Annotated Stephen Hero ch23.b
Jorn Barger
reference that I'm really uncomfortable trying to second-guess it.
Corrections welcome.]
-- There should be an art of gesture, said Stephen one
night to Cranly.
Cf U15-Circe: "STEPHEN (Looks behind.) So that gesture, not music, not
odour, would be a universal language..."
http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/ulysses/circe1.html
-- Yes?
-- Of course I don't mean art of gesture in the sense that
the elocution professor understands the word. For him a
gesture is an emphasis.
(Eg, Casey Kasem's phony handjive.)
I mean a rhythm.
Cf JAJ to WBY, Oct 1902: "He had thrown over metrical form, he said,
that he might get a form so fluent that it would respond to the motions
of the spirit..."
You know the song "Come unto these yellow sands?"
From Ariel in "The Tempest":
http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/s/shakespeare/sands.html
Come unto these yellow sands,
Then take hands:
Curtsied when you have and kissed,
The wild waves whist:
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
-- No.
-- This is it, said the youth making a graceful anapaestic
gesture with each arm. That's the rhythm, do you see?
anapest = two short, then one long: "Twas the NIGHT before CHRISTmas and
ALL thru the HOUSE" (But the Shakespeare is all iambs!? COME unTO these
YELlow SANDS.)
-- Yes.
-- I would like to go out into Grafton St some day
Where all the fanciest shops were.
and make gestures in the middle of the street.
Cf Nerval and his lobster?
(It's interesting that JAJ in U15-Circe has SD looking nervously
behind-- as with the nosepicking in U3-Proteus.)
-- I'd like to see that.
-- There is no reason why life should lose all grace and
nobility even though Columbus discovered America.
(Turning the Middle Ages into the Renaissance, I guess.)
I will live a free and noble life.
-- Yes?
-- My art will proceed from a free and noble source. It is
too troublesome for me to adopt the manners of these
slaves. I refuse to be terrorised into stupidity. Do you
believe that one line of verse can immortalise a man?
-- Why not one word?
-- 'Sitio' is a classical cry. Try to improve on it.
Christ on the cross: 'I thirst' (John 19:28)
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/Vulgate/John.html#19:28
-- Do you think that Jesus when he hung on the cross
appreciated what you would call the rhythm of that
remark? Do you think that Shakespeare when he wrote a
song went out into the street to make gestures for the
people?
(Cranly has somehow deduced that 'yellow sands' was Shakespeare!)
-- It is evident that Jesus was unable to illustrate his
remark by a correspondingly magnificent gesture but I do
not imagine he uttered it in a matter-of-fact voice. Jesus
had a very pure tragic manner: his conduct during his trial
was admirable.
(Unlike Joyce's 1918 lawsuit about Carr's pants.)
Do you imagine the Church could have erected such elaborately
artistic sacraments about his legend unless the original figure had
been one of a certain tragic majesty?
A nice rationalization of Joyce's pleasure in (eg) Holy Week.
-- And Shakespeare...?
-- I don't believe he wanted to go out into the street but I
am sure he appreciated his own music. I don't believe that
beauty is fortuitous. A man might think for seven years at
intervals and all at once write a quatrain which would
immortalise him seemingly without thought or care--
seemingly. Then the groundling will say: "O, he could write
poetry": and if I ask "How was that?" the groundling will
answer "Well, he just wrote it, that's all."
Echoing ch16: "The burgher notion of the poet Byron in undress pouring
out verses just as a city fountain pours out water..."
-- In my opinion you imagine all this about rhythm and
gesture. A poet according to you, is a terribly mixed-up
fellow.
(Because he has to think so long before he speaks?)
-- The reason you say that is because you have never seen
a poet in action before.
-- How do you know that?
SD doesn't answer directly:
-- You think my theorising very high-flown and fantastical,
don't you?
-- Yes, I do.
-- Well, I tell you you think me fantastical simply because
I am modern.
(This sounds *quaint*! Matthew Arnold was already lecturing on 'the
modern element in literature' in 1857, relating it to the scientific
perspective. In ch22, Stephen associates the modern note in his love
poems with irony, relativity, and amiability.)
-- My dear man, that's rubbish. You're always talking
about "modern." Have you any idea of the age of the earth?
You say you're emancipated but, in my opinion, you haven't
got beyond the first book of Genesis yet.
Byrne annotates this, pointing out it should be 'chapter'. (But I forget
how he explains his meaning-- something very different from the context
Joyce gives it.)
Genesis 1 covers the first six days, including the creation of man but
not the tree of knowledge. So this might echo Cranly's 'simpliciter'
comment-- Joyce can't have freed himself arduously from original sin,
because he's still too immature to even understand it...?
There is no such thing as "modern" or "ancient": it's all the
same.
-- What's all the same?
-- Ancient and modern.
