Spirituality

[j_forias]

Okay, I've got a question about spirituality and gender. It's probably a bit random, but that's what happens when I spend too long doing essays on English Literature.

Excerpt from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Comments

[katieowrites]

I think there's something kind of inherently feminine in the ephemeral and delicate imagery of Joyce, but I don't think it necessarily follows that that sort of beauty is indicative of spirituality. I think it is for Stephen, certainly, and Stephen's surname brings with it a propensity for wings and flight away from conventional mores of religion; he's always looking for ways to escape.

The idea of the sacred feminine is one that far predates Christianity, though certainly there's something to be said for the deep and abiding love that Catholics have for the Blessed Mother -- mother of Christ, mother of us all. All the same, Aphrodite's parthenogenetic birth (as told by Hesiod) is maybe a more relevant piece of female spirituality. Joyce of course is interested in the Greeks and their ideas of divinity. Their anthropomorphic deities often, in the telling, lack that sort of light spirituality and divinity implied in the passage from Joyce. But Aphrodite emerging from the sea recalls the images of, and indeed grows from, the idea of a mother goddess (and the image itself is certainly more stereotypically spiritual--and beautiful, perhaps--than, say, Athena emerging from her father's head.)

The Muses were of course female, and their brand of spirituality is certainly more specific to artists.

Personally, I can see spirituality in most all things, male or female or neither, because it is something inherently within me. I don't give it a gender. But when I see something that instinctually calls up religious or spiritual feeling in me, it's usually neither male nor female.

[j_forias]

First thing is that you know a lot more about all this than I do. I may well be the most clueless person to ever do a Masters in English Lit. :)

I would agree that this ephemeral, delicate, feminine imagery is not necessarily spiritual - but, I think, as you go on to point out, that it often is in mythical literature, which is interesting.

May I ask what tends to instinctually call up religious or spiritual feeling in you? Because I think I agree. I always find rain incredibly spiritual, for example, or a mountain landscape. Hmm.

[katieowrites]

Right, same kind of idea. Sunlight hittling leaves, the lake by my house, uncontrollable laughing fits, certain noises...

Part of this may have to do with the fact that there's something that doesn't fire in my frontal lobe, and I can't form mental pictures. Like I can't close my eyes and picture anything, though I could tell you what it looked like. So for me it has to be moments or images in a certain instant because for me they're all ephemeral.

[j_forias]

I'm kinda like that with faces. I just can't visualise anybodies face. My mother, my sister, people I've known for years. I can't make that face appear in my mind's eye. Often I won't know a person is my friend until they speak. I'm always half-afraid it's not them, even when I can see them straight-on.

But yes, I certainly hear what you're saying.

[katieowrites]

Also--

I know a lot of this stuff because I've taken plenty of Classics, Mythology, and Art History courses to go along with the Literature. :) Knowing that stuff makes it so much easier to get the allusions and implications. I definitely recommend it.

[j_forias]

Thanks for that advice. Hopefully I'll get the opportunity one day!