2 - The artist-hero
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2011
Summary
[Art] lives … and has ever lived in the individual conscience, as the one, fair, indivisible Art. Thus the only difference is this: with the Greeks it lived in the public conscience, whereas to-day it lives alone in the conscience of private persons, the public un-conscience recking nothing of it. Therefore in its flowering time the Grecian Art was conservative, because it was a worthy and adequate expression of the public conscience: with us, true Art is revolutionary, because its very existence is opposed to the ruling spirit of the community.
Wagner, Art and RevolutionWelcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.
Joyce, A PortraitBy the time of the publication of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the novel of the young artist, or Künstlerroman, was well established in European literature. As art began more and more to define its own values rather than simply to reflect the values of its culture, to give a subjective impression of life rather than pretend to “objectivity,” the artist as a character in fiction and art itself as a literary theme became increasingly important.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Joyce and WagnerA Study of Influence, pp. 33 - 53Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991