Dedalus, Stephen
The original name, Daedalus, is from the Greek named after the character but has an equal counterpart in Hellenized Latin - they generally add up to "cunning worker" and are more specifically tied to the act of the most skillful artifice and the mere conjuring of words would, in turn, call to mind images that would actually move. In this way, Daedalus could be the first actual "artist" and this all starts to become a little clearer when looking directly above at that second photo of James Joyce in a nicely ornate parlor, standing in front of a mirror and a great clock with a paper in his hand, squinting through those round frames at perhaps a little review of one of his little stories. The story goes: he first wrote "Stephen Hero" and gave his character the name Stephen Daedalus. It was a thick work that eventually got thinned, by his hand and its careful editing, even the name lost a letter and we were given "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" with the newly named "Dedalus". By dropping the letter he claims the character as his own, but he also keeps the nice little allusion to that sad Greek figure who seemed so remarkably like the Author.
There are a lot of anecdotes about the ancient Daedalus, most of which I had to look up in a tattered encyclopedia for lack of actual memory and each and every one of them seem to be easily carried over and applied to Joyce in a nice, fitting way. That was, I think, what made all of those Greek Myths and stories so memorable, because they almost always could be translated into the lives of us normal folk --- their convictions mirror our own, their passions do as well, and their faults no doubt trickled down from heaven above to course through our own stupid veins. Yes, the religious aspect abounds, as Joyce would have no doubt wanted. Ovid says that Daedalus was locked up in a tall tower to prevent him from conversing with the people about the labyrinth. This imprisonment lead him to devise a set of wax wings for his son, Icarus, who we are almost all familiar with. The rest of the story can be filled in by reading something a bit more substantial than this. Mostly, though, the religious aspect of it is keenly matched in Joyce's Portrait.
Because I simply assume you, faithful reader, have amply devoured the book by now (lapping up each tongue-ful of wordy joy, mincing and chomping scene and setting with teeth, and swallowing whole the ever-unfolding ending and epiphany) so I really needn't get into much detail about the broadness of the work --- all the better if you have not yet read it, I have only one small detail to savour which won't give away any of the miraculous wonder that the little tome holds.
Young Stephen is almost always likened to Young James, and his evolution is charted over the course of that first work (now published in handy volumes with quite shiny footnotes and annotations) as well as the polished second work that populate any budding artist's shelf. By evolution I mean: His growing up as a boy into a man, as a thinker into a doer, as a dreamer into a be-er, and as a writer into an author. There are religious, sexual and political upbringings as well. Primarily, though, I think about the tiny sliver of Catholicism that seemed to be removed from my own bland childhood and placed with precision at almost the exact same time as the fictional Stephen's lifeline. He stares at a cross, Christ hanging from the nails with his knobby knees and sallow face, and he is frightened in the way almost all children are at the sight of a bloodied corpse drooping down the blind face of the crucifix, and he notices the letters in the scroll atop the whole thing: INRI. Above is a photo of my only bookless shelf which contains several artifacts. Positioned sideways so as to look a little less dramatic and more sleepy, placed behind the clock, is my crucifix showing the scroll and its INRI. Stephen, like any boy sitting in a dusty church, picks on these mysteries to hold his attention and they provide ample room to wander. Also, in the training leading up to the first communion, a good Catholic is taught many things about his religion and all of them are important, and I imagine Stephen felt a little humiliating burn down somewhere inside of him just as most kids feel in a classroom when they want to ask about something so small that they fear retribution, laughter, and the dreaded flush of new embarrassment. These mysteries are scary, especially when attached like a corpse to a cross: INRI. He doesn't know what it means, but he will become an author and he will use his words and his mind. The letters enchant the boy, much more so than say the easy-to-follow stations of the cross made of stained glass. The letters, the code, the word of god, it is their meaninglessness that worries him, he does not know what they mean and is forced, then, to invent. INRI: Iron Nails Ran In.
I don't remember ever asking the question in my own catechism classes, but I do remember having it and wondering when might be a good time to ask. (I do recall asking a multitude of other equally stupid questions as a naive child, never sure whether we were being serious and talking about people or being funny and talking about spirits and ghosts... "why didn't anyone bring Christ some socks when he was up there dying? He must've been cold.") Reading Portrait as a college student, in a class dedicated only to Joyce (it was blissful!) taught by an exceptionally perceptible and able-minded professor who also was also a psychoanalyst (he would get a laugh every time he had an opportunity to point out Joyce's thoughts on his second profession: "Oi can psyko-ahnah-loos myself, thank you" with a perfect accent and comical pitch change to boot.) Coming across the tiny sentence I jumped to the phone to call my dad, who had gone through the motions of becoming a Catholic Priest in his own youth, attending the Seminary and all, and asked him what INRI meant. It was nothing special, sadly, and Stephen/Joyce's translation has always stuck instead. IHS is the other one which is often found in Catholic imagery. Stephen has it as: I Have Sinned. Again, the writer's idea is more favorable than reality's. I get to also see my father in Stephen's place at times, since their stories synchronize for a stretch as well. There isn't a catholic alive who is free of guilt.
