LITERATURE: Joyce’s Portrait – Lyric Prose

Taking into account the period in which this novel was written (1916) there is a time-enforced disassociation with the intensity of emotion with which Stephen is portrayed.  Still, I tend to think of it as a bit too intense to be easily accepted by this reader, and also very sudden and surprising in the mood swings (to the point of which I, uncredited and layman though I be, would suggest a diagnosis of manic-depressive). 

Stephen, after the religious retreat that stirs up his guilt over his lustful thoughts and deeds, goes to the opposite extreme.  He repents, repents, repents and mumbles his rosary beads through all his walks.  However, we can see a touch of boredom and want seep in, and when the rector suggests he consider the priesthood he cannot deny his passions (although here too, Joyce makes a statement about how Stephen always dreamed of being a priest though there has been no indication whatsoever–this is the one annoying thing I find with Joyce; it makes it seem as if I feel asleep somewhere and picked up twenty pages later).

As Stephen considers his denied lively nature, and focuses upon his own surname of Dedalus, he does a turnabout:

His throat ached with a desire to cry aloud, the cry of a hawk or eagle on high, to cry piercingly of his deliverance to the winds.  This was the call of life to his soul not the dull gross voice of the world of duties and despair, not the inhuman voice that had called him to the pale service of the altar.  An instant of wild flight had delivered him and the cry of triumph which his lips withheld cleft his brain.  (p. 169)

There is more along these lines, and though I believe the release from the thought of a strict religious life is well worth some happy relief, it seemed a bit much.  Beautifully poetic though.  As he’s walking along a beach and thinking, he happens upon a young girl and true to his more carnal instincts, seals his decision and his fate. 

There is one thing about this followin passage though that I might not have picked up upon without having read Boethius and Plato:

Her slateblue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her.  Her bosom was as a bird’s soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some darkplumaged dove.  But her long fair hair was girlish:  and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face.  (p. 171)

Aside from the poetry here, I focused upon the girl’s "mortal beauty."  For here, lie the sins of the flesh that cause the soul to struggle.  Joyce, I am sure, was aware of this reference by the great philosophers and used it well to emphasize the struggle that Stephen is going through (gotta say though, he’s flying through it pretty quickly and ready to dump his beads for better pleasures).