Chapter Five

Helpful information for following images and themes can be found  at Pink Monkey's Story Summary  (Barron's Book Notes).

Study Questions for Chapter Five:

1. How does Stephen assess his current state of preparation for becoming the artist he wants to be? How much help will his learning be to him? Why doesn't his mother want him to continue with his education by matriculating to University College, Dublin?

2. Stephen converses with Davin, and then with the Dean, an English Protestant converted to Jesuit Catholicism. What accounts for his distance from the two--the young fellow student and the old man?

3. Stephen argues with some schoolmates--McCann in particular, about the importance of the era's latest social and political goings-on. How does Stephen justify his lack of concern over such events and demands--why doesn't he care much about universal peace and Irish nationalism?

4. Stephen offers his friend Lynch a budding theory of aesthetics. What are some of the main issues with which Stephen is concerned, and how does he propose to deal with them? (Consider what he says about sublime art and kinetic art; and his treatment of lyric, epic, and dramatic forms. Which of the three does he consider best, and why?)

5. Stephen, having caught sight of his old love interest, Emma Clare, reflects on what she has meant to him. What accounts for his ambivalence towards Emma? What are his reflections concerning the poem he has written about Emma?

6. Stephen converses with his friend Cranly. What advice does he offer Stephen? How does this friend assist Stephen as he moves forward and takes the first steps towards independence and life as an artist--that is, what insights does Stephen achieve because of his interaction with Cranly? 

7. A Portrait concludes with some journal entries. What is the subject of these entries, and what insights about Stephen's state of mind does the style of the entries give you?

8. In his final journal entry, Stephen writes that he will "forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race."  To what extent might we see Stephen's life up to this point as an embodiment of Modernist claims about the relationship between an artist and his work, and between that work and the artist's society and historical epoch?

Following are helpful definitions for some troubling phrases and vocabulary in Chapter Five:

going for blue: working as hard as possible (alternatively, "bluing" is used in washing clothes) 

176.12 sloblands: local term for a particular trashy area of tidal flatland 

176.29 waistcoateers: prostitutes (Elizabethan term) 

176.30 chambering: wanton sexual indulgence (Elizabethan term) 

176.35 Synopsis Philosophiae. . .: A Synopsis of Scholastic Philosophy for the Understanding of St. Thomas (Aquinas) 

177.13 hoardings: billboards 

179.14 Ivory, ivoire, avorio, ebur: the same word in English, French, Italian, and Latin. 

179.16 India mittit ebur: India sends (or produces) ivory 

179.23 Contrahit orator... vates: "The orator summarizes; the poet [or prophet] amplifies [or transforms]" 

179.25 in tanto discrimine: "in such a crisis" 

179.27 implere ollam denariorum: to fill the jar with denarii (Roman silver coins) 

180.34 Gael: Irishman or Celt 

181.12 cycles: related groups of Irish myths and legends 

181.20 tame geese: joke on "the wild geese," term for Irish who went into exile 

182.4 hurling match: Irish game, a sort of field hockey 

182.7 buff: skin 

182.7 minding cool: playing safety 

182.10 woeful wipe: huge blow to the ball 

182.11 camaun: curved stick used in hurling 

182.11 aim's ace: very small amount or distance 

182.18 yoke: any artifact 

183.25 handsel: good luck omen or gift; also money, as in a tip 

185.15 levite: subordinate priest 

185.17 canonicals: prescribed vestments 

185.17 ephod: Old Testament religious garment 

186.1 Pulchra sunt quae visa placent: "That is beautiful which gives pleasure to the eye" 

186.7 Bonum est in quod tendit appetitus: "That is good toward which the appetite is moved" [or which is desired] 

186.27 Similiter atque senis baculus: "Like an old man's walking stick" 

189.15 insufflation: breathing on someone or something to symbolize the coming of the Holy Ghost and the banishing of evil spirits 

190.19 Per aspera ad astra: "By rough ways to the stars" (a clich ) 

190.35 Kentish fire: prolonged stamping or clapping to show impatience or disapproval 

194.11 Closing time, gents!: How the end of legal drinking hours might be announced at a pub 

194.26 Ego habeo: "I have," in "Dog-Latin," a humorous schoolboy imitation of Latin that translates English words literally and is scattered throughout the following conversations. 

