EXPERIENCE, SELF-REALISATION AND ARTISTIC VISION

IN JAMES JOYCE’S A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN

Dr. Ernest L. VEYU
University of Yaounde 1, Cameroon.
vveyu@yahoo.com, 237 9971 2788
G. Plekhanov in Art and Social Life says, “Art begins when the human being recal
ls within himself feelings and ideas that he has under the influence of the real
ity surrounding him and gives them a certain figurative expression” (20). This e
xperience generally helps him to discover himself by a process of actions and re
actions, which end up in setting his artistic vision. James Joyce in A Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man, seems to intimate that to be an artist one must ac
quire some experience from his or her society. Stephen Dedalus obtains a good kn
owledge of the society, and through that society, finally knows himself and gets
to understand his role in it. This knowledge of himself comes largely from what
he suffers from other individuals and from existing social institutions.

EXPERIENCE AND SELF-REALISATION

In his book, Art as Experience, John Dewey comments on the processes that make f
or the experience of the human being in general and the artist in particular. Hi
s opinion is that experience occurs continuously because the interaction of the
living creature and the environmental conditions is involved in the very process
of living. Life, he says, is no uniform uninterrupted march or flow. It is a th
ing of histories, each with its own inception and movement towards its close, ea
ch having its own particular rhythm of movement; each with its own unrepeated qu
ality pervading it throughout (35-36). In line with this thought, we shall attem
pt to capture Stephen’s experiences and their effect, leading to his self-realis
ation and artistic vision, as recorded in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ma
n.
Back at home from the beginning of awareness, Stephen realises that home is rule
d by threats. His father has an alarmingly hairy face and does not have a pleasa
nt smell. In this beginning as ever in the text, he develops a bad opinion of hi
s father. He understands fatherhood as something which transcends the physical.
To him, it is a, “mystical estate, an apostolic succession” (Schutte 91). But se
eing that Simon does not meet up with Stephen’s expectations, his question is, “
Who and where is my father? With whom can I claim spiritual kinship? From whom c
an I claim understanding and protection?” (Smidt 81).
Mr. Simon Dedalus is a spendthrift, flirt and given to vanity. At home these hab
its get the family from one state of poverty to another, and they have to move h
ouses time and again, each time to a less comfortable one. To make ends meet, Mr
. Simon takes Stephen along in a trip to sell the family property. But on the ev
ening of the day the property is sold, Stephen follows his father about the city
from bar to bar. His father, a kind of the prodigal, begins to squander the mon
ey with the sellers in the market, the barmen and barmaids, and gives some to th
e beggars who importune him for a gift (Portrait 93). To young Stephen, this is
an ordeal to bear. It also makes him put a question mark on fatherhood and paren
tal authority generally.
At Newcombe’s coffee-house, Mr. Dedalus’ cup rattles noisily against the saucer,
and Stephen tries to cover the shameful sign of his father’s drinking-bout by m
oving his chair and coughing. One humiliation succeeds another. For example, the
false smiles of the market sellers, the curvettings and oglings of the barmaids
with whom his father flirts, the compliments and encouraging words of his fathe
r’s friends. This to a level-headed and thinking boy who does not bother about s
uch nonsense is nauseating. His shame grows when he is told, “Your father was th
e boldest flirt in the city of Cork in his day. Do you know that?” (Portrait 94)
. Any allusion made to Stephen’s father by a fellow or by a master puts his calm
to rout in a moment. His own description of his father is that he is: A medical
student, an oarsman, a tenor, an amateur actor, a shouting politician, a small
landlord, a small investor, a drinker, a good fellow, a story-teller, somebody’s
secretary, something in a distillery, a bankrupt and at present a praiser of hi
s own past (Portrait 241). With this state of things, “his childhood was dead or
lost and with it his soul incapable of simple joys, and he was drifting amid li
fe like the barren shell of the moon” (94).
His mother, who in his infantile appreciation has a nicer smell than his
father, soon forces him into an apology for what he knows not to be wrong. For
the child, Stephen, what wrong is there in thinking, “When they were grown up he
was going to marry Eileen?” (Portrait 8). Catholic or protestant, his mother’s
grounds for demanding the apology, make no meaning to his infantile mind. Her in
sistent “O, Stephen will apologise”(Portrait 8), only breaches the relationship
between two of them as is already the case with his father.
When later on his mother is too much of a catholic for his liking, and wants to
censor his changing ideas, the split in their relationship increases. William Sc
hutte points out that through his relation with his mother, his artist role is u
ndermined and he is left the dispirited husk of a creative artist (95). Accordin
g to Hoffman, Hall, and Schell both parents fail in their role because they ough
t to contribute to the child’s socialisation process by assuming the role of lov
e-providers and care-givers; by serving as identification figures; by acting as
active, often deliberate socialisation agents; by providing the bulk of the chil
d’s experiences; and by participating in the development of the child’s self con
cept (214). Home for Stephen is not a place of love, and until he rejects it, he
may not come to free expression in his art. Ralph Landau attests to this when h
e says that creativity is fragile, and the best of circumstances requires tender
loving care (155).
