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摘 要

詹姆斯·乔伊斯是西方现代主义文学的核心人物。《都柏林人》创作于西方现代主义文学的萌芽期，当时的人们颇受传统小说的影响,多数人还不能理解这部作品里面所包含深刻的美学意义。随着乔伊斯批评的不断发展,众多评论家将目光投向了都柏林人中蕴含的创作艺术和美学思想。本文旨在分析《都柏林人》中所体现的其美学思想,重点探讨了“完整”和“和谐”这两个美学要素在《都柏林人》的框架结构和主题意蕴方面的集中体现，随后分析了审美的最高阶段“光彩”，揭示了乔伊斯所指的“顿悟”，最后梳理出乔伊斯的美学思想的形成与发展。

关键词：《都柏林人》；美学思想；完整；和谐；光彩

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. Wholeness of Dubliners 3

3.1 Wholeness of setting 3

3.2 Wholeness of structure 4

4. Harmony of Dubliners 5

4.1 Harmony of style 5

4.2 Multiple layers of themes 6

5. Radiance of Dubliners 7

5.1 Aesthetics of epiphany 8

5.2 Epiphany of Dubliners 9

6. James Joyce’s Aesthetic Theory 9

6.1 The background 10

6.2 Joyce’s beauty 12

7. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882-1941) is an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-grade of the early 20th century. Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer’s Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominently the stream of consciousness technique he perfected. Other major works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939).

Joyce’s first short story collection Dubliners was created during 1904 to 1907. The publication of Dubliners faced various ups and downs. It was almost throttled because it was allegedly blasphemous and discredited some Irish politicians and clergy. Nevertheless, with the development of the modern literature and the continuous improvement of the level of literary criticism, the artistic quality and aesthetic value of Dubliners owned more and more critics’ affirmation and support .

Writing in a letter to Grant Richards who was the publisher of Dubliners, Joyce clearly stated that the creation of Dubliners “was to write a chapter of the moral history of his country” (Pu Long 98) and he “always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world” (Pu Long 98). He tried to present it to the public from four aspects just as a man’s growing process: childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life.

They are meant to be a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The collection as a whole displays an overall plan, beginning with stories of youth and progressing in age to culminate in The Dead.

2. Literature Review

Review the research on Dubliners by predecessors, most of the researchers focus on discussing either the themes and artistic features expressed in Dubliners or viewing Dubliners from the perspectives of history, feminism and colonialism criticism. But “the reviews that systematically and profoundly study Joyce’s aesthetics are rare” (Li Weiping 54).

In China, Joycean study began with a very short article to introduced Joyce written by Mao Dun in 1922. In the 1990s, Joycean studies have achieved great development, with more monographs and papers published .The paper studied Joyce from perspective of “comparison literature, poetics, aesthetics and philosophy and the monographies mainly focused on how Joyce’s life experience influenced his distinctive writing style, reading and criticism of his famous works, analysis of themes and characters, Joyce and modernism, Joyce and stream of consciousness and the current studies of Joyce at home and abroad” (Yang Jian 153). In general, the history of China’s Joycean studies, only about 20 years, is very short compared to the 90-year history of the Western Joycean criticism. Although great progress has been made, the results are far less than those of abroad.

Four important works of Joyce, Chinese researchers have paid much attention to Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. As for his early work Dubliners, studies mainly confined to the artistic features of these studies, creative techniques, symbolism and history of insight and comparative literature, which is not complete nor thorough enough. Although Joyce’s early works may not be as mature like that of his later works, that is what exactly reflects his literary experimentation and innovative spirit. This paper attempts to identify the aesthetic principles embodied in Dubliners from the aesthetic point of view.

On Joyce’s aesthetic research, Lin Mengtao, Guo Jun and Li Weiping so far in China have announced five important article. Lin Mengtao mainly analyzed “the reasons why Joyce chose exile and his aesthetic concept of impersonalization” (Lin Mengtao 49). in his papers. Guo Jun discussed in detail “the three stages of beauty mentioned by Stephen in A Portrait” (Guo Jun 86) in her thesis. Li Weiping considered “that Joyce gained a good deal of enlightenment from Aristotle, Aquinas and Vico” (Li Weiping 54). In general, studies of Joyce’s aesthetics has not formed a system, and still lacks support of theory from his early aesthetics thought to the later period. What’s more, all the studies of Joyce’s aesthetics concern more on his later works than the earlier work, Dubliners.

