JAMES JOYCE’s EARLY AESTHETIC THEORY

Abstract

In this article, the author attempts to shed some light on the development of James Joyce’s aesthetic views in the context of the culture of the end of 19 and the beginning of 20 century. Relevance of this work is attributable to necessity of additional systematization of the aesthetic views of James Joyce. In this article, the author analyzes Joyce’s diaries 1903-1904, essays 1899-1902 and his novels “Stephen Hero” and “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”. The author considers the main concepts of Joyce’s aesthetic such as “analytic method”, “drama”, “classical temper”, “epiphany”. Considerable attention is paid to artistic rethinking of the aesthetic of Thomas Aquinas in James Joyce’s works. Joyce interprets the aesthetic of Thomas Aquinas in the manner of Walter Pater estheticism. In the context of this rethinking, Joyce’s concept of “epiphany” becomes important. Taken from theology concept “epiphany” is interpreted as a special view of the artist. The author concludes that the Thomist theory of the beautiful is reinterpreted in Joyce's work in the vein of English aestheticism of the late 19th century. The results of this investigation can be used in the works dedicated to modernism and in the teaching of literature of this period.