"A light began to tremble on the horizon of his mind."
— Joyce, James (1882-1941)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Grant Richards Ltd.
Date
1914
Metaphor
"A light began to tremble on the horizon of his mind."
Metaphor in Context
Every step brought him nearer to London, farther from his own sober inartistic life. A light began to tremble on the horizon of his mind. He was not so old -- thirty--two. His temperament might be said to be just at the point of maturity. There were so many different moods and impressions that he wished to express in verse. He felt them within him. He tried to weigh his soul to see if it was a poet's soul. Melancholy was the dominant note of his temperament, he thought, but it was a melancholy tempered by recurrences of faith and resignation and simple joy. If he could give expression to it in a book of poems perhaps men would listen. He would never be popular: he saw that. He could not sway the crowd but he might appeal to a little circle of kindred minds. The English critics, perhaps, would recognise him as one of the Celtic school by reason of the melancholy tone of his poems; besides that, he would put in allusions. He began to invent sentences and phrases from the notices which his book would get. Mr Chandler has the gift of easy and graceful verse._...A wistful sadness pervades these poems._...The Celtic note. It was a pity his name was not more Irish--looking. Perhaps it would be better to insert his mother's name before the surname: Thomas Malone Chandler, or better still: T. Malone Chandler. He would speak to Gallaher about it.
Categories
Provenance
Searching "mind" in HDIS Joyce Database
Citation
Electronic Version of Dubliners (Academic Text Service of Stanford University: Stanford, 1995).
Date of Entry
09/28/2006
