James Joyce POTA Flashcards
‘Was it rihgt to kiss his mother or wrong?….what dd that mean, to kiss….why did people do that with their two faces?’
Tradition questioned - questioning the conventionality of tradition in relation to bodies. Demystifies the idea of culture as innate
Even questions the division of bodies - ‘people’ divided into ‘two faces’
Freudian questions - morality
‘if she knew to what his mind has subjected her…his brute-like lust…was that boyish love? was that chivalry> Was that poetry? God and the Blessed Virgin were too far from him….but he imagined that he stood near Emma’
Questions art’s relation to religion, relationships, and inspiration
shows that culture (‘chivalry’) and its relation to relationships/people (‘Emma’), and ‘God/Blessed V’) cannot inspire art/ or ‘poetry’
the significance of including god AND the ‘Blessed Virign’ is not just to emphasise catholicism, but also to emphasise the personal relationship which catholic religion insists on with god (as a mother figure, a literal personage)
[of the schoolchildren] ‘The senate and the ROman people declared that Dedalus had been wrongly punished’
‘and the Rector would declare that he had been wrongly punished because the senate and the Roman people always [did]…history was all about those men’
Tradition, historical belief
‘the great men in histoiyr had names like that and no-one made fun of them’
Hisotyr, naming, tradition, regard of others
‘he could scarcely recognise his own thoughts, and repeated to himself: “I am Steven Dedalus. I am walking beside my father….names”
Naming, binding to society, identity
[Steven[ “there is no such thing as free thinking inasmuch as all thinking must be bound by its own laws”
“by the light of one or two ideas of Aristtotle and Aquinas….I need them only….until have some something for myself by their light. If the lamp smokes or smells, I shall try to trim it.”
‘The priest’s face wich seemed like an unlit lamp or reflector hung in a false focus’
Ability to reject and reinterpret tradition, yet still dependent upon precedent
‘nice sentences in Doctor Cornwell’s Spelling Book. THey were like poetry, but they were only sentences to learn the spelling from’
Aesthetic response even in childhood - but questions the use of words for practical uses vs for aesthetic pleasure
‘he read the verses backwards but then they were not poetry#
aesthetic intentionality
[as child] ‘he did not want to play. he wanted to meet in the real world the unsubstantial image which his soul so constantly beheld….a premonition…told him that this image would, without any overt act of his own….’
‘their tryst…alone…he would be trasnfigured. Weakness and timidity would fall from him’
Clearly questions whether the child himself or the narrator is thinking this - question again of aesthetic intentionality
‘the esthetic moment is static. The mind is arrested and raised above desire and loathing’
‘an esthetic stasis, an ideal puty or an ideal terror’
Art as NOT correlative to reality
‘the artist, like the God fo creation…[is] refined out of existence, indifferent’
Role of the artist as paradoxical - he is in, yet effaced from, his art
[the Priest] “there is an art in lighting a fire. We ahve the liberal arts, and we have the useful arts…”
“The object of the artsits is the creation of the beautiful. .[is the fire[ beautiful?”
Steven - “To the sight…it will be beautiful…..in Hell , however, it is an evil….”
The ambivalence of imagery
“ther personality of the artist…finally refines itself out of existence, impersonalises itself”
paradoxical aesthetic goal
‘elusive of social orders….desined to learn his own wisdom’
self-creation and self-effacement, role of artist, nationality
‘I go to encounter…the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscioence of my race’
nationalistic art; deeply paradoixcial impersoanlity
“when the soul of a mna is born in this coutnry there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight….nationality, langauge, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets”
natioanlity, restriction
“your mind is supersaturated with the religion….did you beleive in it…at school?”
impossibiltiy of escape from influence
;his elsers spoke…of Irish politics…wrods which he did not understand he said over and over to himself till he had learnt them…through tehm he had glimpses of the real world
‘questions reality of knowledge, esp political
“his langauge, so familiar and so foreign, will always be for me an aquired speech. I have not made or accepted its words….my soul frest in the shadow of his language”
influence, natioanlity
“My ancesters threw off their language and took abohter”, Steven sadi. “they allowed…fireginers to subject them. DO you fancy I am going to pay in my own life and person the debts they made?”
inlfuence vs assertion of a new path
“ireland is the old sow who eats her farrow”
Natioanlity
‘for my defence the only arms I allow myself - silence, exile, and ciunning’
defence, not offense, si telling!
attacks through silence and exile
[of the stolen cup] ‘God was notn in it of course….but it was still a strange and great sin even to touch it’
religion
Caning as an ironic punishment
Prevents him from writing when that was what he was pusihed for not doing anyway
shows how religion imposes more restrictions
“a certain pride…witheld him from offering to God even one prayer…though he knew it was in God’s power to take away his life”
assertion of individuality and self-fasioning
“to merge his life in the common tide of others was harder to him tahn any fasting or prayer”
essential self-creation
‘Her fair hair…‘Tower of Ivory. House of Gold’. Byt hinking of things you could understnad them’
‘Eilleen had long cool white hands because she was a girl…that was the meaning of Tower of ivroy but protestants could ot understand’
points out the paradox of allegory - attests to represent but cnanot
