Beyond these very plot driven comparisons there are also some similar running themes. First of all, it is clear that one of the motivating forces in Stephan's life is the love of women. We even mused about the idea the other day that Stephan worships them. Well in Dante's comedy, and in his true life, the image of his love, Beatrice, helps push him forward. Although he never truly knew her, he revered her as though a goddess, and the thought of her remained with him while he was exiled from the city he loved. If this idolatry of woman is not enough of a comparison, in the Comedy, Date only agrees to go through hell because Beatrice beckons him from her place in heaven. In Portrait, Stephan too thinks of a young woman at the beginning of his fall, and throughout his entire quest toward aesthetics.
Secondly, Stephan's constant focus is on the great minds of the past. He loves to look at the thoughts and ideas of other poets who help him to form his own style. In the comedy, Dante's guide is Virgil, perhaps the most famous of the ancient poets. Stephan also loves the writings of church scholars such as Aquinas and Bonaventure. This love of their writings is especially clear in part five, in which the scholars ideas drive his own. While in Paradise, Dante meets those two saints, along with many of the others Stephan wrote about, and discussed with them their lives.
It seems as though the comparisons between these two works are endless, and if I were to go back I could find many more. However, the most interesting comparison is between the authors themselves. Joyce revered Dante as perhaps the greatest poet of all time, and he is considered so by many of the brightest literary minds of history. For example, many of the great American poets, including Longfellow, Holmes, and Lowell, were the first to translate Dante's writings into English. Dante is regarded as the standard of poetry to many authors. So, this then begs the question, by writing a story that paralleled Dante's so directly, did Joyce believe that he could raise his writing to the level of a Dante? What was Joyce trying to accomplish by copying the writer he most greatly admired?
I agree with Henry's analysis that Stephen’s religious conversion experience in Part IV of Portrait invites comparing James Joyce’s treatment of sin, repentance and redemption with the treatment of the same topics by Dante Alighieri, the 13th Century Italian poet, in The Divine Comedy. Henry looks at some similarities in their themes, and sees Joyce's novel paralleling Dante's work. It is also important to look at the differences that there may be between the two works, and the two authors. I haven’t read Dante, but understand that his epic takes the reader on a descent into hell, through purgatory, and then on to heaven (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso). The terrorizing sermon Stephen listens to weighs heavily on him, like a living hell. Overcome with guilt for his sins with prostitutes, Stephen goes through a purgatory of repentance, devoting the days of the week to a different religious topic. Finally, he sees a vision of paradise at the end of Part IV when he feels liberated and sees the girl wading in the sea as he walks along the shore. But it is worth commenting on how there may be important differences those differences between Joyce and Dante and their approaches to these topics. And that analysis can shed light on what Joyce is trying to get across through his novel. Starting with Stephen’s vision of the girl on the shore, Joyce gives Stephen a vision of beauty that is unattainable. He has no contact with this vision, and she remains distant, and abstract. Dante includes the use of a muse, Beatrice, who is a heavenly force who guides Dante through the different stages. Beatrice is also Dante’s lifelong love, who is a real person, concrete to the author. Unlike Dante, Joyce doesn't include a concrete, real-life muse for Stephen, and Stephen is not guided by a strong female force. In the end, Dante’s work leads to the Divine (God). Joyce’s Stephen, at the end of this episode, turns away from religion, away from God. Maybe the authors’ (and their characters’) different attitudes towards women make the real difference.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I appreciate the praise Keane I don't think I agree with the second part of your analysis. Although Beatrice is Dante's muse, he was never with her in real life. He loved her but she ran away and married another and he never saw her again. Beatrice equates to the many girls Stephan sees as his Madonnas. They are ever present and are constantly pushing him towards becoming a better person, yet we never see a true relationship between him and these women. Secondly, I think that Stephan's God is replaced by life. As we said Stephan comes to revere life at the end of part five, and this reverence replaces his religion. While it is a difference on the surface, I feel that Dante's God and Stephan's spirituality serve the same ends. I just think the adjustment was a move by Joyce to show that art has replaced God in modern day society.
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