Scylla and Charybdis

This is a difficult episode to talk about; it is not known what of Stephen’s words are meaningful, and what is mere sophistry, like the pomp let out of the windbag in a previous chapter.
Nonetheless, it seems that the thematic dichotomy of the ideal and form seem at play, especially during the discourses that reference Plato and Aristotle. This might tie in with the theme of consubstantiality, which seems to be the most important of the chapter, but already, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Through the narration, we become aware of many of the character’s physicality, the fact that they have a body; this lays in contrast to architecture of thought that this episode inhabits. “A tall figure in bearded homespun rose from shadow and unveiled its cooperative watch” (191). Here it seems as if the shadow represents the essence, or being, of the person being described, and that his body is what clothes the shadow. Also, someone else is described as “sitting in his form” (191) and the librarian was found “blushing his mask” (193). This might presuppose what I believe to be the platonic idea that essence comes before form. Stephen seems to reject this. Instead of dissecting art like Russell, who believes art is the guise humans use to convey ‘formless spiritual essences (185),’ Stephen insists on theorizing Shakespeare’s work through biography, a more tangible reality; still, this seems strange, since Stephen, in a previous chapter with Deasy, surmises that the past is mutable; however, Stephen is indecisive on his view points, and seems to hold intellectual debates within himself, never really believing anything. This is apparent in this episode. He goes off on a long diatribe about Shakespeare, using polemical, sophistic, arguments against men he should be sucking up to, and in the end we find that Stephen doesn’t even believe in his own argument. It would be quite a task to find, at this point, anything that Stephen empirically believes.
There is also a tension between the art or the life of the commoner, and that of the intellectuals that speaks in this chapter. The common man/ woman seems to be able to Live life; to put things into action, where the intellectual sits around theorizing about it with out action. (Maybe the physical impotence of both Bloom and Stephen is noteworthy.) Russell notes, “People do not know how dangerous loves songs can be. The movements which work revolutions in the world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant’s heart on the hillside (186).” Also, this seems to bring Russell’s viewpoint out even more, thought before form. Later, Russell says, “As for the living, our servants can do that for us (189).” Although Stephen opposes Russell’s beliefs on the argument of the chicken and the egg, Stephen, he is within this group of intellectuals, and as stated in proteus, he seems to be at odds with the fact that he has a body. Therefore, I think the slave comment is applicable to Stephen in some ways.
I find Stephen’s opposition to Plato well stated on page 193: “Coffined thoughts around me, in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words.” Thought is language, language is form, form before content. From is essence. But, the words are coffined. This express the fact that we are in a wasteland, and God is dead, therefore meaning is dead. I’m not saying that Stephen does not believe in God. I think he’s undecided, and at this moment, is leaning towards a dead god.
Which brings me to the talk of consubstantiality and incest. Lets start on page 194:
So through the ghost of the unquiet father the image of the unloving son looks forth. In the intense instant of imagination, when the mind, Shelley says, is a fading coal, that which I was is that which I am and that which in possibility I may come to be. So in the future, the sister of the past, I may see myself as I sit here now but by reflection from that which then I shall be.”
Here, Joyce skillfully blends two thematic concerns of the book, consubstantiality and the dichotomy of the ideal/ corporeal. Really, they seem to be the same theme. The mind, a fading coal, which “with some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within, like the color of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure”(A defense of Poetry, Shelly). This harkens back to in ineluctable modality of the audio- visual, which can also be explained, as on page 194, “weave and unweave our bodies.” So, we are stuck in time, caught up in the modality, which is inescapable, and physical reality leaves impressions upon our minds, which hold on to them and then casually, unconsciously or consciously, let go. Stephen’s quip with Plato seems futile, more of a chicken and the egg question, when really; maybe we are swimming in ideas and forms. They play with each other. This is what poetry is made of.
And really, God is an idea who came into form through his son Jesus Christ, representing the corporeal, and the Holy Spirit is the medium in which the ideal and corporeal communicate. Still, this dialectic is all apart of the same whole. “Formless spiritual. Father, word and holy breath. Allfather, the heavenly man. Hiesos Kristos, magician of the beautiful, the Logos who suffers in us at every moment (185).” Therefore, Shakespeare’s son is Shakespeare, “the son of his soul, the prince, young Hamlet and to the son of his body, Hamnet…”(188).
Additionally, this talk of the father son relationship seems to hearken back to Bloom as a father figure for Stephen, as we have mentioned before in class. Stephen is the world of the ideal. Perhaps Bloom in the corporeal. “Where there is a reconciliation, there must have been first a sundering” (193). These characters are tied in an interesting, significant way, which I would bet will be brought out even more as the story continues.