He falls sick when Wells shoulders him into a pit of scum. Generally, a thought
of this slimy pit sends him ill. His home is not different from the general naus
eating state of things. As Litz describes it, after a meal the smell of fried he
rrings fills the kitchen, the bare table is strewn with greasy plates onto which
lie glutinous fish bones and crusts are stuck by a congealing white sauce. Clam
my knives and forks are abandoned here and there. A big soot-coated kettle which
has been drained of the last dregs of shell cocoa lies in the midst, et cetera
(133-134).
Stephen has a problem with his eyes, and wears lenses from early age. Th
at already constitutes a problem for him. As if it is not enough, Dante, a relat
ive of his, threatens him with, “the eagles will come and pull out his eyes” (Po
rtrait 8). This threat is woven into some poetry so it sticks better on the sens
itive mind of young Stephen. He is also ill at ease with the filth, squalor and
the events in Dublin. This is seen in the passage below:
His sensitive nature was still smarting under the lashes of an undivined and squ
alid way of life. His soul was still disquieted and cast down by the cold phenom
enon of Dublin…every event and figure of which affected him intimately, disheart
ened him or allured and, whether alluring or disheartening, filled him always wi
th unrest and bitter thoughts (Portrait 78.)
In addition to the disquieting situation of physical Dublin, he has a pr
oblem with the Catholic and protestant Christianity in Ireland. There is the Pro
testant Church, but Catholicism, if anything, is the state religion. Stephen gro
ws up under the influence of this religion back at home and in school. All along
, he attends Jesuit schools and for some time is expected to join the order and
train to become a priest. In school he is taught to attend church, pray and to l
ead a God-fearing life. Most of his Catholicism is indoctrination, since he does
not really grasp the meaning of the issues: “He could think only of God. God w
as God’s name just as his name was Stephen” (Portrait 16). He is unsettled as to
who is right about the Virgin Mary controversy - the Catholics or the Protestan
ts? He remembers that the protestants make fun of the litany of the Blessed Virg
in; “Tower of Ivory. House of Gold! How could a woman be a tower of ivory or a
house of gold? Who was right then?” (Portrait 35).
In school he receives an unjust punishment from Father Dolan, the Prefec
t of Studies, who calls him a lazy, idle, little loafer. He remarks that the pun
ishment is unfair and cruel because the doctor has told him not to read without
glasses and he has written home to his father to send him a new pair of glasses.
In addition to all this, Father Arnall has instructed that he should not study
till the new glasses came. He is totally at odds with having been called a schem
er before the class and to be pandied when he is a good student by all standards
and the leader of the Yorkists. This crime against him from a man of the church
sets a number of questions running in his mind: How is he to ever trust the chu
rch and its men if they can be so cruel and unjust? How comes Father Dolan does
not take into consideration the fact that he is a serious student and the leade
r of the Yorkists? The Prefect of Studies says the story of breaking his glasses
is all a trick. How does he know that it is a trick? (Portrait 52). The more he
thinks along these lines, the faster he comes to conclude that the church and i
ts men are unjust and cruel. Furthermore, they cannot be trusted for patient inv
estigation unto the truth.
To him, it is the same men of the church who have betrayed Parnell. Ther
e has been a meddling of the church with politics, making the house of God into
a polling-booth. Mr. Casey says, “We go to the house of God, in all humility to
pray to our Maker and not to hear election addresses” (Portrait 31). His relatio
nship with the church along time and experience is similar to Joyce’s, who at fi
rst accepted Roman Catholicism as the fish accepts the ocean, a world to which h
e had been born and which was his natural element. But as time passed and increa
sing capabilities of ratiocination toughened his mind, he began to view the chur
ch in a different light. Furthermore, the sense of sin, of guilt, of worldly def
ilement and the cleansing power of absolution became painfully vivid to his adol
escent nature, especially when he reached the age of puberty (Gorman 47).
Stephen remembers the shouts at home during the Christmas party and Mr.
Casey’s words: “No God for Ireland. We have had too much God for Ireland. Away w
ith God…Away with God I say” (Portrait 32). These words affect him immensely, si
nce he believes them. He finally becomes something of a heretic. In a compositio
n, which he writes in class, the teacher notices traces of heresy, which Stephen
, however, explains away by a play of words. His apathy for the church increases
with time, secular involvement and intellectual development. C. H. Peake commen
ts on the impact of the hot Christmas Party discussions on Stephen as follows:
Stephen is a bewildered onlooker in a scene of violent political and religious p
assion and, apart from occasional passages expressing his bewilderment, there wi
ll be little point tracing what is going on in his head. It is the total image o
f the scene which fills him with terror: he asks himself, “who was right then?”,
but he has no means of knowing. What shocks him is the destruction by violent p
assions of the adult world, the family circle, and the happy occasion to which h
e had looked forward. It is an entire experience, a dramatic scene which plunges
directly into his imagination without passing through the understanding (104.)
Stephen is inclined to love Parnell who is not loved by the clergy. Since the cl
ergy represent the church, this inevitably calls for a choice, however mild, fro
m the start. He writes against the treatment Parnell has received from the clerg
y and the church. He hates foreign rule as well. But as he grows up, the compell
ing artistic urge takes so much of him that he does not pursue his political opi
nions. The family, the church and the state all frustrate his expectations. By p
ersonality and disposition he is an artist, but he discovers that none of these
institutions is encouraging to his views. In a quest for self-knowledge, he goes
into his mother’s bedroom and looks at his face for a long time in the mirror o
f her dressing-table (Portrait 71). Earlier on in school Stephen makes his first
attempts at situating himself within the cosmos. His first problem is coming to
terms with his name, and accepting it. It is evident to him that it is not a co
mmon name; sounds strange, and his friends say so. The name alone becomes an epi
phany as it leads him to an artistic end, a creative one, like Daedalus the old
artificer. Accepting the name is tantamount to accepting a call and a career. Wh
en at last he accepts it, he has accepted himself and his role as artist.
There is another side to accepting the name Stephen; it is accepting the possibi
lity of dying for his convictions. The historical Stephen dies as a martyr. He t
oo may suffer and give his life for his faith in art. The historic Stephen sees
heaven open and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God the Father. It
is possible that he receives his vision of art supernaturally too.
Perhaps not pleasurable to him, Dedalus is also his father’s name. Bearing it is
identification with Simon. It is an acknowledgement of Simon’s blood that runs
his veins, and the possibility of becoming like him. This he does not want and a
s we said earlier, he denies son-ship to Simon, and goes in search of a father.
In his determined aim to situate himself in the cosmos, he spells out the follow
ing:
Stephen Dedalus
Class of elements
Clongowes Wood College
Sallins
County Kildare
Ireland
Europe
The world
The universe (Portrait 15.)
He also comes to terms with the fact that he is only in the class of elements an
d knows very little. He lacks experience and is baffled by many unanswered quest
ions. Taking his little knowledge into account, he speaks little, listens and re
ads much. He can say nothing in the family Christmas party because he has nothin
g to say. But he picks up something of the hot temperament of his home and of Cl
ongowes Wood. Clongowes Wood is a place of conflict for years before the college
is ever built. Historically:
Clongowes Wood College (Silva de Clongow) was originally a medieval castle built
on the alluvial plain about a mile north of Clane near Sallins in County Kildar
e…It was held for generations by the great territorial family of the Eustaces an
d its importance as a stronghold can only be realised if it is understood that i
t was one of the outposts of the Pale (a double ditch of six feet high above gro
und at one side or part which mireth next to Irishmen (Gorman 23.))
Identification with Clongowes is not particularly disturbing to him at t
his time. But it is a place of fierce conflicts and stronghold for the subjugati
on of the Irish people. Its people are accustomed to conflict and the like. The
picture at the Christmas party spells a Clongowes temperament. Consciously or no
t, Stephen picks this temperament and braves it through, against the odds, to pa
ve his fated way in art.
In an attempt at self-realisation, Stephen considers a new set of ground
s wherein to situate himself. He says:
Stephen Dedalus is my name,
Ireland is my nation.
Clongowes is my dwellingplace
And heaven my expectation (Portrait 16).
This is an attempt to situate himself within the confines of time and ho
pes for the future, based on his Catholic religion. If he must get to heaven, he
must as well stick to the rules. He tries to, but finds he cannot. When he thro
ws off his Roman Catholicism he does it consciously, for there was a time he con
sciously was a part of it. As he goes with his father to sell the family propert
y he resituates himself again as follows: “I am Stephen Dedalus. I am walking be
side my father whose name is Simon Dedalus. We are in Cork, in Ireland. Cork is
a city. Our room is in the Victoria Hotel. Victoria and Stephen and Simon. Simon
and Stephen and Victoria. Names” (Portrait 92).
Stephen’s father loves music and sings a lot. He is taught to dance in t
one with a sound made by his mother with the piano. Although he never gets to pr
actice music, early contact with it contributes to his training in sound percept
ion. Through his father’s singing, Stephen comes to get hold of the world around
him. One of his father’s favourite songs reads:
‘Tis youth and folly
Makes young men marry,
So here my love, I’ll
No longer stay.
What can’t be cured, sure,
Must be injured, sure,
So I’ll go to Amerikay.
My love she’s handsome,
My love she’s bony:
She’s like good whisky
When it is new;
But when ’tis old
And growing cold
It fades and dies like
The mountain dew (Portrait 88).
