A portrait of a young man as an artist

Chapter 5
- When the focaliser changes, the whole text changes
- References to Thomas acqainas
- Speaking in Latin, gives us the impression that he has become a snob
- Thomas Aquinas theory – it is beautiful if it please the eye.
You are an artist, are you not, Mr Dedalus? said the dean, glancing up and
blinking his pale eyes. The object of the artist is the creation of the beautiful.
What the beautiful is is another question.

- Tomas Aquinas – what is beauty in terms of aesthetics

He rubbed his hands slowly and drily over the difficulty.

—Can you solve that question now? he asked.
—Aquinas, answered Stephen, says pulcra sunt quæ visa placent.
—This fire before us, said the dean, will be pleasing to the eye. Will it therefore be
beautiful?

- Does beauty have to be useful.

In so far as it is apprehended by the sight, which I suppose means here esthetic

intellection, it will be beautiful. But Aquinas also says Bonum est in quod tendit
appetitus. In so far as it satisfies the animal craving for warmth fire is a good. In
hell, however, it is an evil.

- According to Aquinas, beauty has to be useful. But for who is it beautiful? For someone
who is cold and craving heat, fire is beautiful.
- Detaches himself from language of religion. Religious language is not ambiguous.
Language of religion is binary. He wants to detach from these binaries
- Trying to secularise a theory on art that is originally very religious
- The theory by Aquinas sees art as static that is brought about by beauty. Art and
beauty have nothing to do with good evil. It is a question of use. If you want to be
warm, fire is good
- 3 qualities of beauty – wholeness, Harmony, radiance

The instant of inspiration seemed now to be reflected from all sides at once
from a multitude of cloudy circumstances of what had happened or of what
might have happened. The instant flashed forth like a point of light and now
from cloud on cloud of vague circumstance confused form was veiling softly
its afterglow. O! In the virgin womb of the imagination the word was made
flesh. Gabriel the seraph had come to the virgin’s chamber. An afterglow
deepened within his spirit, whence the white flame had passed, deepening to a
rose and ardent light. That rose and ardent light was her strange wilful heart,
strange that no man had known or would know, wilful from before the
beginning of the world; and lured by that ardent roselike glow the choirs of
the seraphim were falling from heaven.
 - Images from the bible. Even though he appropriates theory of Aquinas. When he
needs to be creative, he still goes back to religion
- He cannot detach himself completely because it is his language. It is the language that
he knows. It is the language that makes him feel comfortable and best expresses how
he feels.

Are you not weary of ardent ways,

Lure of the fallen seraphim?
Tell no more of enchanted days.

The verses passed from his mind to his lips and, murmuring them over, he felt the
rhythmic movement of a villanelle pass through them. The roselike glow sent forth its
rays of rhyme; ways, days, blaze, praise, raise. Its rays burned up the world, consumed
the hearts of men and angels: the rays from the rose that was her wilful heart.

Your eyes have set man’s heart ablaze

And you have had your will of him.
Are you not weary of ardent ways?

And then? The rhythm died away, ceased, began again to move and beat. And then?
Smoke, incense ascending from the altar of the world.

- Lyrical language that he knows exclusively comes from the bible

Above the flame the smoke of praise

Goes up from ocean rim to rim
Tell no more of enchanted days.

Smoke went up from the whole earth, from the vapoury oceans, smoke of her praise.
The earth was like a swinging swaying censer, a ball of incense, an ellipsoidal ball. The
rhythm died out at once; the cry of his heart was broken. His lips began to murmur the
first verses over and over; then went on stumbling through half verses, stammering and
baffled; then stopped. The heart’s cry was broken.

- What he is composing is to be enjoyed exclusively by himself

- This is not a love letter. He reads it and it gives pleasure just to him

Focaliser merges with narrator – no more free indirect speech (diary)

- Has an impact on text and reader

- Diary is written in 1st person. All of the sudden, we move into 0 perspective. No
distance and no perspective and we tend to trust this sort of narrator. Difficult to
ironic about this type of narrator
- Different relationship now created with reader
- On the 20th of March – Easter
- Reference to eater, but also to beginning of spring
 - Catholics celebrate resurrection of Christ in eater. Spring is about new beginnings.
Resurrection of nature. This is Important because here in the novel, we go back to a
new beginning. Another subversion of Bildungsroman. It does not conclude as a new
story begins

April 16. Away! Away!

The spell of arms and voices: the white arms of roads, their promise of close
embraces and the black arms of tall ships that stand against the moon, their tale of
distant nations. They are held out to say: We are alone—come. And the voices say with
them: We are your kinsmen. And the air is thick with their company as they call to me,
their kinsman, making ready to go, shaking the wings of their exultant and terrible
youth.
April 26. Mother is putting my new secondhand clothes in order. She prays now, she
says, that I may learn in my own life and away from home and friends what the heart is
and what it feels. Amen. So be it. Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth
time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated
conscience of my race.
April 27. Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead.

- He has to go away from pulling forces of labyrinth (family, nationalism and religion)
- Last entry is dedicated to old father – Daedalus. Like a prayer of guidance to Daedalus.
Reference is to the epigraph. In spite of no closure, there is circularity. No closure
because from now on closure is ambiguous. As a young man his progress is not closed.
He still has to develop beyond the book.

I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge
in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.

- Contribution of the artist is to society. He needs to make something useful to society

- He sees himself as detached from society, it wants to create something useful for
society. Artist has a duty to society. Detachment is important as if you want to talk
about your society, you must detach from it in order to acquire perspective from it.