Stephen's Aesthetic

Theory
Two chief principles (from Thomas Aquinas):

Those things are beautiful the perception of which pleases.

The good is that toward which the appetite tends

o The creative artist is concerned only with the creation of

the beautiful

o The productive artist is concerned with the productions

of the good.

Other major principals:

Art must produce a stasis in the observer; that is, it seeks no

end by the satisfaction of an aesthetic sense

Art should not be kinetic; that is, it should not product an

emotion such as desire or loathing. If it does it assumes the
function of a useful art, such as rhetoric.

Three things are necessary for the perception of the beautiful:

o wholeness or integrity

o harmony or proportion

o clarity or radiance

Using the example of a basket, Stephen elaborates on the three

things necessary for the perception of the beautiful.

First, one sees the basket as one thing (wholeness)

Then one perceives it as a thing with parts (harmony)

 Finally, one sees it as that thing and no other (clarity)

Stephen explains to Lynch that beauty and truth produce stasis in

the mind of the observer. He quotes Plato: "Beauty is the splendor
of the truth."

As they proceed on their walk, Stephen divides art into a

progression of three forms:

Lyrical: the image is presented in immediate relation to the

artist himself.

Epic: the image is presented in immediate relation to the

artist and to others (not purely personal).

Dramatic: the image is presented in immediate relation to

others. The artist's personality is refined out of existence
(impersonal)

The Aesthetics of Stephen Dedalus

The Aesthetics of Stephen Dedalus
Stephen's Classical and Scholastic Roots

Stephen Dedalus, the aspiring poet, amateur philosopher, and protagonist of James
Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, while speaking to his dean about
philosophy, tells him, For my 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 their light (164). Here, Joyce is invoking an
attitude, common to modernist literature, of blending traditional and classical
perspectives to create new ideas. Although Joyce's work is renowned for its deviations
from narrative convention, he was also learned in ancient and scholastic thought.
Joyce's notebooks have shown scholars that the author was familiar with the writing of
Aquinas and that he studied Aristotle's Poetics. (Eco 332) One cannot break from the
past, after all, without knowing well what it is one's breaking from. The skeletal
structure of Portrait is itself taken from a classical myth, that of Daedalus and Icarus.
Stephen's growth as a artistic inventor is paralleled by the industriousness of his
eponym, the legendary artificer Daedalus.

St. Thomas Aquinas by Carlo Crivelli (1476). From the Demidoff Altarpiece. (Source: The
National Gallery, London)
The epitaph that opens the book is a quote from the Daedalus section of Ovid's The
Metamorphoses , which translated means, "He turned his mind toward unknown arts."
Like Daedalus, who used his cunning to create unprecedented devices, such as a set of
wax wings used to escape from the prison of King Minos, Stephen uses his cunning to
create art and a new identity deracinated from his Irish heritage. If the classical model
for Stephen's identity is Daedalus, however, then his philosophical thoughts, as he
admits to the dean, come from Aristotle 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 occupies himself outside the classroom by
criticizing and formulating an aesthetic theory based on his classical and medieval
readings. Another classmate, Donovan, lets it slip that Stephen is even writing an essay
on the topic, though Stephen seems to deny it ( I hear you are writing some essay about
esthetics. Stephen made a vague gesture of denial" [186]). From the conversation with
Lynch, we can discern that aesthetics is a subject that greatly engrosses Stephen, the
burgeoning artist, and one in which he far surpasses his peer.

From his expatiation in this chapter, it is possible to construct, in general terms,

Stephens beliefs on the nature of art. Such conjecture, however, can be perilous. First,
there are only a few pages 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 an ambitious student sharing his philosophic
realizations with a sympathetic friend. Second, the fact that these are spoken words, not
a formal, written argument Stephen would intend for publication, should make us
skeptical of how invested he is in what he is saying. If we do assume that Stephen is
telling us what he actually believes, we must still keep in mind that Stephen himself is a
work-in-progress. As Umberto Eco puts it, ". . . Joyce's works might be understood as a
continuous discussion of their own artistic procedures. A Portrait is the story of a young
artist who wants to write A Portrait" (329). Joyce's novel is a Knstlerroman, a novel
about 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. That does not mean, however, that we can freely ascribe Stephens
aesthetic beliefs to Joyce. As observed by David Jones, there is much debate among
Joycean scholars concerning degree of influence and by Aristotle and Aquinas in the
section (291). This article, therefore, will not try to interpret the fidelity of Stephen's
polemic to ancient and Medieval philosophy; rather, it will evaluate the relevance of
Stephens thoughts to the novel and determine the dramatic function of Stephens
philosophizing.

