On the page preceding the opening of
his novel, Joyce includes a Latin line, namely line 18 from book eight of Ovid’s
Metaphorphoses: “Et ignotas animum
dimittit in artes.” This line, referring to the Roman mythological figure Daedalus,
is literally (“literally” meaning the “more correct” way) translated: “And he
sends down his spirit into unknown arts.” It is easy for the modern reader for
skip over this line, writing it off as archaic and insignificant; however, this
line tells us a great deal about Joyce and what is to come in the novel.
First of all, by quoting Ovid,
Joyce is setting himself squarely in line with the literary tradition of
continental Europe. Ovid is generally
regarded as one of the patriarchs of Western literature, and by referencing one
of his iconic works and not that of some classical Irish author, Joyce is aligning
himself with the Western European literary tradition and distancing himself
from the Irish nationalist movement of the time.
The fact that Joyce refers to the
myth of Daedalus and Icarus reveals a great deal about how Joyce viewed himself
and what he hoped to accomplish in writing this particular novel. To begin with, the protagonist in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,
Stephen Dedalus, is an autobiographical figure.
Unlike the characters in Dubliners,
Stephen is clearly meant to be a representation of Joyce. His name, therefore, reflects Joyce’s
understanding of himself. The first
name, Stephen, refers to Stephen the first martyr, which implies that Joyce
views his dedication to art and his realist portrayal of the world as a form of
martyrdom. The significance of the last
name would be equally obvious to Joyce’s contemporary audience, or at least for
the educated people of the time. However,
knowledge of Ovid’s Metamorphoses is
no longer a requirement of childhood education, so most modern readers do not
quite grasp the intricacies of the myth.
Daedalus was renowned as the greatest artist of his time, the famed creator
of the labyrinth, which is the subject of a separate myth. However, he was trapped on an island, Crete,
which was under the reign of King Minos.
In order to escape, Daedalus created a pair of wings for his son and
himself, which allowed them to fly off the island. Icarus, being a young boy, ignores his father’s
one request, which was to avoid flying close to the sun, for the sun’s heat
would melt the wax that held the wings together. Icarus proceeds to fall from the sky into the
water and die. Therefore, some clear
parallels can be drawn between Daedalus and Joyce. They are both trapped on an island. Just as Daedalus was a great creator of labyrinths,
Joyce fancied his narratives to be somewhat like labyrinths in their intricacies. They both use a form of creative art to escape
the island, since Joyce uses his writing as a means of distancing himself from
the vulgarity of Dublin and Ireland as a whole.
Lastly, the image of Daedalus flying in the sky above the inhabitants of
the island suggests that Joyce views his artistic creations as a way of raising
himself above the Irish masses.
To conclude, I have a few final
thoughts on Joyce’s view of his artistic mission. First of all, the word “ignotas” (unknown)
suggests that Joyce is doing something unprecedented, tapping into a previously
hidden art form. Also, by making a clear
display of his classical knowledge and learning, Joyce is highlighting the
intellectual life of his characters, a tactic which one would never find in a
work by Dickens or other authors preceding Joyce. Lastly, by quoting this line of Ovid, Joyce
not only compares himself to Daedalus, the greatest artist of mythology, but he
also not so implicitly compares himself to Ovid. Ovid himself did something unprecedented in
telling the history of the world through a series of mythological stories. Therefore, simply by quoting this one line of
Latin, Joyce is able to make a bold claim about the future legacy and significance
of his work.
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