This paper will focus on illustrating the aesthetic effect of Dubliners from three basic elements of beauty: “wholeness,” “harmony” and “radiance.” Then the author tries to trace back to both social and literature background to expound the formation of Joyce’s aesthetics.

3. Wholeness of Dubliners

“Wholeness,” “harmony” and “radiance” consist of beauty and form the aesthetic process. The three interrelated and indivisible elements coexist in a perfect continuum. This is the aesthetic principles of Aquinas, but also Joyce’s artistic pursuit. Only in accordance with this aesthetic principles can novelist make both the content and form of the novel in the static equilibrium and make the artistic beauty of their works to the highest realm. Joyce finished the creation of his novels from his “Dubliners” to his Finnegans Wake all in accordance with this aesthetic principles by constructing frameworks and arranging the content of fiction novels. This not only helps us to understand Joyce’s early aesthetic principles, but also help to appreciate the aesthetic effect of Joyce’s works.

Dubliners vividly portrayed people, things happening in Dublin, reflecting the wholeness of Joyce’s design. Background set in Dublin, the capital of a great European country which documents previously never mentioned in literature; theme is the spiritual paralysis of the city; purpose is to liberate the spirit of the people; form is the stories stitched together; structure is arranged from childhood to maturity and public life; genre presents as a deliberate meanness.

3.1 Wholeness of setting

Fifteen novels among Dubliners all set in the context of the author’s hometown Dublin, which can profoundly revealed the city’s social reality and the vicissitudes of life in the turn of the century. From Joyce’s view, Dublin, with population of only four or five hundred thousand, area of hundreds of square kilometers, and a nation parochialism can not only reflect the paralysis filled in Irish society but also possess the universal symbolism in the Western world. Joyce once had clearly pointed out: “I chose Dublin for the scene because the city seemed to me the center of paralysis” (Pu Long 83). The name of “Dubliner” had some kind of sense to me. In fifteen short stories, Joyce always firmly fixed creative eye on his hometown, then he not only vividly depicted the streets, markets, churches, bars and schools there, but also profoundly revealed different kinds of Dubliners involved in intense conflict with deathly stiffness and paralyzed society, as well as painful spiritual feeling after their failure.

Undoubtedly, to some extent, the same background shortened the distance between work and readers, and also enhanced the work inherent unity.

Joyce made arrangement of Dubliners in accordance with the age order “childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life” (Ellmann 1982: 208). Joyce saw Dublin as an individual. It was worth pointing out that the time background the 15 stories took place corresponded to the sequence of seasonal variation. The story of Childhood and adolescence took place in summer and early fall. The story describing adults’ life took place in late autumn. Finally, the story of public life occurred in early winter, “winter snow is falling” (Joyce 2013: 201). Just as we all know, after the winter, it will be spring. Obviously, the story of Dubliners eventually was shaped into a circular unity, a highly structured text and the harmony constituent elements.

3.2 Wholeness of structure

Although Dubliners consisted of fifteen separate short composition, it reflected the author’s smart design and careful arrangements. The creation of Dubliners was around the four stages of life: childhood, adolescence, adulthood and social activities. Obviously , Joyce considers the Dublin as a person. The theme throughout the work is that each aspect of Dublin was in paralysis. In order to express this theme, Joyce laid out the extraordinary structure of the novel. The same theme wove the fifteen short stories into an organic whole.

So far, these four groups works formed a pattern of three, four, four, three, appearing to be very well-balanced and harmonious. The final story The Dead was not only the epilogue of the collections, but also the generalization and summary of all the work, as a finishing touch. The structure and layout of Dubliners clearly showed : the shadow of paralysis cloaked in all stages of life, devastated the hearts of men and women in Ireland, with almost no one spared. It goes without saying that this model based on the age of the characters make the book an orderly framework, both echoes form a very harmonious whole.

4. Harmony of Dubliners

According to Aquinas, harmony can represent two things, both the actual composition or combination of things and the proportion of composition or combination. What harmony is for Joyce was pointed out: “Having first felt that it is one thing you feel now that it is a thing. You apprehend it as complex, multiple, divisible, separable, made up of its part，the result of its parts and their sum, harmonious” (Joyce 1996: 241).

