Student Question
What are Stephen's three main aesthetic principles in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man?
Quick answer:
Stephen Dedalus's three main aesthetic principles are: art must include the conventionally ugly, art transcends conventional morality, and art should achieve "luminous silent stasis" or aesthetic pleasure. He draws heavily on classical and medieval philosophy, particularly Aristotle and Aquinas, using their ideas as a foundation to create new, individual works. Stephen adapts these principles to suit his own artistic development, willing to modify or abandon them if they don't serve his creative goals.
A book entitled The Future of Modernism, edited by Hugh Witemeyer, answers this very question:
"In the notebooks of 1903-4 Joyce articulated the aesthetic principles that Dedalus defends . . . that any theory of beauty must encompass the conventionally ugly; that art is neither immoral or amoral but beyond conventional morality; that the work of art should be a wholeness, 'selfbounded and selfcontained'; and that the third of Aquinas's three phases of aesthetic apprehension must be understood (or changed) to mean not enjoyment but stasis, 'the luminous silent stasis of estheic pleasure'" (40).
That's actually four principles, but I hope this helps.
References
What is the main aesthetic principle proposed by Stephen in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man?
The main principle of aesthetics put forward by Stephen in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is to use the classical and Christian ideas that have shaped his education to create works of art that are new and individual.
Stephen refers frequently to classical and...
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medieval philosophy, most often to Saint Thomas Aquinas. When speaking to the dean, he says:
For my purpose I can work on at present by the light of one or two ideas of Aristotle and Aquinas. ... I need them only for my own use and guidance until I have done something for myself by their light. If the lamp smokes or smells I shall try to trim it. If it does not give light enough I shall sell it and buy another.
Although Stephen never expounds his artistic philosophy in full, this passage makes his aim clear. He will use the ideas of the past for his own purposes, building on them at least until he is a more mature and confident artist and modifying them as he sees fit. He will not be hidebound by the past: if the ideas of Aristotle, Aquinas, or any other philosopher prove inadequate for his purposes, then he will abandon them and seek more productive ideas. However, he regards the work of these and other philosophers as the primary raw material with which he will create works that express both his own ideas and those of the age in which he lives.