Portrait de l'artiste en jeune homme : Le livre de James Joyce

O sweet Jesus! This largely autobiographical Künstlerroman could have been entitled A Portrait of the Sinner as a would-be Priest and Conflicted Artist. Joyce managed to establish a new kind of Holy Trinity: religion, sex and art. This novel oozes religion. Joyce really wants us to grasp what it means to grow up in Ireland, where anything you do is suffused with religious consciousness, where an epic Christmas conversation becomes a test of loyalties as the Catholic Church is not just about faith, it is part and parcel of political belonging and the Irish identity; therefore morality is shaped by those complex allegiances. All this makes it even harder for young Stephen Dedalus to know who he is, caught in the maze (see what I did there! #128514;) of religious conventions, Irishness, crushing boarding school education and his wish–at first just expressed as a foreboding–to become a writer. The first part follows his naive thoughts in a way that is reminiscent of Henry James’s What Maisie Knew (though not as subtly executed) or Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (though not as witty) as it shows a child navigating an adult world he doesn’t fully comprehend. As in a typical French Bildungsroman the obligatory next step is for the youthful hero to visit prostitutes #128580;#128518; And this prompts a protracted LITANY: Stephen keeps envisioning the hellish future awaiting a sinner like him. We’re really made to feel “eternity has no end” (he clearly has a knack for pleonasms #128517;) even the literary references to Dante cannot save the reader from this inferno! “His confession would be long, long, long”: what a brilliant moment of self-awareness! #128540; Eventually, as the hero evolves, he can put into words (as a true writer would) his creative dilemma, how his imagination is still nourished by “the broken lights of Irish myths” but his philosophical readings allow him to reflect more critically on aestheticism language. While his creative powers are stimulated by poems written for a girl (there’s always a girl), this elevation is both spiritual and poetic–with special reference to the crafty mythological figure of Daedalus. #10145; A perfect transition to Ulysses #128556;