“ Art has to reveal to us ideas, formless spiritual essences. ”
James Joyce, Ulysses (1922). copy citation
| Author | James Joyce |
|---|---|
| Source | Ulysses |
| Topic | art essence |
| Date | 1922 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4300/4300-h/4300-h.htm |
Context
“—Our young Irish bards, John Eglinton censured, have yet to create a figure which the world will set beside Saxon Shakespeare’s Hamlet though I admire him, as old Ben did, on this side idolatry.
—All these questions are purely academic, Russell oracled out of his shadow. I mean, whether Hamlet is Shakespeare or James I or Essex. Clergymen’s discussions of the historicity of Jesus. Art has to reveal to us ideas, formless spiritual essences. The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. The painting of Gustave Moreau is the painting of ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelley, the words of Hamlet bring our minds into contact with the eternal wisdom, Plato’s world of ideas.”
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