I really liked this reading because
it leaves room for a lot of varying discussion.
There are two portions that really stand out to me: the relationship
between writers and society in the face of disconnection, as well as the
applicability of the ideas presented to Joyce’s writing.
Miller discusses the way literature
mirrors the “dispersal of the cultural unity of man, God, nature and language”,
citing the “increasing dominance in poetry of the image of the city” (900,
901). While I completely agree that
literature commonly reflects the norms of the time, I can’t help but wonder about
the sequence of these two events. Could
it be that a shift in literature influenced a shift in society? In a similar sequential comparison, Miller
cites the building of cities, commenting that “it is impossible to tell whether
man has excluded God by building the great cities, or whether the cities have
been built because God has disappeared” (901).
Did writers exclude the connection to God from society by changing their
writing or did society exclude the connection to God from literature by
changing their society? Did the society
affect the writers or did the writers affect the society?
Miller’s discussion of the
relationship between art and God is similar to Stephen’s recognition of the
life of art. Through
his identification that “the play which he had known at rehearsals for a
disjointed lifeless thing had suddenly assumed a life of its own. It seemed now to play itself, he and his
fellow actors aiding it with their parts”, Stephen recognizes that “in the new
world the arts are...the ‘mediators’ between earth and heaven” (85, 906). Stephen’s realization that ““the constant
voices of his father and of his masters, urging him to be a gentleman above all
things and urging him to be a good catholic above all things…had now come to be
hollowsounding in his ears” is an abrupt comparison
to his identification with the play (83).
The spiritual connection through these real people is void and empty,
while the spiritual connection through the art of the play is alive and vibrant,
paralleling Miller’s recognition of art becoming a new religious connection.
I feel like this reading is a good reflection of many of the ideas that
have been presented within Joyce’s novel, as well as poems we have read. Miller’s introduction is valuable in
understanding the underlying themes of many novels, as well as the historical
phenomenon of industrialization and the disconnection with God.