1n6xZiV

[ Aetat. 16-18 ] J O Y C E 73Society, Miss Hessel?' asked Rorlund—'I will let in fresh air, Pastor.'—answered Lona. 56This is Joyce's strongest early statement of method and intention. Hisdefense of contemporary materials, his interest in Wagnerian myth, hisaversion to conventions, and his insistence that the laws of life are thesame always and everywhere, show him to be ready to fuse real peoplewith mythical ones, and so find all ages to be one as in A Portrait,Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake. The exaltation of drama above all otherforms was to be reformulated later in his esthetic system and, if he publishedonly one play, he kept to his principle by making all his novelsdramatic* 57He ended his paper with the curtain speech of the firstact of Ibsen'sPillars of Society, and had scarcely called for fresh air when his audiencesprang to attack him, Clery, Kennedy, and others. Magennis, in summingup, also disagreed, though more mildly. Their criticisms are summarizedin Stephen Hero: one said that Aeschylus 'was an imperishablename' and that 'the drama of the Greeks would outlive many civilisations.'Another contended that the paper was hostile to religion, and failedto recognize that the Church had fostered the artistic temper. Ibsen'splays were about drainage; 'Macbeth would be famous when the unknownauthors of whom' Joyce 'was so fond were dead and forgotten.' 58Finally, in spite of his references to a free Irish people, Joyce was nonationalist; and all his praise was unpatriotically awarded to foreign authors.Although in Stephen Hero Joyce represents Stephen as not deigning toreply to his critics, in fact Joyce rose from his chair at about ten o'clockwhen the bell was ringing in the landing outside to signal that it was timeto wind up the proceedings. As Judge Eugene Sheehy recalls, he spokewithout a note for at least thirty minutes, and dealt with each of hiscritics in turn. His cocksure eloquence won his audience's respect andapplause. After the debate one student clapped Joyce on the back andexclaimed, 'Joyce, that was magnificent, but you're raving mad!' 59Hisname was soon after proposed by Skeffington for the auditorship of thesociety for the coming year, but Hugh Kennedy beat him by a vote of 15to 9. 60Joyce made up for this defeat by confounding his classmates with adistinction they could not confer or rival. He obtained a copy of a Frenchtranslation of Ibsen's When We Dead Awaken, and composed the articleabout the play which Courtney had suggested the Fortnightly Reviewmight accept. Joyce wrote with fervor of Ibsen's reticence and refusal tojoin battle with his enemies—qualities that had impressed him in Parnellalso—and confidently offered his own view of Ibsen along with a rather* See pp. 145-6, 296-7, 357-8.