Throughout the novel, a very particular idea of artistry develops. From the beginning, Stephen's always had a unique interest with certain words, phrases, and stories. He was never a part of the crowd, but always rather to the side, cast away with no friends and no parents around to comfort him, As I wrote about in his last blog post, I believe that's why he clung so tightly to the idea of being a dark romantic poet. He found comfort that he wasn't alone with his feelings, and wanted so badly to become the dark romantic poet. The things that mattered to him when he was a child - his family, his religion, his country - fizzled away the older he got, and the more time he spent in school.
Stephen's first attempt of writing a poem was still when he was young and still looked up to his family. He tried to write the poem about complex Irish politics but failed to even write a line. His second attempt was when he was more distant from his parents and the Church, and then he is much more successful, though his poem is very romanticized and not very good, judging by the fact that Joyce shows us little of it. His third poem (and final, from what we the readers see), however, is an extraordinary improvement, though still not quite fully developed as an artistic piece. At this point, Stephen looks down upon his parents, the Church, and his own country. However, he still lives with them. That's when Stephen develops his idea that he is not distant enough. For him to continue success and to truly become an artist, he has to "exile" himself from it all. It seems like a foregone conclusion to me that Stephen ends up believing as deeply as he does that this must be true for him to become the artist. His loneliness and his role as an "observer" was his introduction to art and therefore he must come full circle and become as lonely and observant to his old life as possible for him to become the artist.
The idea of what it means to be an artist that Joyce develops in the novel intrigues me. I've always been taught "write what you know" and encouraged to write about my own experiences that I can currently relate to. I think there is a semblance of truth and beauty to the idea that distance, however, can create the artist. It certainly worked for Joyce/Stephen -- he completely distanced himself from Ireland but wrote only about it, and reflected on his own life, family, experiences, and religion through his work in a way that is unparalleled to any other book I have read. Distance gave him the ability to be critical and ironic in a way that he wouldn't have able to been if he was still a part of the environment he wrote about, but he still did write what he had known, and he wrote it so well and so accurately because it had once been so dear to him. Despite how distant he was physically, it almost seems like his soul still remained in Ireland.
I really like your formulation of the curious combination of ironic distance and intense, detail-focused engagement with Ireland and Irish culture that we see in Joyce, in your final paragraph here. He very much does "write what he knows," but with the awareness that he first needs to develop some critical (and geographical?) distance from that experience in order to render it fully. The artist, in Joyce's famous phrase, remains apart from his work like God, "paring his fingernails" in indifference. But, in Joyce's case, the *subject* of his art is himself and his life, so how much distance can he really generate? This ability to view one's own life with empathy as well as detachment is the essence of the artistic temperament, in Joyce's view.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Stephen's idea that distance from life is required to be an artist does seem to come from his early exposure to art. I think it especially comes from the books that he reads, and his idealization of the romantic hero. He's trying to be the hero of an artistic piece at the same time as he's trying to create them.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really good point - as far away as Stephen can get from his upbringing, it's still all he knows, really. It really does mirror Joyce's experience, from what we discussed in class, in which all of his novels are about Dublin, despite him being absent from the city for pretty much the remainder of life. I guess it really reflects something about being an artist, and having to analyze life through so many lenses that it can be hard to take part sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI find it amazing to think about your point after our discussion on Friday. The fact that joyce could remember the street corners in enormous detail decades after his "exile" is crazy. This certainly fits your criteria of "write what you know" but in a surprising way. We discussed joyce as an artistic genius in writing style but it takes some level of memory genius to do recall that detail!
ReplyDeleteI thought your post summed up Stephen's philosophy on art nicely. I too, thought Stephen's idea that an artist had to be detached from his work a little strange. I thought it was amazing how much feeling and detail Joyce could put in his novel even though he had distanced himself from Ireland so much. I also thought that Joyce's detachment and irony was relatively healthy and appreciated how Joyce's novel could both be ironic and serious at the same time. Joyce uses his detachment to be more reflective and critical about his experiences but still manages to convey feeling and be serious.
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