The Aesthetic Context of Portrait

While Stephen informs us that he draws his aesthetic theory from his own ruminations
and readings in ancient and medieval philosophy, his creative personality is in harmony
with the artistic ethos of Joyce's own time. Stephen defines art as, the human
disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end" (182). The implications
of this statement will be fully examined in the next section, but, for now, the latter part
of this definition is especially significant: the esthetic end. For a pagan such as Aristotle,
art mimetically reproduced nature and divinity. If executed properly, it could praise the
gods by accurately and deferentially telling, and thereby venerating, their stories. It
could also, however, slip into blasphemy if the gods were inappropriately depicted. For a
medieval theologian such as Aquinas, art was a vehicle for celebrating God (perhaps
through liturgical music). Art based on the Bible could teach the illiterate lay Christian
parables through stories or poems. As with the ancients, art served a definite spiritual
purpose.

But for the artists of the Fin de Sicle, art existed only for its own existence: lart pour
lart; art for arts sake. While the Aesthetic Movement can be said to have originated in
France with the Symbolist poets in the late 1800s, two of its most luminous proponents,
Oscar Wilde and Walter Pater, were Dubliners, like Joyce. Pater, an influential art critic
and essayist, was well regarded in literary circles for his writings that helped fuel the
Aesthetic Movement. In the conclusion of his most famous work, Studies in the History
of the Renaissance (1873), Pater writes of the richness of a life steeped in artistic
appreciation and the usefulness of philosophic thought in the understanding of art. "The
service of philosophy, of speculative culture," he writes, "towards the human spirit is to
rouse, to startle it into sharp and eager observation" (299 Pater). If the full life is full of
aesthetic experience, philosophy is a tool to articulate and understand the beauty one's
experiences. He concludes the chapter saying, "Of this wisdom, the poetic passion, the
desire of beauty, the love of art for art's sake, has most; for art comes to you professing
frankly to give nothing 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 that gives meaning to the otherwise inane moments of life.
Like Pater, Wilde enumerated his own aesthetic doctrine in the preface to his novel
//The Picture of Dorian Gray// (whose title bears a resemblance to Joyce's novel). Wilde
defines the artist as "the creator of beautiful things." Art's purpose is not to instruct or
worship, in contrast to Aristotle and Aquinas, but to be enjoyed for being beautiful.
Didactic or mimetic qualities may contribute to beauty, but they shouldn't be ends 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 exquisite moments in life that come from total submersion in the
artistic world and Wilde's cultivated elitism. From Portrait's lengthy title, we read that
Stephen is still a puerile artist, but he is certainly following Pater's instruction in
reaching the most exalted state of consciousness through rigorous contemplation of art.

Beauty and Genre

A marble bust of Aristotle (330 BCE) by Copy of Lysippus. (Source: National Museum of
Rome)

Stephen makes many points on the purpose of art, but two in particular, his definitions
of beauty and genre, are interesting because they are in conversation with the form of
Portrait. Stephen defines art as a disposition, that is to say, a natural tendency,
recognizing the human propensity for creation. This impetus for creation is two-fold:
first, it is an act of physical creation akin to childbirth, as the artist puts labor, effort,
and love into a subject of her own creation; 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 important distinction about art that Stephen
makes is of its sensible and intelligible aspects. In one interpretation, 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 the conversation,
Stephen says, Though we may not like a statue, we can recognize that theres something
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 and intelligible may be the routes through which the esthetic end travels into
us, first through the senses and next to the brain. The senses are a mode of
apprehension used by our higher faculties to absorb and understand beauty. It is his
acute understanding of art and beauty that makes Stephen the budding artist. It is
because of his ability to absorb the sensible and intelligible aspects of beauty that, as
Wilde says, "there is hope."

Once beauty is defined, Stephen categorizes it into three forms: the lyrical form, the
form wherein the artist presents his image in immediate relation to himself; the epical
form, the form wherein 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 three forms are really three traditional forms of
narrative in literature. The lyrical represents the subjective, such as a poets mind
poured out directly onto paper in a sonnet. The dramatic represents the objective
portrayal of the works action, such as in a play where the audiences sees 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 is
appropriately included in the text because Portrait is a novel that experiments with
narrative form. 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's to 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 the week was it?")
is inserted into typical third-person narration (such as, "He stopped at a newsagent's to
read the headline of a placard"). Although Stephen discriminates narrative form into
categories, one of Joyce's most famous achievements is writing outside this three-
pronged mold.
The Aesthetic Speech and Stephen's Development

