Apart from the unfindable juvenilia Et Tu Healy (possibly called Parnell) this is Joyce's first work. It was published in an 8 page pamphlet shared with his friend and fellow student Francis Sheehy- Skeffington, after his and Joyce's articles were turned down by the college magazine at University College, Dublin. Joyce, with whom he also attended school, considered Skeffington “the cleverest man at University College” beside himself (Ellmann 61). The bit at the end of Joyce's even tempered rant about a 'third minister' is said to be a clear reference to himself. It is also worth noting that Joyce translated the Gerhart Hauptmann play Michael Kramer and that Yeats thought it a poor translation. His poem The Holy Office (1904) continues his attack on the Irish theatre, amongst other things...No man, said the Nolan, can be a lover of the true or the good unless he abhors the multitude; and the artist, though he may employ the crowd, is very careful to isolate himself. This radical principle of artistic economy applies specially to a time of crisis, and to-day when the highest form of art has been just preserved by desperate sacrifices, it is strange to see the artist making terms with the rabblement. The Irish Literary Theatre is the latest movement of protest against the sterility and falsehood of the modern stage. Half a century ago the note of protest was uttered in Norway, and since then in several countries long and disheartening battles have been fought against the hosts of prejudice and misinterpretation and ridicule. What triumph there has been here and there is due to stubborn conviction, and every movement that has set out heroically has achieved a little. The Irish Literary Theatre gave out that it was the champion of progress, and proclaimed war against commercialism and vulgarity. It had partly made good its word and was expelling the old devil when after the first encounter it surrendered to the popular will. Now your popular devil is more dangerous than your vulgar devil. Bulk and lungs count for something, and he can gild his speech aptly. He has prevailed once more, and the Irish Literary Theatre must now be considered the property of the rabblement of the most belated race in Europe.
It will be interesting to examine here. The official organ of the movement spoke of producing European masterpieces, but the matter went no further. Such a project was absolutely necessary. The censorship is powerless in Dublin, and the directors could have produced Ghosts or The Dominion of Darkness if they chose. Nothing can be done until the forces that dictate public judgment are calmly confronted. But, of course, the directors are shy of presenting Ibsen, Tolstoy or Hauptmann, where even Countess Cathleen is pronounced vicious and damnable. Even for a technical reason this project was necessary. A nation which never advanced so far as a miracle-play affords no literary model to the artist, and he must look abroad. Earnest dramatists of the second rank, Sudermann, Bypruson [for Björgson], and Giocosa, can write very much better plays than tbe Irish Literary Theatre has staged. But, of course, the directors would not like to present such improper writers to the uncultivated, much less to the cultivated rabblement. Accordingly, the rabblement, placid and intensely moral, is enthroned in boxes and galleries amid a hum of approval — la bestia trioufaute [for trionfante] — and those who think that Echegaray is “morbid,” and titter coyly when Mélisande lets down her hair, are not sure but they are the trustees of every intellectual and poetic treasure.
Meanwhile, what of the artists? It is equally unsafe at present to say of Mr. Yeats that he has or has not genius. In aim and form The Wind among the Reeds is poetry of the highest order, and The Adoration of the Magi (a story which one of the great Russians might have written) shows what Mr. Yeats can do when he breaks with the half-gods. But an esthete has a floating will, and Mr. Yeat’s treacherous instinct of adaptability must be blamed for his recent association with a platform from which even self-respect should have urged him to refrain. Mr. Martyn and Mr. Moore are not writers of much originality. Mr. Martyn, disabled as he is by an incorrigible style, has none of the fierce, hysterical power of Strindberg, whom he suggests at times; and with him one is conscious of a lack of breadth and distinction which outweighs the nobility of certain passages. Mr. Moore, however, has wonderful mimetic ability, and some years ago his books might have entitled him to the place of honour among English novelists. But though Vain Fortune (perhaps one should add some of Esther Waters) is fine, original work, Mr. Moore is really struggling in the backwash of that tide which has advanced from Flaubert through Jakobsen to D’Aununzio [for D’Annunzio]: for two entire eras lie between Madame Bovary and Il Fuoco. It is plain from Celebates and the latter novels that Mr. Moore is beginning to draw upon his literary account, and the quest of a new impulse may explain his recent startling conversion. Converts are in the movement now, and Mr. Moore and his island have been fitly admired. But, however, frankly, Mr. Moore may misquote Pater and Turgeuieff [for Turgenieff] to defend himself, his new impulse has no kind of relation to the future of art.
In such circumstances it has become imperative to define the position[.] If an artist courts the favour of the multitude he cannot escape the contagion of its fetichism and deliberate self-deception, and if he joins in a popular movement he does so at his own risk. Therefore the Irish Literary Theatre by its surrender to the trolls has cut itself adrift from the line of advancement. Until he has freed himself from the mean influences about him - sodden enthusiasm and clever insinuation and every flattering influence of vanity and low ambition - no man is an artist at all. But his true servitude is that he inherits a will broken by doubt and a soul that yields up all its hate to a caress; and the most seeming-independent are those who are the first to reassume their bonds. But Truth deals largely with us. Elsewhere there are men who are worthy to carry on the tradition of the old master who is dying in Christiania. He has already found his successor in the writer of Michael Kramer, and the third minister will not be wanting when his hour comes. Even now that hour may be standing by the door.
JAS. A. JOYCE.
October 15th, 1901.
Francis Sheehy- Skeffington was a distinguished campaigner for women's rights and pacifism. He met a tragic end at the hands of an unhinged and despicable British officer in 1916. He is not forgotten. Thanks for talking about him mate.
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