Reflecting the Beauty of Humanity

What does it mean to be human according to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man?

 

What essentially separates a human from an animal?  Is it our ability to reason, as scholars suggest?  Our ability to feel emotion, as some would argue?  Our ability to show compassion, or love?  Or, is it perhaps an understanding and appreciation for something that can encapsulate all of these: an appreciation for beauty, an appreciation for art?

In James Joyce's modernist novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce's protagonist Stephen Dedalus explores himself though various experiences and comes to decide what he defines as beauty and art.  However, Stephen does not give us a standard definition.  He explains that art is about perspective, as is beauty, and what may appear beautiful to one person may be simple and plain to another.  Stephen does give us one crucial distinction however.  He notes that there is an essential difference between "art" that is simply to produce a reaction (such as pornographic arts) and art that is designed for the purpose of beauty and observation.  The first type simply produces an animalistic response, while the second type can produce appreciation, empathy, concern, compassion, etc.  Joyce's novel seems to suggest that to be human, an individual must be able to show some type of appreciation for the arts, whether they are written, visual or experiential.

Stephen, unlike many scholars, also refuses to make a distinction between high and low art.  Stephen sees art as subjective, as merely art.  However, does Stephen’s refusal to make a distinction between what would be considered high art and what would be considered low art make him less human because it suggests an absence of reason?  I would propose that Stephen’s refusal to differentiate between the two shows not a lack of reason, but actually a presence of reason.  Stephen is able to reason that art, as well as beauty, cannot be given a single definition.  Art becomes beautiful when an individual sees it as beautiful, often because they can associate themselves or a specific memory to that art.

Stephen’s idea that art and beauty are subjective makes up an essential component of humanity: the ability to be an individual and the ability to have free will.  If beauty and art were able to be defined singularly, it seems possible that all of humanity would be able to be clumped together as well, without uniqueness and without the perspective that makes someone different from their neighbor.

There’s a reason that you love that song that your brother hates: maybe it makes you think of a good memory from high school or it reminds you of something about yourself.  There’s a reason that someone in your class loves the book you’ve been assigned and you can’t stand it: perhaps an element of it relates an idea that is particularly poignant to you, due to your own perspective and experience.  The ability to appreciate art means the ability to understand and value our own experiences; it means to be a conscious and self-aware creature.

Art is perhaps one of the most powerful ways for humans to communicate their own experiences as well as one of the greatest ways for humans to connect with others.  Art does not only function as a way to manifest beauty, but also a way to manifest the “terrible beauty” of our experiences and the uglier sides to humanity.  Art is one powerful way that allows us to cope with and understand the darkness of the human condition, sometimes in an attempt to reshape the human condition.  If there is beauty in art, it seems, according to Joyce’s novel, that this beauty exists only because it reflects the beauty of the humanity already within each of us.