Christopher Brown – 20c Lit, 11

Paper 1, 10/3
Esthetics as a Simple Matter of Preference

In Stephen Dedalus’s exposition on esthetics with Lynch, he com-

pares two hypotheses explaining the universal but varied appreciation

of female beauty. The first is rational and functional: “that every phys-

ical quality admired by men in women is in direct connexion with the

manifold functions of women for the propagation of the species” (161).

This is pure evolutionary theory, and Stephen admits its factuality,

blatantly remarking, “It may be so” (161). It is a sufficient explanation,

but not satisfactory. He presents the second thus: “all people who ad-

mire a beautiful object find in it certain relations which satisfy and coin-

cide with the stages themselves of all esthetic apprehension” (161).

That Stephen sides with the second is a matter of course, given the

preceding discussion with Lynch and the dean of studies; what is curi-

ous is Stephen’s criteria for preferring one over the other. The second

hypothesis, strangely, evades the question of universal beauty rather,

while the first settles it quite definitively. But Stephen argues the first is

“dreary,” and “leads to eugenics rather than to esthetic”; apparently

for no other reason than this, he “dislikes” the first and simply prefers

the second, which serves as an escape, an “other way out” (161).

Stephen’s motives, then, are self-seeking, in that he holds his de-

sires to no standard but his own estimation. It is not the pursuit of truth

that drives him, but a indefatigable fascination with what he values

most: passion. His vehement rejection of the time’s neurasthenia is the

 Brown 2

underlying impetus behind every argument and desire. Perhaps the

most decisive experience is Stephen’s encounter with the dean of stud-

ies, who embodies the dispassionate mechanical languor of the priest-

hood. Stephen rejected the jesuit priesthood because the order

seemed to enervate its followers, as he observes in the sinless, almost

pedantic, “masters” at the jesuit school. Among his classmates, he ob-

serves an insipid contentment, from which he rebels, “for he could no

longer quench the flame in his blood. ... There was a lust of wandering

in his feet that burned to set out for the ends of the earth” (130-1).

Stephen notes that “Like Ignatius [the dean of studies] was lame but in

his eyes burned no spark of Ignatius’ enthusiasm” (143). Indeed, the

dean’s demeanor is forced, stiff, and condescending. The fire that he

has been trying to light never amounts to anything more than “a smell

of molten tallow”—it never achieves the fruition of flames, reflecting

the impotency of the dean in general (144).

Stephen’s antagonism of the dean of studies resurfaces later and

casts him as Stephen’s Satan. When Cranly asks the now-agnostic

Stephen whether or not he fears Christ’s rejection on Judgment day,

Stephen inverts Cranly’s heaven and hell. For Stephen, hell is wherever

the dispassionate, like the dean, end up. Wherever that is, Stephen’s

heaven is the opposite, which traditionally entails everlasting fire. Con-

sidering the zealous repentance and righteous horror that overtakes

Stephen in the third chapter, this nonchalance is surprising. Stephen

 Brown 3

does not undergo a change of heart, however, only a transfer of pas-

sion. It was the passion of Father Arnall that imparted to Stephen the

intense awareness of his perdition. Yet, as the immediate threat of this

damnation disappears when he confesses, so does Stephen’s interest.

When in the throes of the threat of eternal punishment, Stephen is in

an ecstasy of passion. So far, the young Stephen has surprised himself

letting his body take over his mind, as it did with the rector at Clon-

gowes, and the prostitute who accosts him on the street (41, 77). But

in this new fear, he gloriously experiences the other extreme: his moral

turmoil achieves such perturbation that it effects a physical result: “a

convulsion seized him within” and “he vomited profusely in agony”

(106). Even his period on the bench before confessing is agonized

bliss, but the ecstatic purity and happiness that follows forgiveness

wanes quickly, and Stephen’s prized passion fades away.

The ephemerality of religious passion causes Stephen to give it

up. When singled out as “called,” a “flame began to flutter again on

Stephen’s cheek” as he imagines himself “wielding calmly and humbly

the awful power of which angels and saints stood in reverence” (121).

Yet, this drama is idealistic; realizing that religion will not satisfy him,

Stephen turns to his studies of estheticism and his vocation as an

artist.

Stephen’s esthetic theory is divisive—the few to whom he ex-

plains it, the dean of studies, Lynch, and Cranly, are more amused than
 Brown 4

arrested by the idea. The theory subjects an experience entirely to the

impression on an individual, which is difficultly communicable. The idea

of esthetics as reflex repulses Stephen: “Beauty expressed by the artist

cannot awaken in us an emotion which is kinetic or ... physical. It

awakens ... induces ... an esthetic stasis” (159). In this way, Stephen’s

theory is partly founded in Romanticism, because the end result of ex-

perience is only valid through the interpretation of his mind. Likewise,

there is also a rejection of neoclassic rationalism: for him the beauty of

beauty is in its analysis and appreciation—esthetics is recursive: “To

speak of [beautiful things] and to try and understand their nature, to

try slowly and humbly and constantly to express ... an image of the

beauty we have come to understand – that is art” (159). Lynch remains

unswayed—all he cares about is a “job of five hundred a year” (160).

Likewise, Cranly ultimately fears loneliness, in the form of either God’s

repudiation or social disconnect. For the dean, too, his placid, ritual job,

a practical art, comes first. Stephen does not attack these vocations,

but as applied to him, they disgust him. He fears neither isolation nor

making mistakes, but abhors, above all else, the neurasthenia of Eng-

land, Ireland, modernity, and humanity. And from this prospect, he

vows himself to “encounter for the millionth time the reality of experi-

ence and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of

my race” (196). Millions before him have encountered reality, and

floundered under its pressure or fled its vivacious oppression. Stephen

 Brown 5

chooses to renounce all functional conventions, the banal literary

modes and religious institutions, that have been used to escape this in

the past and in his day, welcoming the full brunt of reality with equan-

imity. It may be mad, but to Stephen, the choice between convention

and passion is obvious.

 Works Cited

Joyce, James. Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man. Hertfordshire:

Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1992.