Since Stephen identifies with this song of a poem, we consider it as fal
ling in line with his trend of thought in style and subject matter for the time
being. Stanza one runs with a uniform rhyme pattern; aabbccdd, but the second st
anza; abbcddec, is irregular. Stephen is first in harmony with Ireland, represen
ted by the regular rhyme pattern of stanza one, till his love for her grows cold
and inharmonious as captured in the irregular rhyme pattern of stanza two. He i
s as youthful and inexperienced as the youth in this song, so that the marriage,
in folly, is the unstudied identification to Ireland of his boyhood days. Irela
nd is the good whisky which grows cold and the mountain dew which fades and dies
.
Stephen’s infancy is followed by an intense commitment to reading the li
terature of his day. This helps him to inculcate the mind of his contemporaries,
and to position himself in relation to the spirit of the age. In this respect,
Stephen, like Joyce, “belongs with the other turn-of-the-century ‘makers of mode
rnism” (Helmling 107). Furthermore, he reads Aristotle, Aquinas, Victor Hugo, Lo
rd Byron, Gerhart Hauptmann and Newman et cetera. The reading of these other aut
hors takes him centuries back, and gives him a world of knowledge and differing
view-points. Later on, his way of life and art are to reflect the various tenets
of thought. His artistic vision is partly informed by these authors. When he be
gins to write, it is no longer the result of innocence, but the conscious produc
tions of a growing mind and the expression of experience gained.
When he is sick in school, he does not write to his father but writes to his mot
her. He knows where he stands according to his needs and which of his parents to
relate to, at what time. The circumstances under which he writes the letter als
o bring us to see where Stephen places himself in relation to eternity at this t
ime. He is sure that if he should die he goes to heaven, with six angels at his
back, two to sing, two to pray and two to carry his soul away. These are his chi
ldhood imaginations, which he discards as he grows up. Death and dying no longer
appear to him with such glory later on in the text. He is perhaps already affec
ted by the general situation wherein there is, “The loss of religious certitude,
of belief in an outer life, in heaven or hell, and the consciousness of an immu
table void beyond life, the nothingness of death” (Quentin Bell 215).
More than ever before, he has to come to terms with his sensual needs. Pressured
against his moral upbringing, he goes out to satisfy his sexual needs. His reli
gious upbringing forbids his doing this, but the urge to do so is compellingly s
tronger. He knows only two kinds of women; the virgin and the whore. The virgin
is not to be touched since, with the picture of the Holy Virgin Mary in his mind
, he dares not defile virginity. Like Joyce, he goes out for the whore: “Prostit
utes gave Joyce all his early sexual experience. So far as we know, he had no se
xual experience of any kind with girls who were not prostitutes, until Nora” (O’
Bien 18).
Going to the university opens to him a new intellectual sphere and the e
mancipation needed to accommodate his vision. Free from the direct censorious ey
e of the priests and their religious expectations for him and free from being pr
efect of Our Blessed Lady’s Sodality. Joyce tells us: “University! So he had pas
sed beyond the challenge of the sentries who had stood as guardians of his boyho
od and had sought to keep him among them that he might be subject to them and se
rve their ends” (Portrait 165). Under the pull of the end he is born to serve, h
e escapes from the church.
He does not come to terms with his artistic vision until he is in the university
. He knows he has studied and read enough to stand the intellectual frame of his
day. Anthony Burgess notes that until he reaches university age, he says little
, in which case the talk is mostly left to his parents, teachers and school mate
s. But when he has achieved the stage of free flight, he is almost unnaturally e
loquent (20).
He also does not come to his vision until he has waved aside all the oth
er voices that call him to other concerns, which are not art or art-related. The
re are the demands of his father urging him to be a gentleman and of his masters
urging him to be a good catholic above all things. There is also another voice
urging him to be strong and manly and healthy.
When the movement toward national revival begins to be felt in college,
he hears another voice bidding him to be true to his country and help to raise u
p its fallen language and tradition. The world around him expects that he should
raise up his father’s fallen state through his labours. As a leading student an
d secretary in the gymnasium, his school comrades want 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 (Portrait 84). Joyce tells us that these other voices sound
hollow to Stephen, and that he gives them an ear only for a time. He is happy on
ly when he is far from them, beyond their call.
As a growing artist, Stephen has the advantage of a home where very early he is
introduced to music, sent to school and begins to read the right kind of literat
ure. He also has the added advantage of having a room of his own where he can be
alone and undisturbed. When he begins to try his hand in poetry, the relationsh
ip with Emma Clere proves a catalysing factor.
The greatest challenge before him is that of facing a whole culture all
alone. His ideas and aesthetic theory sound strange to a number of his friends,
and he is charged with heresy, rebellion and heartlessness to his mother. Those
around him do not seem to perceive things the way he does. The problem with Step
hen, however, is that he is to some extent torn between his convictions and the
crowd he is rejecting and walking away from. He lacks the moral strength needed
for an independent continuity in art. His very sensitive nature and youth do not
allow him the indifference of artists like Lily Briscoe and Augustus Carmichael
in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. He is still too mindful of what others t
hink about him and how his actions affect them, to be able to fully stand alone
as an artist.
