6.2. The Contents and the Markers of the Aesthetic Function in the mfat

Having taken both Aquinas’s theory and Joyce’s development of it as a basis of our assumptions we consider the aesthetic function of the text as its property to evoke an aesthetic pleasure (satisfaction) or disgust. We take INTEGRITY, HARMONY and CLARITY (Integritas, Consonantia, Claritas) as the three objective constituents of the category of the beautiful.

QUESTIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS:

6.2.1. Integrity

First and foremost we should define the markers of textual INTEGRITY. They are:

1. structural wholeness(accomplishment, integrity);

2. the development of one or two (not more) ideas(events) in a structural whole;

3. the presence of opposites at different levels of the text. [When postulating the dependence of textual integrity upon the presence of opposites in it we take as a maxim a structuralism thesis that the whole universe (reflected partially in languages and texts as language and speech units) is structured in binary opposites.)

If we take a paragraph or a poem we should note that its structural wholeness is marked by logical coherence. In a paragraph, for instance logical coherence is structured in the following way: (a) introduction of and idea in an introductory sentence (b) accentuation of the idea in a topic sentence (c) development of the idea or argumentation in body sentences (d) summing up in a concluding sentence. In a sonnet logical constituents such as thesis, antithesis, synthesis and conclusion mark structural wholeness. In a narrative, constituents of a plot - (a) introduction (b) setting, (c) a rising action including complications/resolution, (d) climax (e) a falling action (f) catastrophe mark it. Even if a paragraph, or a poem, or a narrative has intertextual units that turn it into a multilevel hypertext, on the surface (in a space between the margin) it could not be structured differently, otherwise it will loose its integrity

These properties are characteristic for the text under analysis (the final episode from “Ulysses”). Notwithstanding its peculiar punctuation it presents an integrated (accomplished) unit. In other words this text shares with other texts the markers of integrity, i.e.

• It offers the reminiscences of a single event (Bloom’s proposal to Marion on a June day of 1888 in Gibraltar – deixis 1) that is being projected upon the moment of action (love-making in the evening of the 16^th of June 1904 – deixis 2). It is obvious that not more than two events are in the center of the text development.

• The whole episode is structured as a narrative. When we analysed the Communicative Function of this text we traced the following plot structure:

  1. setting: Marion took Bloom to a paradise-like place in the Gibraltar mountains and gave him a piece of biscuit from her lips;

  2. rising action: Bloom gave her a passionate kiss;

  3. climax: Bloom proposed to Marion

  4. possible complication: She hesitated to accept his proposal and started thinking about other men she had made love with;

  5. resolution: they together strolled about the sunlit town;

  6. falling action: new kisses and embraces in the night when they misses a ship.

  7. Catastrophe: Marion agrees to become Bloom’s wife.

• The major opposites of this text are:

  1. conceptual – the opposition of natural behaviour and socially conventional behaviour;

  2. syntactic - the opposition of traditional punctuation (unmarked in the text) and semantisized and vocalized punctuation;

  3. lexical – the opposition of lexemes with positive and negative denotative and connotative meaning.

All these properties allow considering the passage under analysis an accomplished unit. The analysis revealed that this text fits the first objective criteria of the category of the beautiful.

QUESTIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS: