James Joyce – Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

bildungsroman – novel of education or development

künstlerroman – novel that portrays the development of the protagonist as artist

Portrait as a künstlerroman

· Stephen’s early fascination with words – (19), (71)

· Development of personal aesthetic which defies convention (80)

· Search for the feminine (note foreshadowing)

“He did not want to play. He wanted to meet in the real world the unsubstantial image which his soul so constantly beheld. He did not know where to seek it or how: but a premonition which led him on told him that this image would, without any overt act of his, encounter him. They would meet quietly as if they had know each other and had made their tryst, perhaps at one of the gates or in some more secret place. They would be alone, surrounded by darkness and silence: and in that moment of supreme tenderness he would be transfigured. He would fade into something impalpable under her eyes and then in a moment, he would be transfigured. Weakness and timidity and inexperience would fall from him in that magic moment” (66-67).

· rejection of received knowledge from parents, church (religious and educational), nationalism

“While his mind had been pursuing its intangible phantoms and turning in irresolution from such pursuit he had heard about him the constant voices of his father and of his masters, urging him to be a gentleman above all things and urging him to be a good catholic above all things. These voices had now come to be hollowsounding in his ears. When the gymnasium had been opened he heard another voice urging him to be strong and manly and healthy and when the movement towards national revival had begun to be felt in the college yet another voice had bidden him to be true to his country and help her to raise up her fallen language and tradition. In the profane world, as he foresaw, a worldly voice would bid him raise up his father’s fallen state by his labours and, meanwhile, the voice of his school comrades urged him to be a decent fellow, to shield others from blame or to beg them off and to do his best to get free days for the school. And it was the din of all these hollow sounding voices that made him halt irresolutely in the pursuit of phantoms” (82).

· punishment for the refusal to serve linked to Satan’s sin of pride: “non serviam: I will not serve. that instant was his ruin”(108).

· call to priesthood:

“No king or emperor on this earth has the power of the priest of God” (140).

· rejection of power for personal vision

“His destiny was to be elusive of social or religious orders…. He was destined to learn his own wisdom apart from others or to learn the wisdom of others himself wandering among the snares of the world” (144).

· recognition of role as artificer (Dedalus); rebirth; incorporation of the feminine aspect of the world (mythos) essential for development of artistic vision; transformation through vision of the ‘birdgirl’ (149-50)

“Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy” (152) – cf (66-7)

· description of surroundings following epiphany focuses on earth and cosmos as feminine; note references to cyclical time, tidal motion of the sea (controlled by the moon), “processes of the heavenly bodies”, “vast cyclic movement of the earth,” “the earth that had borne him, had taken him to her breast,” young moon cleft the pale waste of sky like the rim of a silver hoop embedded in the grey sand” (152-3)

· feminine is seen to give definition to expanse of sky and sand – brings him into consciousness

· followed by the vision of an “opening flower,” an image suggesting wholeness (152)

Section V

· switch to 1^st person diary entries; change in style of narration signals transformation of Stephen; see presence of distinct “I”

· accompanied by a separation from world evident in reportage style; now distanced from his impressions

rejection of nationalism, patriotism, religion: "Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow" (177)

· credo: desire to create from his experience, not from received knowledge, in a continual process; desire to be "priest of the eternal imagination" (192)