemic to ancient and Medieval philosophy; rather, it willevaluate the relevance of Stephens thoughts to the novel and determine the dramatic functionof Stephens philosophizing.

The Aesthetic Context of PortraitWhile Stephen informs us that he draws his aesthetic theory from his own ruminations andreadings in ancient and medieval philosophy, his creative personality is in harmony with theartistic ethos of Joyce's own time. Stephen defines art as, the human disposition of sensible orintelligible matter for an esthetic end" (182). The implications of this statement will be fullyexamined in the next section, but, for now, the latter part of this definition is especiallysignificant: the esthetic end. For a pagan such as Aristotle, art mimetically reproduced natureand divinity. If executed properly, it could praise the gods by accurately and deferentiallytelling, and thereby venerating, their stories. It could also, however, slip into blasphemy if thegods were inappropriately depicted. For a medieval theologian such as Aquinas, art was avehicle for celebrating God (perhaps through liturgical music). Art based on the Bible couldteach the illiterate lay Christian parables through stories or poems. As with the ancients, artserved a definite spiritual purpose.But for the artists of the Fin de Sicle, art existed only for its own existence: lart pour lart; artfor arts sake. While the Aesthetic Movement can be said to have originated in France with theSymbolist poets in the late 1800s, two of its most luminous proponents, Oscar Wilde and WalterPater, were Dubliners, like Joyce. Pater, an influential art critic and essayist, was well regardedin literary circles for his writings that helped fuel the Aesthetic Movement. In the conclusion ofhis most famous work, Studies in the History of the Renaissance(1873), Pater writes of the richnessof a life steeped in artistic appreciation and the usefulness of philosophic thought in theunderstanding of art. "The service of philosophy, of speculative culture," he writes, "towards thehuman spirit is to rouse, to startle it into sharp and eager observation" (299 Pater). If the full lifeis full of aesthetic experience, philosophy is a tool to articulate and understand the beauty one'sexperiences. He concludes the chapter saying, "Of this wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire ofbeauty, the love of art for art's sake, has most; for art comes to you professing frankly to givenothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments'sake" (301). Pater transforms the artistic appreciation into the quasi-religious experience thatgives meaning to the otherwise inane moments of life. Like Pater, Wilde enumerated his ownaesthetic doctrine in the preface to his novel //The Picture of Dorian Gray// (whose title bearsa resemblance to Joyce's novel). Wilde defines the artist as "the creator of beautiful things." Art'spurpose is not to instruct or worship, in contrast to Aristotle and Aquinas, but to be enjoyed forbeing beautiful. Didactic or mimetic qualities may contribute to beauty, but they shouldn't beends in their own right. He goes on to write, "Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful

things are the cultivated. For these there is hope." This is Pater but with intellectual snobbery.Those who are capable of appreciating beauty are somehow better off, according to Wilde.What we read here is quintessentially Stephen. He shares Pater's reverence for the exquisitemoments in life that come from total submersion in the artistic world and Wilde's cultivatedelitism. From Portrait's lengthy title, we read that Stephen is still a puerile artist, but he iscertainly following Pater's instruction in reaching the most exalted state of consciousnessthrough rigorous contemplation of art.

Beauty and GenreStephen makes many points on the purpose of art, but two in particular, his definitions ofbeauty and genre, are interesting because they are in conversation with the formofPortrait. Stephen defines art as a disposition, that is to say, a natural tendency, recognizing thehuman propensity for creation. This impetus for creation is two-fold: first, it is an act of physicalcreation akin to childbirth, as the artist puts labor, effort, and love into a subject of her owncreation; second, part of this human disposition is for the viewing of that which is beautiful.Stephen quotes Aquinas, saying, that is beautiful the apprehension of which pleases (181).Artistic production is as fundamental as any other human drive. Perhaps the most importantdistinction about art that Stephen makes is of its sensible and intelligible aspects. In oneinterpretation, sensible could dictate the dual effect art has on the viewer. Art is both sensible,since we use our five senses to observe it, and intelligible, because we can ponder, criticize,argue and engage in other cerebral contemplation directed towards art. Shortly after in theconversation, Stephen says, Though we may not like a statue, we can recognize that theressomething in it to admire. Our senses discern something from it. (181). The conscious mind,Stephen realizes, may not care for a statue, but senses can still be stirred by it. The sensible andintelligible may be the routes through which the esthetic end travels into us, first through thesenses and next to the brain. The senses are a mode of apprehension used by our higherfaculties to absorb and understand beauty. It is his acute understanding of art and beauty thatmakes Stephen the budding artist. It is because of his ability to absorb the sensible andintelligible aspects of beauty that, as Wilde says, "there is hope."

Once beauty is defined, Stephen categorizes it into three forms: the lyrical form, the formwherein the artist presents his image in immediate relation to himself; the epical form, the formwherein he presents his image in mediate relation to himself and to others; the dramatic form,the form wherein he presents his image in immediate relation to others (188). These threeforms are really three traditional forms of narrative in literature. The lyrical represents thesubjective, such as a poets mind poured out directly onto paper in a sonnet. The dramaticrepresents the objective portrayal of the works action, such as in a play where the audiencessees rather than is told what is happening. Finally, epical refers to a mix of subjective and object,in which the narrator describes to a reader what is happening, such as a novel. This passage isappropriately included in the text because Portrait is a novel that experiments with narrativeform. It is more than epical but less than purely lyrical. The reason for this is Joyce's use of the

Modernist convention of stream-of-consciousness. The novel eschews a traditional first or third-person narrator and instead often leads us from one of Stephen's thoughts to the next: "Eleven!Then he was late for that lecture too. What day of the week was it? He stopped at a newsagent'sto read the headline of a placard. Thursday. Ten to eleven; English: eleven to twelve; French:twelve to one; physics" (155). An everyday mental conversation ("Eleven!" and "What day of theweek was it?") is inserted into typical third-person narration (such as, "He stopped at anewsagent's to read the headline of a placard"). Although Stephen discriminates narrative forminto categories, one of Joyce's most famous achievements is writing outside this three-prongedmold.

