Context of Creativity: An Overview of Joyce's Ulysses

Abstract

이 글은 죠이스의 소설 율리시스에 관한 한가지 연구로서 소설을 이루는 갖가지 기교, 언어의 선택, 해석상 가능한 의미 등의 현상들을 그들이 작가에 의해서 그렇게 선택하게 한 창작의식의 여건을 죠시스의 중요한 비평가들인 케너, 골드버그, 루이스 등의 논지를 예로서 원용하고 죠이스에 관한 필자의 생각을 뼈대로하고 현상의 자료를 작품속의 자료로 소화하는 죠이스 자신의 버릇을 실마리로 삼아 해석의 여건에 대한 한가지 이해로서 쓰여진 것이다.

창작의 제 일의적인 조건으로서 의식의 한가지 상태를 상정할 때 바꾸어 말하여 언어가 현실을 수용하는 독특한 양식을 상정할 때 초연의 원칙은 죠이스에 기본적인 자세라 할 수 있다. 이 초연의 원칙은 죠이스 개인의 기질에도 관련되지만 더욱 중요한 것은 창작상의 전략이라는 점이다. 이런 원칙하에 형성된 작품은 의미하기 이전에 존재하는 철저한 자족의 외양을 가지는 듯하나 "율리시스"에서 죠이스의 역설은 이것이 어떤 순수한 객관적(客觀的)ㅂ장의 단순한 패로디만을 지향하지 않는다는 점이다, 객관적인 ?恥瓚? 세계가 무섭도록 초연한 입장에서 작품안으로 형상화되어 들어오지만 이것은 그 자체로서 한가지 창작상의 의식을 드러내는 것이다.

죠이스에게 있어서 이 문제가 어떤 내막을 가지는가를 밝히는 과정에서 필자는 주체가 대상에서 초연한 자세를 취하려 하는 의지의 의미에 역점을 두었다. "율리시스"의 표면은 윈담 루이스의 불평대로 무척 물신(物神)적이다. 대상에서 소외된 주체는 대상의 물성(物性)을 치열하게 의식할 수 밖에 없다. 그러나 그런 의식의 주체 자체가 끊임없이 용서없이 대상화하여 작품의 물성을 증대시킨다. 스티븐과 불룸은 세계내에 해체되고 그 위에 몰리의 자족한 목소리가 내리는 작품의 구성에 주의하면서 본 논문은 세계 밖에 살면서 세계안을 갈구한 죠이스의 유별난 일생의 역설과 딜레마가 "율리시스"에서도 보이지 않는 그러나 근본적인 바탕이라 인식한다.

The Joyce scholarship is notorious not only for the flamboyancy of its energy but also for its wild divisiveness of interpretive opinions. We might well join, out of despair, the anti-interpretationist camp, sympathizing, for example, with Patrick Kavanaugh in his outburst of sarcasm that a host of the Ph. D. people murdered the writer in exchange for their degrees. Quite grievously, this essay cannot be otherwise than another instance of addition, however self-conscious, to the already-crowded sea of interpretations. Yet, what I attempt here is not an effort toward a construction of a meaning as a solid entity but one toward an understanding of the context that conditions the meaningfulness on what might be called the primary level of the text, the kind of verbal phenomena that come prior to interpretation. In trying to adumbrate the nature of creative consciousness working in Ulysses, I have used some prominent critical stances including those of Wyndham Lewis and Hugh Kenner, some circumstantial facts about Joyce, and on pain of being guilty of cant, a modicum of convenient concepts probably borrowed unawares from the structuralist or phenomenological line of critical thinking.

I begin by defining the consciousness as the primary condition of creativity, as a set of fundamental terms of vision according to which the words are set to negotiate the reality. The rule of detachment is essential for Joyce from this points of view. Detachment is seen as the artistic strategy as well as the writer's individual temper. The noncomittal aloofness is the cardinal rule and the text seems to endorse being before meaning. This does not mean, however, a pure state of objectivity nor a mere parody of objective pretentions. The mode in which the objective phenomenal world is engaged and appropriated betrays some fundamental aspects of the underlying consciousness as a state of affairs, as a certain creative temper.

So I have introduced the concept of subjectivity not for its idea content but for its use to map out the basic status of consciousness. Detachment means keeping distance from something and naturally stands for one mode of confrontation between subject and object. I notice perennial ascendancy of the congested phenomenal flux., which means not the triumph of matter but the despair of the mind confronting it. I have somewhat elaborated on this point via Lewis and Kenner. The surface of Ulysses is crowded with items of words and things and indeed many significant instances of the narrative are susceptible to cataloguing. So I have deliberated on the concept of the thing as the irrecoverable other resisting subjectivity and at the same time as the community index. thus I notice the negative aspect in ascendancy over its intersubjective potential. Molly's monologue is cited as illustrating this point.

The Joyce scholarship is notorious not only for the flamboyancy of its energy but also for its wild divisiveness of interpretive opinions. We might well join, out of despair, the anti-interpretationist camp, sympathizing, for example, with Patrick Kavanaugh in his outburst of sarcasm that a host of the Ph. D. people murdered the writer in exchange for their degrees. Quite grievously, this essay cannot be otherwise than another instance of addition, however self-conscious, to the already-crowded sea of interpretations. Yet, what I attempt here is not an effort toward a construction of a meaning as a solid entity but one toward an understanding of the context that conditions the meaningfulness on what might be called the primary level of the text, the kind of verbal phenomena that come prior to interpretation. In trying to adumbrate the nature of creative consciousness working in Ulysses, I have used some prominent critical stances including those of Wyndham Lewis and Hugh Kenner, some circumstantial facts about Joyce, and on pain of being guilty of cant, a modicum of convenient concepts probably borrowed unawares from the structuralist or phenomenological line of critical thinking.

I begin by defining the consciousness as the primary condition of creativity, as a set of fundamental terms of vision according to which the words are set to negotiate the reality. The rule of detachment is essential for Joyce from this points of view. Detachment is seen as the artistic strategy as well as the writer's individual temper. The noncomittal aloofness is the cardinal rule and the text seems to endorse being before meaning. This does not mean, however, a pure state of objectivity nor a mere parody of objective pretentions. The mode in which the objective phenomenal world is engaged and appropriated betrays some fundamental aspects of the underlying consciousness as a state of affairs, as a certain creative temper.

So I have introduced the concept of subjectivity not for its idea content but for its use to map out the basic status of consciousness. Detachment means keeping distance from something and naturally stands for one mode of confrontation between subject and object. I notice perennial ascendancy of the congested phenomenal flux., which means not the triumph of matter but the despair of the mind confronting it. I have somewhat elaborated on this point via Lewis and Kenner. The surface of Ulysses is crowded with items of words and things and indeed many significant instances of the narrative are susceptible to cataloguing. So I have deliberated on the concept of the thing as the irrecoverable other resisting subjectivity and at the same time as the community index. thus I notice the negative aspect in ascendancy over its intersubjective potential. Molly's monologue is cited as illustrating this point.