Unholy Epiphanies: Faith, Art and the Fractured Self in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

This article proposes a rereading of the novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as a fully realised modernist work, with aesthetic and theoretical value in its own right, and not as a mere preparatory stage for Ulysses. The analysis follows the way in which Joyce constructs a layered narrative discourse, which reflects a process of artistic formation marked by a tension between religious authority and creative autonomy. The study argues that the protagonist’s aesthetic choice does not imply a simplistic break with tradition, but a critical negotiation of cultural structures, influenced by Aristotelian-Thomist aesthetics. An essential aspect of the analysis is the sound dimension of the novel, treated as a vector of artistic signification in itself, through which language becomes a carrier of affect, rhythm and sensory experience. Stephen Dedalus’ artistic identity is approached as a discursive form in the making, resulting from an active intertextuality, marked by classical, Christian and symbolist-decadent references. The article engages with both canonical exegesis (Ellmann, Kenner, Bloom) and recent criticism (Kiberd, Attridge, Nolan), offering an integrative perspective. Finally, it argues that the novel should not be interpreted as a transitional text, but as a cohesive Künstlerroman, which prefigures, without being subordinated, the subsequent narrative explorations in Joyce’s work.