We have a myth matched to a character, and eventually a character matched to a life. We have religion which does a similar thing. We have Joyce's title, which could be taken as blankly and as generally as it sounds: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Who is the portrait of? "The Artist, as a Young Man." Which artist? How young? What kind of portrait? Mimetic? Didactic? Anyone that has been young can recognize themselves in Stephen. It is through the fogged lense of his religious upbringing that some seeds of his art can be extracted. Iron Nails Ran In. His imagination is fixed, focussed, on the pain. I Have Sinned. Guilt, pure and simple guilt, is the nectar of religion and thus must be that of life as well. Pain and guilt, suffering while being pinned into a dying posture, and the audience all praying to it in begging yelps hoping to be heard and helped; it is enough to cripple a kid if that kid has a penchant for sensitivity and quiet moodiness like Stephen (like most artists.) Critics generally assert that the first three stories of Dubliners are also "Stephen Stories" and while I don't have an opinion of my own to offer I do remember a very particular point in the first story where the old Priest places the communion wafer on the boys tongue and there is a zoomed-in effect that takes place dealing with the Priest's spittle (saliva on the tip of his tongue) that is very Dedalus in nature and force: one can clearly see how this would be the type of thing to shake a young Stephen to his very core and how that tiny act would be relfected and expanded later in his life. Spit and shame, and pain and guilt - these make the Artist.
We have a myth matched to a character, and eventually a character matched to a life. We have religion which does a similar thing. We have Joyce's title, which could be taken as blankly and as generally as it sounds: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Who is the portrait of? "The Artist, as a Young Man." Which artist? How young? What kind of portrait? Mimetic? Didactic? Anyone that has been young can recognize themselves in Stephen. It is through the fogged lense of his religious upbringing that some seeds of his art can be extracted. Iron Nails Ran In. His imagination is fixed, focussed, on the pain. I Have Sinned. Guilt, pure and simple guilt, is the nectar of religion and thus must be that of life as well. Pain and guilt, suffering while being pinned into a dying posture, and the audience all praying to it in begging yelps hoping to be heard and helped; it is enough to cripple a kid if that kid has a penchant for sensitivity and quiet moodiness like Stephen (like most artists.) Critics generally assert that the first three stories of Dubliners are also "Stephen Stories" and while I don't have an opinion of my own to offer I do remember a very particular point in the first story where the old Priest places the communion wafer on the boys tongue and there is a zoomed-in effect that takes place dealing with the Priest's spittle (saliva on the tip of his tongue) that is very Dedalus in nature and force: one can clearly see how this would be the type of thing to shake a young Stephen to his very core and how that tiny act would be relfected and expanded later in his life. Spit and shame, and pain and guilt - these make the Artist.
All this linking up of mythology, fiction and life with religion and writing is quite a knot to untie. Of course, if you would rather see it untangled with genius you had better look to Joyce and, well, I'm no Joyce. Not even one millionth part Joyce. For every pound of my own dull potential he can offer a metric ton of his own limitless supply whereas I, dumb fool, won't amount to even a fraction of the writer he is when he's just paring his nails. And those discarded clippings! Even they are gold! Alas - read the book, close this thing here and read that book.
Stephen is happily placed in a few chapters of Ulysses, too. Like all good cameos, his call to mind all the allusions of his past life in books and the final effect is, of course, a huge grin on the face of a reader who recognizes him. His good quotes are endless, his great quotes are almost equally infinite, and his most poignant ones are in abundance as well. This one is for AK: "A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery." The thing about that is that a man can't really know he is a genius until after he has lived, so at the time he can only assume he is one and look at his mistakes as such. AK is a painter and if my own small judgement is worthy of being pinned to his lapel, I would say that he has not made a single mistake either.
Footnote to Nothing:
All the best facts come at night, just as sleep precipitates down onto the mind and through the jumble of that fog shoots out a bright little point of light that shines for a second before slipping away entirely as the fullness of sleep blankets a person's thoughts entirely. Last night's bright little pinprick of light before drifting off to sleep: the remembered reason Joyce had for naming him Stephen! Saint Stephen was the first martyr of Christianity. The professor who taught the Joyce class I took, Mr. Zimmerman, would be happy to know that I retained at least a few stray little facts. He gave me a D on my final paper and even commented on page 7 that he would not be commenting any further on the rest of the essay! With a chance to revise it prior to the conclusion of the course, I did my best and managed a B on the paper and as a final grade. That could have been from pity, though, as he was a psychoanalyst and it was plain to see how pitiful a student I was then, even in a room filled with the boisterous presense of old James Joyce.