In the second step of aesthetic apprehension, a person or an item, regardless of his or how beautiful a certain part of it is, if the overall proportion is in imbalance, beauty along with it all gone no saved. The harmonious aesthetic effect of Dubliners is mainly reflected in the multiple layers of themes and style of stories.

4.1 Harmony of style

“A style of scrupulous meanness” (Litz 1966: 96) pointed by James Joyce himself was epitomized throughout Dubliners, which had greatly enhanced internal harmony and unity of the work. Meanness is a fusion of two bodies. On the one hand is harshness, that is to use a harsh language to describe the ruthless social reality, making the content of the novel and form of language consistent with each other. The other hand is economy, which emphasizes economy of words and sentences without wasting a word, and play a proper aesthetic effect.

In The Dead, the word “fall” as well as its different forms emerged sixteen times, mainly for portraying the paralysis of both Gabriel’s individual thought and behavior. The term first appeared in the second paragraph: “Never once had it (the Christmas party) fallen flat” (Joyce 2013: 122), due to the fallen things are generally bad, undesirable, the basic meaning of “fall” here was negative; at the beginning of his speech, he said :“It has fallen to my lot this evening, as in years past, to perform a very pleasing task ...” (Joyce 2013: 141). “Fallen” here hinted that Gabriel thought the opportunity to give the speech just a bad luck that he could only passively finish the task. With Gabriel’s further remarks: “his voice falling into a softer infection ...” (Joyce 2013: 142) in the sentence, “falling” showed his craven attitude. In the latter part of the story, the interpretation of the word “fall” can help us to fully understand full paralysis of the internal relationship among middle-class family in Dublin. From the traditional point of view, this is a proper word which sums up the reality and represents the performance of the typical middle-class Irish men’s numbness in thought and action.

In Araby, a large number of adjectives were used to render the theme of the novel---paralysis. The four adjectives in the second paragraph:“ musty, wasted, littered and useless” were used to describe the abandoned houses of died priest, suggesting that the decline and darkness of church and society. To describe the Dublin under the night in the third paragraph, “somber, feeble, muddy and dark dripping” were used to create a dull and dreary atmosphere. The fifth paragraph chose the adjectives forming stark contrast: “flaring street and drunken men, the nasal chanting and single, my chalice, strange prayers praises and full of tears, confused adoration” strongly suggesting the conflict between ideals and reality.

4.2 Multiple layers of themes

All the stories are linked together by the theme of paralysis. It appears in the first story The Sisters, and throughout the book, to the final epilogue The Dead. Meanwhile, Dubliners also has focused on several other sub-themes, such as the desire to escape, the intersection of life and death, betrayal and corruption. These themes appear several times in different stories or all appear in the same story. Correspondence and comparison between various relationships makes the story linked to each other and eventually combined into a harmonious whole. Contrast and harmony of theme greatly enriched the connotation of Dubliners.

The first sentence of beginning work The sisters shows the theme: “There was no hope for him this time: it was the third stroke” (Joyce 2013: 1). The theme of paralysis is becoming increasingly clear by the child’s consciousness and progressive development. Same in The Sisters, the boy wanted to get rid of the secular mediocrity; In An Encounter the boy wanted to escape from the dreary school and roll life; In Araby, the boy wanted to escape from the shallow environment. Among them, the boy in The sisters and the boy in An Encounter fled right into the reverse in the object and direction.

The theme concerning marriage and family life is also obvious. Lenehan in Two Gallants lived a life like parasites yet dreamed of companying a rich girl; In contrast, Bob Doran in The Boarding House prepared to get married with the landlord’s daughter helplessly, fascinated with single life.

5. Radiance of Dubliners

Only going through the characteristics described above as wholeness and harmony can reach the final step in the process of aesthetic and artistic discoveries. Just as Stephen described: “When you have apprehended that basket as one thing and have then analyzed it according to its form and apprehended it as a thing you make the only synthesis which is logically and aesthetically permissible. You see that it is that thing which it is and no other thing. The radiance of which he speaks is the scholastic quidditas, the whatness of a thing” (Joyce 1996: 242).

