Rush Write 3.23

On a separate piece of paper, respond to the following quote (and questions) (I’m looking for more than a half page here probably).

Joyce: An artist is the magician put among men to gratify — capriciously — their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously, from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of tyrants, yes even in the celebration of nonentities. What now of the Trojan War if it had been passed over by the artist's touch? Dust. A forgotten expedition prompted by Greek merchants looking for new markets. A minor redistribution of broken pots. But it is we who stand enriched, by a tale of heroes, of a golden apple, a wooden horse, a face that launched a thousand ships — and above all, of Ulysses, the wanderer, the most human, the most complete of all heroes — husband, father, son, lover, farmer, soldier, pacifist, politician, inventor and adventurer.

--Travesties, Tom Stoppard


Questions:
1. How do artists “gratify men’s urge for mortality”? (According to the quote and to your own experience.)
2. What is Joyce (the speaker) arguing about art in regards to the Trojan War? Do you agree or disagree, why?
3. Ok, but we know that Homer’s telling of the Trojan War isn’t necessarily historically accurate, right? According to the speaker is it still valuable/valid? According to your opinion does accuracy affect a work of art’s value?