Essay on Art in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Art in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Stephen Dedalus philosophy of art, expressed in his discussion with Lynch in Chapter Five, seems essentially romantic, yet the novel is written in a very realistic mode typical of the twentieth century. This apparent inconsistency may direct us to one way of interpreting this novel. Dedalus idea of art may be Romantic, but because his world is no longer the world of the Romantics he has to see art more as a fundamental validation of his own being than as a communication of a special vision. Two aspects of Romanticism figure into this analysis of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. First, the Romantics defining belief in some connection between the human spirit†¦show more content†¦His view of art is Romantic, but his view of the role of the artist is Realistic. The Romantic View of Art The Platonic-Romantic aspect of Dedalus esthetic philosophy is apparent in his reference to Plato, whose idea of beauty and truth as translated by Dedalus, sounds much like the famous last lines of Keatss Ode on a Grecian Urn: Beauty is truth, truth beauty,emdash;that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. Dedalus says of Plato, Plato, I believe, said that beauty is the splendour of truth (208). Platos own philosophy held tightly to the notion that the world is only a mundane copy of Ideal Forms. This is reflected pretty clearly in Dedalus analysis of the esthetic emotion as static: The esthetic emotion . . . is therefore static. The mind is arrested and raised above desire and loathing (205). The minds being raised above the mundane is nothing other than the function that Plato envisioned for philosophyemdash;to allow us a glimpse of the world of divine forms, which ordinary experience, seeing only the mundane and mortal, does not give. There is a clear echo of transcendentalist philosophy too, in the idea of being raised above the limitations of ordinary earthly life. Transcendentalism, recall, argued that the only path to truth was through intuition, and bypassing both the intellect and the information of the senses. Transcendentalism was pure Romanticism, experiencedShow MoreRelatedExamples Of Aestheticism In The Picture Of Dorian Gray1284 Words   |  6 Pagesaestheticism. He tried his hand at various literary activities. He was an Irish playwright, novelist, essayist and poet. He refined his ideas about the importance of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of duplicity, beauty and decadence. He incorporated all these vital characteristics that define the supremacy of art into his only novel The Picture of Dorian gray written in 1890. This novel bore the true essence of what an aesthetic literature brought to the table. 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TheyRead MoreEssay on Annie Liebovitzs Women2280 Words   |  10 Pagesentitled Women according to my interpretation of feminist philosophy, then used this aesthetic impression to evaluate the efficacy of feminist theories as they apply toward evaluating and understanding art. â€Å"A photograph is not an opinion. Or is it?† So begins Susan Sontags introductory essay to the book Women, a collection of photographs by Annie Leibovitz. Collected without a stated intention other than to treat on the subject matter at hand, Leibovitz’s images confront a wide spectrum of