When Joyce mentioned the third stage of aesthetics, he described epiphany “after the analysis which discovers the second quality the mind takes the only logically possible synthesis and discovers the third quality. This is the moment which I call epiphany” (Joyce 1956: 218). We can conclude that there is a close relationship between epiphany and radiance. “Radiance” is produced in the moment of “epiphany” as well as the moment of static aesthetic pleasure. The concept of epiphany has been said to be the most surprising contribution of Joyce.

5.1 Aesthetics of epiphany

The epiphany at the very best was religious term meaning that the newborn Jesus suddenly appeared in front of the three oriental saints. Joyce took that term into the field of fiction. Joyce gave this explanation spiritual epiphany: “We recognise that it is that thing which it is. Its soul, its whatness, leaps to us from the vestment of its appearance, the soul of commonest object, the structure of which it is so adjusted, seems to us radiant. The object achieves its epiphany” (Joyce 1956: 218).

Joyce made use of epiphany to demonstrate complex thoughts and feelings of the characters in his novels. Almost at the end of every one of the novel, the protagonist cannot help but suddenly realize their situation and receive the essence of life. Epiphany not only constitutes a climax of the novel, but also has a profound symbolic meaning.

When exploring the aesthetics of Joyce’s epiphany, it is necessary to further elaborate epiphany. The author believes that Joyce’s epiphany is the phenomenon observed or the ineffable essence of spirit captured through the eyes. The just moment of intuitive epiphany is also the occasion of inspiration blooming when the individual thinking activities come into the most active state. At this time ,imagination more or less gets rid of the constraints from the power of reasoning critique such as, will, sense, but gets highly expansion, with creating function greatly mobilized. In irrational state, artists’ sincere emotions often unconsciously unfold, then aesthetic ideals and aesthetic appeal will be devoted unreservedly to aesthetics activities. Once he entered the ecstasy state of aesthetics, this awareness will dominate the choices and feelings of beauty, ugly.

From the perspective of reader response criticism, on the one hand, epiphany gives readers insight beyond the errors or traps of language expression to perceive the writer’s mind; even those ideas cannot be expressed by the characters. On the other hand, epiphany has the characteristics of changing, ambiguity, multiple levels and multiple ambiguities, which can leave both writers and readers the greater imagination and self-understanding. Achieving epiphany is not as simple as the perception of an object. Different readers will make different responses to epiphany, even some readers could not respond. Obviously, the idea behind epiphany is an important aesthetic idea of oriental art. It is a balance between the explicit explanation from artist and the participation of readers to. Thus the presentation of the text is usually maintains a balance of aesthetics and induce the reader to set up what is absent in his imagination. Visible in this way, the satisfactory exchanges between authors, works, and readers can be built up.

5.2 Epiphany of Dubliners

Joyce’s epiphany was fully reflected in Dubliners. The first story The Sisters described a child’s reaction to the death of a priest who people thought “died strange” (Joyce 2013: 3) because of his abnormal behavior in his last year. It was the child’s awareness that what behind the death of the priest was a spiritual paralysis and religion that gradually solved the mystery . The person, who spread Christianity, bridged the contact between human beings and God lost faith in religion himself. “The duties of the priesthood were too much for him” (Joyce 2013: 8), this is the revelation of the child after seeing the priest’s body. The third story Araby was equally rich in symbolism. In this story, starting from hazy love, the growing child wanted to buy things in Arabi market for his girl. He expected the arrival of Saturday bazaar eagerly, but missed the time for waiting for his aunt’s money. He faced the dim lights, sparse silhouette of market, seeing himself “as a creature driven and derided by vanity” and his eyes “burned with anguish and anger” (Joyce 2013: 25). The self-awareness achieved by disillusionment is the child’s inspiration at this moment .

Little Chandler in A Little Cloud desired to transcend his predicament and dreamed of becoming a poet in his heart, but the trivial and mediocre in real life paralyzed his will. He finally came to realize that he was “a prisoner for life” (Joyce 2013: 70).

6. James Joyce’s Aesthetic Theory

Aesthetic theory is the primary question of artistic philosophy, which is not only the important basis provided for people to explore the relationship between nature of artistic beauty, literature and reality as well as the general laws of literature creation, but also has certain orientational effects on the writer’s creative ideas and artistic style. Joyce inevitably exposed to a variety of aesthetic thought , though he did not write any monographs of novel theory, nor many articles published specifically addressed on literary theory. However, as a famous modern Irish novelist of twentieth century, he had his own aesthetics and artistic pursuits. We can sort out a more complete study of the aesthetic system from the literary giant’s works available.

