On the Wings of Art (Audio: Lecture III.1.1)

Description

This talk, the first in Volume 1, “The Mythic Novels of James Joyce” is entitled “On Wings of Art.” It was recorded at the Esalen Institute on November 25, 1983.

Only Campbell could make Joyce seem so accessible, and he was eminently qualified to do so since he spent a good portion of his life studying Joyce. From Campbell’s early association with Henry Morton Robinson, Joe could interpret the works of James Joyce in terms of myth and art. His literary and mythological passion for Joyce is informative and infectious! Campbell reading from Joyce with his New York accent is worth hearing in and of itself. A delightful introduction to James Joyce.

“That’s all there is to it. The rhythm includes shapes, colors, the spaces between. And in writing if all you’re interested in is communicating information the problem is simply to write literate intelligible sentences that are not too long to be understood and paragraphs that are… shaped so that they’re consistent in themselves and the next paragraph, you know, when to start it so that the argument is carried on. But if you want to write and have a radiance come through, this rhythm of your prose is very very important, the words that you choose, the clang of the vowels and all, all of these things matter.”