Philosophy aside, the inclusion of Stephens aesthetic theory is indicative of both his
artistic acumen and social alienation. We know from the opening of the book that
Stephen stands aloof from his fellow Irishmen. His last name itself, Dedalus, is
obtrusively non-Irish. As Hugh Kenner puts it: "Why, a name like a huge smudged
fingerprint: the most implausible name that could conceivably be devised for an
inhabitant of lower-class Catholic Dublin: a name that no accident of immigration, no
freak of etymology, no canon of naturalism however stretched, can justify: the name of
Stephen Dedalus." (Kenner 351) Stephen is horribly chided by his classmates in
Clongowes Woods and fails to assimilate into his pre-adolescent social environment.
Upon hearing 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 in Clongowes a nightmare. Later in chapter five, preceding his
conversation with Lynch, there is an encounter between Stephen and the dean of his
school, in which the two dabble in aesthetic theory. This heady tte-- tte displays how
distant Stephen feels from the dean and contrasts his energized later conversation with
this tepid one. The interactions between the Stephen and the dean are somewhat
perfunctory. Each character responds briefly to each other and merely make a few
general comments about

"James Joyce" (1918) Photograph by C. Ruf.

aesthetics. It begins with some avuncular questioning on the definition of beauty, but
the dean soon loses interest and Stephen even catches him not paying attention: The
use of the word in the marketplace is quite different. I hope I am not detaining you.
Not in the least, said the dean politely. No, no, said Stephen smiling, I mean (164-
165) The dean, an adult figure who should have the utmost interest in stimulating
Stephens intellect, is seen only as passing the time with him. We know, however, from
the conversation with Lynch, that Stephen is capable of elaborate philosophic discourse.
The conversation would more accurately be called pontification, as Lynch does little
more than humor Stephen by listening to his theories. Lynch even professes that he has
no interest in the subject and is probably only there to take cigarettes from Stephen.
What we see is a lone aesthete, completely devoted mentally and spiritually to his craft
but alienated from his peers and 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 of the worlds culture and that the monkish learning, in terms of which he
was striving to forge out an esthetic philosophy, was held no higher by the age he
lived in that the subtle and curious jargons of heraldry and falconry. (157)

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

Portrait as a Knstlerroman

Stephen is a character in development. The trajectory of the novel takes him from his early fascination
with sounds as a youth to an adolescent aesthete. His artistic theories are a phase in his development and
thus they should be approached with incredulity, knowing his growth is not yet complete. Cordell Yee
observes that there is a lack of sophistication to Stephen's aesthetics: Stephens lack of this
understanding shows that by the end of A Portrait he is not an artist 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 in Stephen's mouth. (69) This suggests that this section of
chapter five, rather than a coherent philosophic treatise, is indicative of character building
by Joyce. Aesthetic theorizing is a milestone in Stephen's artistic growth. His
conversation and thoughts, reminiscent of Pater's Renaissance, are inevitable parts of
artistic life he is leading so there should be no surprise in that Stephen, the young
aesthete, will grow up into someone who thinks seriously about the nature of art. Yee
further notes the early evidence of Stephens interest in the beautiful: "As a child,
Stephen has a questioning mind: he wonders about the world and shows a philosophic
bent. He does not take things for granted and seems to recognize a distinction between
nature and convention. He often thinks about language, asking why certain words are
used, why they mean what they mean." (77) A young Stephen is hypnotized by the pick,
pock, puck (52) of the balls striking cricket bats in the school yard. His childhood fears
manifest themselves in his consciousness 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 intellectual preoccupation. Joyce, here, has traced the path of
an artist from his rawest form to the more (but not completely) refined. The novel
begins with a story read to infant Stephen by his father and ends 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 father and, implicitly,
the casting off of Stephen's old parentage and his entrance into his own self-fashioned
heritage. The classical world provides both Stephen's new identity and the roots of his
understanding of aesthetics.

Works Cited

Eco, Umberto. "The Artist and Medieval Thought in the Early Joyce." A Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man. Ed. John Paul Riquelme. New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
Inc. 2007. Print.

Jones, David E. "The Essence of Beauty in James Joyce's Aesthetics." James Joyce
Quarterly. 10.3 (1973) : 291-311. Web. 13 March 2011.

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Ed. John Paul Riquelme. New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2007. Print.

Kenner, Hugh. "Joyce's Portrait--A Reconsideration." A Portrait of the Artist as a Young

Man. Ed. John Paul Riquelme. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2007. Print.

Pater, Walter. "'Conclusion' of Renaissance." A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Ed. John Paul Riquelme. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2007. Print.

Yee, Cordell D. K. "The Aesthetics of Stephen's Aesthetic." Critical Essays on James

Joyces A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Ed. Philip Brady and James F. Carens.
New York: G. K. Hall & Co. 1998. Print.