Joyce had always been concerned about the aesthetic issues. In college he had a keen interest on aesthetic theory, and read a lot of classics of Western aesthetics .During this period, his point of views on aesthetics had initially formed, mainly reflecting in his two papers Drama and life (1900) and Ibsen"s New Drama (1900).After graduation, Joyce headed to European continent to find opportunities, and recorded his aesthetics thought in two little-known Joyce’s diary: Paris Notebook, written during the 1903 when he lived in Paris; Pula Notebook ,written in the fall of 1904, when he taught at a secondary school in Pula, an Austrian city. Later, Joyce blended most of his early aesthetics into the draft of his first novel, A Portrait. Eventually, his thoughts had been fully demonstrated in A portrait in the form of dramatic dialogue.

Thus, Joyce’s aesthetic theory is a dynamic process. On the basis of examining the Dubliners placed in historical, social and cultural background of that time, summary of Joyce’s main aesthetics theory will draw out.

6.1 The background

In 1902, Joyce “seemed to be expelled from the country as a person who believes in heresy,” and he believed that “he did not find anyone who had the same faith like him” (Pu 2013: 06). Though he stayed out of the social unrest in Ireland, he always worried about his country, especially his hometown Dublin. Ireland also provided him with a steady stream of material, and inspired his artistic inspiration. Ireland is not only a British colony, but also the most impoverished areas among Europe when Joyce was born. Irish history was full of strife and chaos. In this chaotic downturn, people complained, full of pessimism hopeless mood. In Dubliners, Joyce just pictured the Irishmen’s ignorance and numbness.

Contagion of religious forces was another social reality. Catholic Emancipation in 1829 consolidated Catholic force in Ireland. Joyce once wrote: “ When I was a student, I had secretly opposed it and refused to serve as clergy ... Today, I want to open it gusto” (Ellmann 1982: 169). After entering the university, he realized that the Catholic Church was the imprisonment against humanity, then one can only obtained freedom of mind by breaking loose. Ultimately, Joyce abandoned the Catholic faith, who was no longer a Christian.

Historical data existing now suggested that Joyce gained a good deal of enlightenment from two philosophers when forming his aesthetics. He began with theories of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, then turned to the Medieval scholastics Thomas Aquinas.

Aristotle (384 - 322BC), the ancient Greek philosopher. For Joyce, he was the most knowledgeable people in ancient times who took a lead in breaking a new ground for all human beings in aesthetics and literary aesthetics. Joyce as a young man, built up his own initial aesthetic system with a bold hand under the influence of Aristotle’s aesthetics theory.

Aristotle regarded the reality of art as positive for that art was the imitation of nature. He wrote in Poetics “a complete whole, with its several incidents so closely connected that the transposal or withdrawal of any one of them will disjoin and dislocate the whole. For that which makes no perceptible difference by its presence or absence is no real part of the whole” (Townsend 2003: 32). “A complete whole” concept was the basis of aesthetics Aristotle. Joyce’s thinking and understanding of these aesthetic theories of Aristotle’s constituted the original composition of his early aesthetic system.

Thomas Aquinas had a greater impact on Joyce’s aesthetics development. There is no doubt that Aquinas’s aesthetics helped Joyce to produce a new understanding of the nature of aesthetic characteristic and artistic beauty. Aquinas believed that those things made us feel happy is good. Joyce further elaborated what is beauty in Pula Diary. Core argument of Aquinas was that how to understand and grasp the beauty of the reality. He believed that the beauty had certain characteristics, something that could be recognized. The understanding and grasp of beauty mainly relied on sense not just senses organ. Thomas’s characteristics for beauty concerned mainly about the proportions and brightness of colors. Later, he added “wholeness” on the base of “harmony” and “radiance”, composed of the “three elements of beauty .” In other words, beauty needs three conditions : first, wholeness of things or perfect, because all the incomplete things turned as something ugly; followed by the appropriate proportion or harmony; the third is clarity, so things have bright colors considered as beautiful.

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