194.28 Quod?: "What?" 

194.32 Per pax universalis: "For universal peace" 

195.5 Credo ut vos. . .estis: "I think you are a bloody liar, because your face shows you are in a damned bad humor" 

195.18 Quis est. . . vos: "Who is in a bad humor, you or me?" 

196.28 rescript: originally, an epistle issued by the pope regarding some question referred to him 

197.5 cod: a joker or fool 

198.3 Pax super. . .globum: "Peace over the whole bloody world" 

198.31 Nos ad. . .jacabimus: "Let's go play handball" 

199.27 matric men. . .second arts: referring to a set of four examinations to be passsed before a degree is granted 

200.28 super spottum: "on the spot" 

202.2 fianna: Irish (Gaelic) for Fenians 

202.17 league class: class in Irish language sponsored by the Gaelic League 204.20 eke: archaic for "also" [Cranly probably means to say "e'en"] 

205.27 carmelite: order of nuns 

207.32 Pulchra sunt. . .placent: see 186.1 

210.7 Pange lingua gloriosi: "Tell, my tongue, in glorious. . .", part of the opening line of a hymn by Aquinas 

210.10 Vexilla Regis: from "Vexilla Regis Prodeunt", "The Banners of the King Advance" 

210.14 Impleta sunt. . .Deus: "Fulfilled is all that David told / In true prophetic song of old: / Amidst the nations, God, saith he, / Hath reigned and triumphed from the Tree." 

210.23 plucked: flunked 

216.15 stewing: unintelligent, grinding study 

216.20 Ego credo. . . Liverpoolio: "I believe that the life of the poor is simply awful, simply bloody awful, in Liverpool" (Dog-Latin) 

217.8 seraphim: the highest order of angels 

217.35 villanelle: nineteen-line poem using only two rhymes, with rhymes and lines repeated according to a set pattern 

218.16 censer: holder for incense, often roughly spherical 

221.11 potboy: waiter who serves beer or ale 

224.4 ashplant: Joyce's term for a staff made of the wood of an ash 

225.7 augur: Roman professional prophet 

229.16 a touch: sexual play or intercourse 

229.17 hack. . .hunter: ordinary horse. . . prize horse 

230.14 Pernobilis et pervetusta familia: "Of a noble and venerable family" 

230.24 paulo post futurum: grammatical term referring to the verb form used for an event about to happen 

231.26 ballocks: set of testicles (figuratively, a clumsy oaf or a mess) 

231.35 dual number: obsolete grammatical form for nouns indicating a pair 

233.14 pavan: a formal kind of Elizabethan dance 

236.23 sugan: rope made of straw (Irish) 

238.8 jarvies: horse-cab drivers 

239.1 easter duty: going to communion service on Easter 

243.31 penal days: period (mostly in the eighteenth century) when especially repressive "penal laws" against Irish Catholics were enforced 

244.13 Mulier cantat: "The [or a] woman sings" 

244.24 Et tu cum Jesu Galilaeo eras: "And you were with Jesus of Galilee" 

244.27 proparoxyton: rhetorical term for a (Latin) word having the acute accent on the next to last syllable 

248.14 Item: term used in wills in enumerating bequests 

248.16 veronica: a cloth bearing the image of Jesus' face 

248.19 decollated: beheaded 

248.29 B.V.M.: Blessed Virgin Mary 

249.6 risotto alla bergamasca: a rice dish made as in Bergamo (Italian) 

250.21 Tara. . . Holyhead: Tara is the traditional Irish seat of kings, Holyhead a Welsh port commonly used by Irish leaving the country.