Although he has a good and extensive knowledge of his society, he lacks the need
ed practical experience. He can only write of himself and his love affairs. He w
ill need more time and experience before he can artistically feed the zeal with
which he sets out for exile. As evidence of this, he is not the vibrant, challen
ging and optimistic artist we expect when we next meet him in Ulysses. Rather th
an forging in the smithy of his soul the uncreated conscience of his race, he is
fighting back the accusations from his aunt and from Buck Mulligan, who think h
e is responsible for his mother’s death (Ulysses 11).
He is still too dependent on his mother for moral and material support. He does
not have money, and lacks the material necessary for his compositions. The Villa
nelle he writes is written on scraps of paper and with pencil. It is also likely
that although he is tidy in what he writes, he lacks the discipline to put his
poems together for eventual publishing.

STEPHEN’S ARTISTIC VISION

Having come to experience and self-realisation, Stephen can now establis
h his artistic vision. Along the pathway of his vision, we meet him in the follo
wing mood: “A vague dissatisfaction grew up within him as he looked on the quays
and on the river and on the lowering skies” (Portrait 66).
There is the creative urge which presses hard on him and he must define
it so that he sets out on a clear path. He wants to meet in the real world the u
nsubstantial image which his soul so constantly beholds. He does not know where
to seek it or how, but a premonition which leads him on tells him that this imag
e would, without any overt act of his, encounter him. They would meet quietly as
if they had known each other and had made their tryst, perhaps at one of the ga
tes or in some more secret place (Portrait 65).
The stirrings of his vision are a thing of the soul; emotions, mind, vol
ition. He feels it creep within him, sometimes making him moody, sometimes excit
ed and elevated. At this juncture, he cannot yet give a tangible mental grasp to
it. By premonition, this time a faculty of the spirit, he knows that artistic v
ision is personal and so he will be alone when he meets it. The other elements n
ecessary for the meeting of his vision are darkness and silence. This leaves the
impression that it is going to be something of a sacred moment.
The encounter with his vision is anticipated to be a moment of transfigu
ration and supreme tenderness in which he would be transfigured. He must be like
ning this to the bliss of the experience Peter, James and John have with Jesus i
n the Mountain of Transfiguration. But whereas they are many, in his turn he is
alone. He imagines that he would fade to something impalpable under her [vision]
eyes, then in a moment he would be transfigured. Vision here is given a female
character, perhaps for the tenderness he imagines for the encounter. We also kno
w that the thought of an idealised female has always led him to a moment of arti
stic creation. In his mind, a symbolic association between art and sex is establ
ished and as Levin says, it helps him to decide his later conflict between art a
nd religion (Levin 20-21).
The encounter, he expects, should create an invigorating, emboldening an
d experiential effect: “Weakness and timidity and inexperience would fall from h
im” (Portrait 65). For the time being, his intuition is sharper than his mind an
d by it he receives a foreknowledge of the future, all of which are private and
remote from the humanity around him. Joyce says, “A tender premonition touched h
im of the tryst he had then looked forward to and, in spite of the horrible real
ity which lay between his hope of then and now, of the holy encounter he had the
n imagined at which weakness and timidity and inexperience were to fall from him
” (Portrait 99.) Now that he is very close to his vision becoming palpable, “not
hing moved him or spoke to him from the real world unless he heard in it an echo
of the infuriated cries within him” (Portrait 92). He would go away to remote p
laces and for company prefer phantasmal comrades. When not with these he prefers
the company of subversive writers. All leisure which his school life leaves him
is spent in the company of these writers whose gibes and violence of speech set
up a ferment in his brain before they pass out in his crude writings (Portrait
78).
The more he tries his hand at writing, the more the word and the vision caper be
fore his eyes. As these prance before him he is shocked to find in the outer wor
ld a trace of what he has up to then deemed a brutish and individual malady of h
is own mind. His recent monstrous reveries come thronging into his memory. They
spring up before him, suddenly and furiously, out of mere words (Portrait 90).
The vision gets more real, more externalised and Stephen begins to catch a menta
l glimpse of what hitherto is only felt: “The verse passed from his lips and the
inarticulate cries and the unspoken brutal words rushed forth from his brain to
force a passage” (Portrait 99). Furthermore, “He had soon given in to them and
allowed them to sweep across and abase his intellect, wondering always where the
y came from, from what den of monstrous images, and always weak and humble towar
ds others, restless and sickened of himself when they had swept over him” (Portr
ait 90.)
Since his vision is not earthly, he begins to hear musical voices in the
direction of his calling. The music leaps, “upwards a tone and downwards a dimi
nished fourth, upwards a tone, and downwards a major third, like triple branchin
g flames leaping fitfully” (Portrait 165). He calls the musical voices an elfin
prelude, endless and formless. He seems to hear wild creatures racing from under
the boughs and the grasses. Their feet, like the feet of hares and rabbits, of
harts and hinds and antelopes passing in pattering tumult over his mind. Further
more, he hears sounds like the sound of rain tapping upon the leaves.
