The tragic emotion, in fact, is a face looking two ways, towards terror and towards pity, both of which are phases of it. You see I use the word ARRE… - James Joyce

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Engraved portrait of James Joyce, facing right

The tragic emotion, in fact, is a face looking two ways, towards terror and towards pity, both of which are phases of it. You see I use the word ARREST. I mean that the tragic emotion is static. Or rather the dramatic emotion is. The feelings excited by improper art are kinetic, desire or loathing. Desire urges us to possess, to go to something; loathing urges us to abandon, to go from something. The arts which excite them, pornographical or didactic, are therefore improper arts. The esthetic emotion (I used the general term) is therefore static. The mind is arrested and raised above desire and loathing.

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About James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, short-story writer and poet.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, James_Joyce_by_Alex_Ehrenzweig,_1915_restored.jpg: *James_Joyce_by_Alex_Ehrenzweig,_1915.jpg: Alex Ehrenzweig derivative work: RedAppleJack (talk) derivative work: Missionary (talk) (Public domain / CC0)

Also Known As

Birth Name: James Augustine Aloysius Joyce

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Additional quotes by James Joyce

An exquisite dulcet epithalame of most mollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom the odoriferous flambeaus of the paranymphs have escorted to the quadrupedal proscenium of connubial communion.

Yes, it was her he was looking at, and there was meaning in his look. His eyes burned into her as though they would search her through and through, read her very soul.

When the moon of mourning is set and gone.
Over Glinaduna.
Lonu nula.
Ourselves, oursouls alone.
At the site of salvocean.
And watch would the letter you’re wanting be coming may be.
And cast ashore.

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