"Joyce hated being called a middle-class writer. For him this was the greatest of all insults, to which he responded jocosely by saying that 'nobody in my books has any money'. But he maintained at all times a strictly bourgeois distinction between his art and his life: for instance, he might write four letter words, but he would on no account utter them. This distinction was lost by many after his death in 1941, so that what had once been permitted only in the imagination might now be enacted by individuals intent on proving how free they were. By substituting the search for sensations for the making of art, these people confused art and life - but Joyce knew that real art required hard work. Among the bohemians he had noticed a culture-worship that rejected the idea of an art devoted to everyday life. Hence his famous put down of the young man who wished to kiss the hand that wrote Ulysses: 'No, that hand has done a lot of other things as well.'"
(italics: blogger's own).
No comments:
Post a Comment