-- O, yes, I know, everything is the same as everything
else. Of course I know the word 'modern' is only a word.
But when I use it I use it with a certain meaning...
(Cf Lewis Carroll? "'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a
scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean-- neither more
nor less.'")
-- What do you mean, for instance?
-- The modern spirit is vivisective. Vivisection itself is
the most modern process one can conceive. The ancient
spirit accepted phenomena with a bad grace. The ancient
method investigated law with the lantern of justice,
morality with the lantern of revelation, art with the
lantern of tradition. But all these lanterns have magical
properties: they transform and disfigure. The modern
method examines its territory by the light of day.
Isn't this still Matthew-Arnold-era modernism? "To see the object as in
itself it really is." It's also parodied for some reason in the T&I
vignette for FW: http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/fwake/tristan.html
Italy has added a science to civilisation by putting out
the lantern of justice and considering the criminal in
production and in action.
Cesare Lombroso? http://www.epub.org.br/cm/n01/frenolog/lombroso.htm
All modern political and religious criticism dispenses with
presumptive States, presumptive Redeemers and Churches.
The religion-part is obvious, but "presumptive States" sounds like he
views anarchism as comparably obvious!?
It examines the entire community in action and reconstructs the
spectacle of redemption.
Does this mean 'first examines community, then reconstructs spectacle'
or is it 'community (ie political criticism) and/or redemption (ie
religious criticism)'? And does 'redemption' refer to the historical
study of Jesus's execution, or to some modern, sociological 'redemption'
from suffering?
If you were an esthetic philosopher you would
take note of all my vagaries because here you have the
spectacle of the esthetic instinct in action. The philosophic
college should spare a detective for me.
(But if they had a detective capable of appreciating him, the detective
could just study himself... so he really means 'they should pay me to
study myself'. He needs a genius-grant!)
-- I suppose you know that Aristotle founded the science
of biology.
Ie, an ancient with inchoate vivisectionist leanings?
-- I would not say a word against Aristotle for the world
but I think his spirit would hardly do itself justice in
treating of the "inexact" sciences.
Biology, psychology, and the social sciences are still considered
inexact, so Aristotelian approaches are premature (eg, because you can't
adequately define your terms)...?
-- I wonder what Aristotle would have thought of you as a
poet?
-- I'm damned if I would apologise to him at all. Let him
examine me if he is able. Can you imagine a handsome lady
saying "O, excuse me, my dear Mr Aristotle, for being so
beautiful"?
Maybe: Aristotle thought art should improve on nature, and would
therefore be offended when nature is judged sufficient without
improvement? More: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01713a.htm
-- He was a very wise man.
-- Yes, but I do not think he is the special patron of those
who proclaim the usefulness of a stationary march.
-- What do you mean?
-- Have you noticed what a false and unreal sound abstract
terms have on the lips of those ancients in the college?
Eg Moynihan in ch22? "the true way to better the lot of the working
classes was not by teaching them to disbelieve in a spiritual and
material order, working together in harmony, but by teaching them to
follow in humility the life of One who was the friend of all humanity,
great and lowly..."
Or Hughes in ch19: "the Irish people had their own glorious literature
where they could always find fresh ideals to spur them on to new
patriotic endeavours"
You see what talk they have now about their new paper.
McCann is supposed to lead them out of captivity.
(Implying the 'ancients' are the students, not the teachers.)
Doesn't that paper of theirs make you say to yourself "O Lord,
I'm glad I had no hand in this"? The toy life which the Jesuits
permit these docile young men to live is what I call a
stationary march. The marionette life which the Jesuit
himself lives as a dispenser of illumination and rectitude is
another variety of the stationary march. And yet both
these classes of puppets think that Aristotle has
apologised for them before the eyes of the world. Kindly
remember the monstrous legend upon which all their life is
regulated-- how Aristotelian it is! Kindly remember the
minute bylaws they have for estimating the exact amount
of salvation in any good work-- what an Aristotelian
invention!
He's protesting that these things definitely _aren't_ Aristotelian--
Aristotle is _not_ their special patron, though they like to think he
is. (I assume that for Joyce 'Aristotelian' implies impeccable logic--
the dagger definitions of Kinch the knifeblade.)
--
http://www.robotwisdom.com/ "Relentlessly intelligent
yet playful, polymathic in scope of interests, minimalist
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Johannes Wijffels
Jorn Barger <jo...@enteract.com> schreef in berichtnieuws
1evgxkn.zuur6ur277rtN%jo...@enteract.com...
> (It's interesting that JAJ in U15-Circe has SD looking nervously
> behind-- as with the nosepicking in U3-Proteus.)
Sure is. Also, in Proteus: "Water cold soft. When I put my face into it in
the basin at Clongowes. Can't see! Who's behind me? Out quickly, quickly!"
(3.234-5)
Childhood fears. New topic?
JW
Johannes Wijffels
:-)