After these mysterious musical voices and passing creatures, he immediately thin
ks of Newman, and a line from him. Soon, the musical voices move from without to
being heard inside of him. He hears a confused music within him as of memories
and names which he is almost conscious of but cannot capture even for an instant
. From the confused music, “there fell always one long drawn calling note, pierc
ing like a star the dusk of silence. Again! Again! Again! A voice from beyond th
e world was calling – hello, Stephanos!” (Portrait 167). Premonitions of his fre
e flight appear to him in the form of moving clouds:
He raised his eyes towards the slowdrifting clouds, dappled and seaborne. They w
ere voyaging across the deserts of the sky, a host of nomads on the march, voyag
ing high over Ireland, westward bound. The Europe they had come from lay down th
ere beyond the Irish sea, Europe of strange tongues and valleyed and woodbegirt
and citadelled and of entrenched and marshalled races (Portrait 165.)
More than ever before, his strange name is pronouncedly prophetic. This
comes out more vividly in the passage that follows:
Now, at the name of the fabulous artificer, he seemed to hear the noise of fabul
ous waves and to see a winged form flying above the waves and slowly climbing th
e air…a hawklike man flying sunward across the sea, a prophecy of the end he had
been born to serve and had been following through the mists of childhood and bo
yhood, a symbol of the artist forging anew in his workshop out of the sluggish m
atter of the earth a new soaring imperishable being? (Portrait 169.)
A full identification with the old artificer produces an experience of transcend
ence, an astral transportation, a conversion in him. Richard Taylor in Understan
ding the Elements of Literature points out that the act of artistic creation is
the most highly priced of all human activities, and that it is directly influenc
ed and inspired by the supernatural which speaks through the imagination of the
artist (30). In line with this thinking, we are told of a spirit that passes thr
ough Stephen’s limbs, moves him to ecstasy and keeps his soul in flight:
His soul was soaring in an air beyond the world and the body he knew was purifie
d in a breath and delivered of incertitude and made radiant and commingled with
the element of the spirit. An ecstasy of flight made radiant his eyes and wild h
is breath and tremulous and wild and radiant his windswept limbs (Portrait 169.)
With this experience, he is born again into artistic adulthood. The boyhood expe
rience he has metamorphosed out of is spurned. Henceforth, he creates proudly ou
t of the freedom and power of his soul like the mature artist, with a new wild l
ife singing in his veins. The experience imparts to him a great sense of the bea
utiful, and heightens his powers of apprehension and appreciation. The wading gi
rl, almost an apparition, is seen with an artistic keenness hitherto unknown to
him. In the vision of the wading girl, he sees a girl standing in midstream, alo
ne and still, gazing out to the sea. The vision of this girl passes into his sou
l for ever with no word breaking the holy silence of his ecstasy, as Joyce calls
it. Furthermore:
Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call. To live, to err, to
fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild angel had appeared to hi
m, an angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, t
o throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of er
ror and glory (Portrait 172.)
A sense of the aesthetic is born, and hence his aesthetic theory. He feels that
the spirit of beauty has folded him round like a mantle. With the priest in a ph
ilosophical conversation, they both discover that there is an art in the lightin
g of a fire. They discover that art falls in one of two groups; the useful arts
and the liberal arts. Lighting a fire is a useful art, they agree. In the lighti
ng of a fire, the object of the artist remains the creation of the beautiful (Po
rtrait 185). Stephen further realises that there exists another form of art whic
h he calls the improper arts, because they excite a kinetic feeling, for example
, desire and loathing. He finds that the pornographic or didactic are improper a
rts because they excite a kinetic emotion. On the other hand, he says, “Beauty e
xpressed by an artist cannot awaken in us an emotion which is kinetic or a sensa
tion which is purely physical” (Portrait 185). Rather, “it awakens, or ought to
awaken, or induces, or ought to induce, an esthetic stasis, an ideal pity or an
ideal terror, a stasis called forth, prolonged” (Portrait 206).
 Stephen is greatly influenced by Aquinas and quotes him for most of the
time. His own aesthetic theory can be called applied Aquinas. According to Aquin
as, when the apprehension pleases, then the thing is beautiful. But what is beau
tiful to one may not be to another. To this Stephen says that though the same ob
ject may not be beautiful to all people, all people who admire a beautiful objec
t find in it certain relations which satisfy and coincide with the stages of all
aesthetic apprehension. According to him, “art is the human disposition of sens
ible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end” (Portrait 207). The artist trie
s to “express from the gross earth, or what it brings forth, from sound and sha
pe and colour which are the prison gates of our soul, an image of the beauty we
have come to understand – that is art” (Portrait 207).
This said, he distinguishes three art forms; another classification different fr
om what he comes to with the priest. There are the lyrical form, the epical form
and the dramatic forms of art. In the lyrical form, the artist presents his ima
ge in immediate relation to himself. In the epic form he presents it in relation
to himself and to others, whereas he presents his image in immediate relation t
o others in the dramatic form of art. The dramatic form of art is life purified
and projected from human imagination. In this form, the artist’s personality ref
ines itself out of existence and impersonalises itself. The artist of this form,
like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handi
work, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails (
Portrait 215).
