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[ Aetat. 16-18 ] J O Y C E 71Father Delany to protest. 53Delany, who had not expected this onslaught,objected that the paper minimized the ethical content of drama; but Joycedefended himself again with Aquinas's tolerant dictum that beautiful thingsare those which, when seen, please us. He offered to lend Delany someof Ibsen's plays, and actually did so. The president decided not to presshis objections, but several orthodox students were probably coached toattack Joyce.Perhaps to substantiate his high opinion of his own work, Joyce wrotethe editor of the Fortnightly Review, W. L. Courtney, to ask brashly ifhe would like a general article on Ibsen's work. Courtney's reply camethe day the paper was to be read; he did not need a general article butwould consider a review of Ibsen's new play, When We Dead Awaken. 54With this encouragement Joyce went to the Physics Theatre on January20, 1900, to read his essay. Professor Magennis, who knew his abilitiesfrom his Intermediate Examinations, was in the chair. Joyce deliveredhis paper, as his brother Stanislaus declares, 'without emphasis,' or as hehimself puts it rather grandly in Stephen Hero, 'He read it quietly anddistinctly, involving every hardihood of thought or expression in an envelopeof low innocuous melody,' and spoke the finalsentences in 'a toneof metallic clearness.' 55He was bent upon stating his positions as flatiyand unequivocally aspossible. He took up Greek drama first;Clery had paid it the usual tributes,but Joyce said it was played out, killed by the greenroom proprietiesforced by Attic stage conditions upon it. As for the next great drama, theShakespearean, that was dead too, mere 'literature in dialogue.' Otherdramatists before the modern, Corneille, Metastasio, Calderon, practicedinfantile plot-juggling and could not be taken seriously. With Verlaine'spronouncement, 'Et tout le reste est litterature,' in mind, Joyce arguedthat drama was not to be confused with literature. Literature dealt withindividual quirks in terms of temporary conventions, while drama dealtwith the changeless laws of human nature. It was paradoxical but undeniablethat only the 'new' dramatists perceived what was ageless and properlyconcerned themselves with it. We must 'clear our minds of cant,'Joyce said, and mocked the patriots in his audience by urging, 'Let uscriticize in the manner of free people, as a free race,' a plea that alludedcovertly but deftly to Victoria's impending visit to Dublin. If we do notmerely repeat what we have been told, we will know at once 'the respectivegrades' of Macbeth (Clery's example of true greatness) and The MasterBuilder. The artist in drama, said Joyce, foregoes his very self andstands a mediator in awful truth before the veiled face of God. Joyceapplied St. Augustine's phrase, securus iudicat orbis terrarum* to art; the"Untroubled, the world judges.' Augustine, Contra Epistolam Parmeniani, III, 24. 'Securestjubilends albas Temoram.' Finnegans Wake (593). Newman's Apologia drew Joyce'sattention to the phrase.