Art in a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Stephen Dedalus's philosophy of art, expressed in his discussion with Lynch in chapter five, seems essentially romantic, but the novel is written in a very realistic mode typical of the 20th century. This apparent inconsistency can point us towards a way of interpreting this novel. Dedalus' idea of ​​art may be romantic, but since his world is no longer the world of the romantics, he must see art more as a fundamental validation of one's being than as a communication of a special vision. Two aspects of Romanticism figure in this analysis of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. First, the Romantics' belief in some connection between the human spirit and some higher purpose, and their faith in the ability of art to serve as a vehicle to connect the human with the divine, is the philosophical foundation of aesthetic theory of Daedalus. Secondly, though, even the Romantics believed they were communicating with people's words, to people's hearts, and Dedalus just can't believe he can do that. He vaguely feels that communicating the Romantic vision to the modern world is impossible. Thus, Dedalus's difficult maturation as an artist, and perhaps that of Joyce, records the essentially Romantic, Platonic soul struggling to emerge from the oppressive realities of the mundane. world. The Platonic soul must reject that world because it is not divine, just as the Romantics rejected the scientific worldview of the Enlightenment, but while the Romantics of Worth's time might believe that their role was to communicate this truth through poetry to the "people", Stephen Dedalus can only retreat from the world into an abstruse theory, or into a... medium of paper... religion, its politics, its poverty, its people. Conclusion So, when Daedalus finally pronounces his break with all his education, it is for this reason: his romantic soul does not match very well with his realist vision of the world. Since he cannot believe, as Worth did, that the spiritually hungry masses were waiting out there for his declaration of a Great Vision, he does the only thing he can: he renounces: I will not serve what I no longer believe in, whether it's true. defines itself as my home, my country or my church: and I will try to express myself in some way of life or art as freely as possible and in the most complete way possible, using for my defense the only weapons that I allow myself to use&emdash ; silence, exile and cunning. (247)Works Cited: Joyce, James. A portrait of the artist as a young man. New York: NewAmerican Library, 1991.