When Cathedral College Seminary opened in 1967 in Douglaston, I was appointed by Bishop Bryan McEntegart to be a full-time professor on the faculty. In fact, the bishop had sent me in 1964 to get a doctorate in philosophy so that I could be a full-time member of the faculty at the four-year college seminary he was planning to build in Douglaston, Queens. In the early years of the college seminary, there was an adjunct professor teaching English. His name was Irwin Geisman, and he taught full-time at Fordham University. I have to attribute how he wound up teaching part-time at Cathedral to Divine Providence because of the impact he had on the students. Irwin was a really great teacher.
As I recall, over a two-year cycle, Irwin taught four courses, one each semester. One course was on James Joyce, one on Gerard Manley Hopkins, one on T.S. Eliot, and one on William Faulkner. I frequently sat in on his lectures and took the entire course on James Joyce.
There were four assignments that I committed myself to when I took the course on Joyce. First, I read the chapter in Joyce’s novel, “Ulysses,” that was being lectured on in class. Then I read a chapter in a book about Joyce that dealt with the chapter in “Ulysses,” about which Geisman lectured. The third step was attending Geisman’s lecture on the chapter, and the last step was rereading the chapter in Joyce’s novel. I told a priest friend about my taking the course and the four steps that I took for each chapter in Joyce that was being lectured on in class.
My priest friend asked, “Is the course worth all that work?”
I said, “Yes, it is. Taking the course has given me a new appreciation of the depth of meaning that a human mind can reach. The course has provided me with one of the most marvelous intellectual experiences in my life.”
In last week’s column I tried to explain philosopher Jacques Maritain’s philosophy of art, which I embrace completely.
Maritain claimed that there were two components to any significant work of art. One he called the “matter,” by which he meant any material elements that are used in producing the work, such as canvas and oil for painting, stone for sculpture, and plot and character for novels, plays, and films.
He called the other component creative intuition, which is quite mysterious. I think we all have intuitions or insights into reality, but the artist’s insight drives him or her to create a work of art. When a profound intuition is incarnated into matter successfully, a masterpiece is produced.
A creative intuition is not an idea or a concept. It cannot be verbalized. Ideally, the creative intuition is present in the artist, in the completed work, and in the person who is experiencing the work of art. A work of art that did not originate with an artist’s creative intuition would not be “saying” anything and would not be communicating any deep meaning.
Since writing last week’s column, I have been reflecting on a work of art applying Maritain’s theory. The work of art I have chosen is my favorite novel, Graham Greene’s “The End of the Affair.” I cannot verbalize Greene’s creative intuition, but I am certain that he had one because of the novel’s excellence. I am guessing that the intuition had something to do with the mystery of God. That is my guess because the novel is about the mystery of God’s love. I think the meaning of the title of the novel is that the word “end” means the ultimate “goal” of all love is the God Who is Love.
The novel could be examined in many ways. For example, it could be evaluated in terms of its characters, plot, and dramatic moments. A long section of the work is from the diary of one of the female characters. I have no idea how Greene was able to achieve successfully introducing a female voice into the novel, but he did.
I think the first page of the novel is one of the best introductions to any novel I have read. Greene subtly reveals the mystery of love at the heart of the story. One critic compared the novel to “The Confessions of Saint Augustine.”
Though we cannot verbalize a creative intuition, its presence or absence at the center of a work of art is, I believe, a crucial element in the quality of a work of art. Artistic masterpieces are a marvelous gift offered to us by dedicated artists. I wonder if we can appreciate just how marvelous those gifts are.