When he has gone through his conversion experience into an artist, has worked ou
t his aesthetic theory and set on composing according to his theory, he sees him
self as “a priest of eternal imagination, transmuting the daily bread of existen
ce to the radiant body of everliving life” (Portrait 221). He sets out to do wo
rks of art, not without great challenges and obstacles. To begin with, he is int
roduced by his father to the world of literature from when he is a kid. The nove
l opens with his father telling him a story in the traditional story-telling sty
le: “Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down
along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens
little boy named baby tuckoo” (Portrait 7.) He learns from his father that he c
ould become the subject of a story, since the baby tuckoo of his father’s story
refers to him. Also that in a story one may take another name, other than one’s
real name, because tuckoo is not his true name. It is here that his later concer
n with names is born.
He takes to his father’s method of presenting the story, but later seeks better
methods of presentation as he repudiates old forms. But before then he is taught
nursery rhymes, which is a beginning to his cultivating an ear for sound apprec
iation. Stephen’s earliest attempt at artistic creation is a childhood repetitio
n of the threats at him for saying he is going to marry Eileen, who is a protest
ant. A few of the lines run thus:
Pull out his eyes,
Apologise,
Apologise,
Pull out his eyes.
Apologise,
Pull out his eyes,
Pull out his eyes,
Apologise (Portrait 8).
It is an eight-line poem, of two utterances differently arranged, with the same
rhyme pattern: abba. The central issue is the need for an apology for the crime
of wanting to marry protestant Eileen. Since Stephen does not know the interdeno
minational conflicts between the Catholics and the Protestants, the poem gives n
o hint of remorse. The repetitions, musical in themselves, look rather a determi
nation not to apologise. He does not openly say he will not apologise, but hides
under the table, as he is being forced to give an apology. There is as much emp
hasis on the threat of pulling out his eyes as there is the injunction to apolog
ise. He would rather escape than contradict his genuine, though childish desire.
The whole poem carries with it the atmosphere of the conflict he is to face as
a grown-up, between his convictions, sometimes untested as here, and the expecta
tions of those around him. This childhood victory scored against his mother will
be scored again, when it comes to going to the university and leaving Ireland f
or Paris. The birds, represented by the eagle, used as an instrument of threat,
are later to be a sign of his flight from Ireland. The instrument of threat is t
ransformed in later life to lead his inner drive and dream. Stephen never again
apologises to anyone for any reason, till the novel’s end.
Soon after his vision, he experiences what Joyce calls variously as an e
nchantment of the heart or an instant of inspiration. He describes how this happ
ens for Stephen in the following manner:
The instant flashed forth like a point of light and now from cloud on cloud of v
ague circumstance confused form was veiling softly its afterglow. O! in the virg
in womb of imagination the word was made flesh. Gabriel the seraph had come to t
he virgin’s chamber. An afterglow deepened within his spirit, whence the white f
lame had passed, deepening to a rose and ardent light (Portrait 217.)
Immediately after the moment of inspiration as seen in the quotation above, a nu
mber of verses pass from his mind to his lips. He murmurs them over and feels th
e rhythmic movement of a villanelle pass through the words. The rhyme also sugge
sts itself in words like ways, days, blaze, praise, raise and so on (Portrait 21
8). This takes place in his mind, and since the things of the mind are relativel
y volatile, the rhythm begins to die down. Fearing to lose all, he raises himsel
f from the bed to look for paper and pencil. Finding neither paper nor pencil on
the table, he picks up a pencil and cigarette packet from his coat pocket, tear
s it open and begins to write down the stanzas of the villanelle(Portrait 218-21
9). DiYanni defines a villanelle as, “a nineteen line lyric poem that relies hea
vily on repetition. The first and third lines alternate throughout the poem, whi
ch is structured in six stanzas – five tercets and a final quatrain” (1716).
The incident above reveals a number of things about the creative moments of Step
hen Dedalus. In the first place, he is lying down, relaxed in bed, in the early
morning period following a night’s rest. The setting and mood of the creative mo
ment are very informal and commonplace. Secondly, the inspiration comes to him i
n a dreamlike mood, in keeping with what Jung says about a great work of art: “A
great work of art is like a dream, for all its apparent obviousness” (187). It
is worth noting the fact that this takes place in the chamber of his mind, and f
lashes forth like a point of light. At first, the villanelle comes to him as tho
ugh dictated. This reminds of William Blake who writes poetry in about the same
manner. In the same line of thinking,
Thirdly, Stephen is unprepared when it comes to recording the villanelle
as it comes to him. This, on the one hand, is because he is a scattered fellow
and on the other because the inspiration takes him by surprise. He gropes for pa
per and pencil then lies back in bed to record his poem. Fourthly, the moment of
inspiration accompanies the moment of harmony with himself. When he is still ba
ttling out his position toward the family, church and state, no creative inspira
tion comes his way. When he is unsettled as to his position in the matters of si
n and a church career, he tries to write but nothing comes out of it. He must fi
rst come to terms with himself before he can attain the wholeness, harmony and r
adiance of art (Bolt 63).