The Aesthetic Speech and Stephen's Development

Philosophy aside, the inclusion of Stephens aesthetic theory is indicative of both his artisticacumen and social alienation. We know from the opening of the book that Stephen stands alooffrom his fellow Irishmen. His last name itself, Dedalus, is obtrusively non-Irish. As HughKenner puts it: "Why, a name like a huge smudged fingerprint: the most implausible name thatcould conceivably be devised for an inhabitant of lower-class Catholic Dublin: a name that noaccident of immigration, no freak of etymology, no canon of naturalism however stretched, canjustify: the name of Stephen Dedalus." (Kenner 351) Stephen is horribly chided by his classmatesin Clongowes Woods and fails to assimilate into his pre-adolescent social environment. Uponhearing Stephens last name, a school bully virulently inquires, What kind of a name is that?(6). His name--the word that gives him identity--and his shyness make his first years inClongowes a nightmare. Later in chapter five, preceding his conversation with Lynch, there isan encounter between Stephen and the dean of his school, in which the two dabble in aesthetictheory. This heady tte-- tte displays how distant Stephen feels from the dean and contrastshis energized later conversation with this tepid one. The interactions between the Stephen andthe dean are somewhat perfunctory. Each character responds briefly to each other and merelymake a few general comments about aesthetics. It begins with some avuncular questioning onthe definition of beauty, but the dean soon loses interest and Stephen even catches him notpaying attention: The use of the word in the marketplace is quite different. I hope I am notdetaining you. Not in the least, said the dean politely. No, no, said Stephen smiling, Imean (164-165) The dean, an adult figure who should have the utmost interest in stimulatingStephens intellect, is seen only as passing the time with him. We know, however, from theconversation with Lynch, that Stephen is capable of elaborate philosophic discourse. Theconversation would more accurately be called pontification, as Lynch does little more thanhumor Stephen by listening to his theories. Lynch even professes that he has no interest in thesubject and is probably only there to take cigarettes from Stephen. What we see is a loneaesthete, completely devoted mentally and spiritually to his craft but alienated from his peersand teachers by his own abilities. Earlier, Stephen dolefully muses:

but yet it wounded him to think that he would never be but a shy guest at the feast ofthe worlds culture and that the monkish learning, in terms of which he was striving toforge out an esthetic philosophy, was held no higher by the age he lived in that thesubtle and curious jargons of heraldry and falconry. (157)

Stephen despairs that not only at the interminable store of human knowledge but that his owncontributions to the feast of the worlds culture will be thought esoteric or irrelevant by hiscommunity. The realization that his passion is but a specialized curiosity, such as heraldry andfalconry, to the world is undoubtedly a painful one.

Portrait as a KnstlerromanStephen is a character in development. The trajectory of the novel takes him from his earlyfascination with sounds as a youth to an adolescent aesthete. His artistic theories are a phase inhis development and thus they should be approached with incredulity, knowing his growth isnot yet complete. Cordell Yee observes that there is a lack of sophistication to Stephen'saesthetics: Stephens lack of this understanding shows that by the end of A Portrait he is not anartist in a fundamental way. He is immature: the would-be artist is also a would be theorist.(68) Joyce, he argues, deliberately misapplies Aquinas's teachings when he places them inStephen's mouth. (69) This suggests that this section of chapter five, rather than a coherentphilosophic treatise, is indicative of character building by Joyce. Aesthetic theorizing is amilestone in Stephen's artistic growth. His conversation and thoughts, reminiscent ofPater's Renaissance, are inevitable parts of artistic life he is leading so there should be no surprisein that Stephen, the young aesthete, will grow up into someone who thinks seriously about thenature of art. Yee further notes the early evidence of Stephens interest in the beautiful: "As achild, Stephen has a questioning mind: he wonders about the world and shows a philosophicbent. He does not take things for granted and seems to recognize a distinction between natureand convention. He often thinks about language, asking why certain words are used, why theymean what they mean." (77) A young Stephen is hypnotized by the pick, pock, puck (52) ofthe balls striking cricket bats in the school yard. His childhood fears manifest themselves in hisconsciousness as verse as he hides under a table: Pull out his eyes,/Apologise,/ Apologise,/Pull out his eyes (6). Indeed, his whole life seems to resonate with artistic and intellectualpreoccupation. Joyce, here, has traced the path of an artist from his rawest form to the more (butnot completely) refined. The novel begins with a story read to infant Stephen by his father andends with a diary entry, "Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead" (224).Significantly, the novel ends with the invocation of Daedalus, Stephen's assumed artistic fatherand, implicitly, the casting off of Stephen's old parentage and his entrance into his own selffashioned heritage. The classical world provides both Stephen's new identity and the roots ofhis understanding of aesthetics.