WHAT ULYSSES MEANS

Abstract

It is generally supposed that Ulysses is the incarnation of Stephen's theory of "static beauty," and that his esthetic theory owes for the most part to Thomas Aquinas' esthetics, as Stephen himself approves it. The perusal of Portrait reveals, however, an unexpected fact that his esthetics was rooted into his own experience-a kind of ecstacy he was thrown into from time to time. The "static beauty" was nothing but the image of beauty he conceived in this holy silence of rapture. In such mysterious instant he escaped from time and space and elevated to a higher dimension where he bathed in a new life of all with a glee of fullness. It was a feeling of possession du monde, at the same time, of the bliss of being made one with God. In order to induce this rapture he fostered the habit of contemplation, as was the case with Proust. In Stephen Hero, Stephen mentions the sudden spiritual manifestation caused by contemplation, which he calls epiphany. This corresponds to the radiance, the supreme quality of beauty in Stephen's esthetics. Stephen believes that it is for the man of letters to record these epiphanies with extreme care, as they are the most delicate and evanescent of moments. Ulysses is an attempt to eternalize such momental experience. As it was an experience of possession du tnonde, at once, of communion with something divine, obtained through a trivial object, he must pack eternity and all into a short and narrow space and time (space-Dublin Time-one day). This bold attempt was enabled by the double structure of time in monologue interieur. By this new technique he imbued cunningly eternity and all into his grain, pretending to follow faithfully his hero's stream of consciousness. Here we find the intrinsic resemblance with Proust who also tried to fix such instance of ecstacy. But Proust wrote it from inside of "Je", while Joyce tried to build it up into an objective frame work. This striking difference was caused by their mode of existence. Though we cannot tell whether he was conscious or not, Ulysses is an alibi of God. In this manner the theme of Ulysses mirrors the tragedy of Joyce himself.