The villanelle comes in bits and he selects and arranges it. Then more of it com
es in the following manner: “The rhythm died away, ceased, began again to move a
nd beat” (Portrait 218). At moments he speaks out the words so that they leave
an auditory impression and register in his mind. Furthermore, thoughts of good m
oments around his platonic affair with Emma Clere, Stephen s love interest, come
in as a catalysing agent at the moment of composition. Emma is more like a muse
than a flesh-and-blood person. He is inspired by her and writes a poem that suc
ceeds.
Sexual drive, as in Stephen’s case at this moment, may be appropriately called
libido; emotional or psychic energy derived from primitive biological urges. It
could be that creative and sexual energy have the same source and work in the sa
me manner, since the libido is both emotional and psychic. At the moment of crea
tive activity, this energy is in the main psychical, with emotional overtones. T
he final release of the psychic energy needed for the successful composition of
Stephen’s villanelle is erotic in nature:
Her eyes, dark and with a look of languor, were opening to his eyes. Her nakedne
ss yielded to him, radiant, warm, odorous and lavish-limbed, enfolded him like a
shining cloud, enfolded him like water with a liquid life: and like a cloud of
vapour or like waters circumfluent in space the liquid letters of speech, symbol
s of the element of mystery, flowed forth over his brain (Portrait 223.)
The villanelle that he finally composes in the mood above reads as below
:
Are you not weary of ardent ways,
Lure of the fallen seraphim?
Tell no more of enchanted days.
Your eyes have set man’s heart ablaze
And you have had your will of him.
Are you not weary of ardent ways?
Above the flame the smoke of praise
Goes forth from ocean rim to ocean rim.
Tell no more of enchanted days.
Our broken cries and mournful lays
Rise in one eucharistic hymn.
Are you not weary of ardent ways?
While sacrificing hands upraise
The chalice flowing to the brim,
Tell no more of enchanted days.
And still you hold our longing gaze
With languorous look and lavish limb!
Are you not weary of ardent ways?
Tell no more of enchanted days (Portrait 223-4).
The poem evidently turns around Stephen’s psychological state of mind and pursui
ts. He meditates on his present ardent ways and enchanted days, and tries to lin
k them with the fallen seraphim, an image of the devil. Stephen habitually has a
sense of the holy with a touch of the satanic at the same time. Just when he ta
lks of the fallen seraphim, his mind turns to incense ascending from the altar,
Gabriel the seraph, sacrificing hands upraised, the chalice and Eucharistic hymn
; all which are associated with the church and holiness.
The eyes that have set man’s heart ablaze are perhaps the eyes of the prostitute
s he is fond of at this time. In using them he certainly feels used because he s
ays they have had their will of the man, who should be none else but himself. Bu
t he moves it to include all men when he says, “And still you hold our longing g
aze with languorous look and lavish limb!”
On the other hand, the poem is dedicated to Emma Clere, the temptress of his vil
lanelle. Here she takes the character of a tempter unlike the innocence that at
other times Stephen identifies her with. Earlier on we read:
A sense of her innocence moved him almost to pity her, an innocence he had never
understood…an innocence she too had never understood…and a tender compassion fi
lled his heart as he remembered her frail pallor and her eyes, humbled and sadde
ned by the dark shame of womanhood (Portrait 222 –223.)
Soon after this successful villanelle, he also begins to keep a dairy, which in
its style records his day to day experiences leading to his flight to Paris. On
the 20th of March he records: “Long talk with Cranly on the subject of my revolt
.” On the 16th of April he hears voices say to him: “We are alone. Come. And the
voices say…we are your kinsmen. And the air is thick with their company as they
call to me, their kinsman” (Portrait 252). On the 26th of April, he records his
mother’s prayers for him and sets off saying: “Welcome, O life! I go to encount
er for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy o
f my soul the uncreated conscience of my race” (Portrait 252 –253). He sets out,
first of all, to encounter experience, and only then can he create. Richard Ell
mann remarks that in the encounter with reality he is the millionth, but in the
forging of his race’s conscience he acknowledges no predecessors (75).
In a nutshell, Stephen Dedalus is born into a family, a religion and political s
ituation that become a mould, both to his personality and thinking. Groomed in t
hese and because of his much reading and transgressive temperament, he comes to
self-knowledge and spells out his role in his society. In A Portrait his art lea
ves the impression that the best is yet to come. He writes little for the time b
eing, a writing woven around himself, and sets out on exile for more artistic wo
rk. At the end of the story, his artistic achievement cannot be fully evaluated
as yet, but he has fully laid the theoretical grounds for his career as an artis
t.

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