The books at the wake: a study of literary allusions in James Joyce's Finnegans wake

the Books at the Wake A Study of Literary Allusions in James Joyce's FINNEGANS WAKE by James S. Atherton

THE BOOI(S AT THE WAKE A Study of Literary Allusions

.

'in

James Joyci's Finnegans Wake

by

JAMES S. ATHERTON

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cm'bondale

Copyright © 1959, 2009 by James S. Atherton All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 12 11 10 09

4 3 2 1

The Library of Congress has cataloged the original issue of this book as follows: Atherton, James S. The books at the wake; a study of literary allusions in James Joyce’s Finnegans wake. Bibliography: p. 1. Joyce, James, 1882–1941. Finnegans wake—Sources. 2. Joyce, James, 1882–1941—Allusions. I. Title. [PR6019.09F55 1974] 823'.9'12 74-5407 ISBN 978-0-8093-0687-9 ISBN 0-8093-0687-5 ISBN 978-0-8093-2933-5 ISBN 0-8093-2933-6 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. ∞

Contents page

Introduction

PART 1. THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

II

27

PART II. THE LITERARY SOURCES I.

The Manuscripts

2. Some typical books

3. The Irish writers 4. Swift, a paradigm of a God 5. Carroll, the unforeseen precursor 6. The Fathers 7. 'The world's a stage'

59 72 89 II4 124 137

149

PART III. THE SACRED BOOKS 8. The Old Testament 9. The New Testament 10. The II. The Book of the Dead 12. The Koran 13. The Eddas 14. Other Sacred Books

169 181 184 191 201

218 224

PART IV. APPENDIX AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES Appendix: Alphabetical list of literary allusions Bibliography I: Books Bibliography II: Articles in periodicals Index

7

233 291

294 297

Acknowledgements My thanks are first due to my friend since schooldays, the late Arnold Davenport, Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Liverpool university, without whose encouragement this book would never have been started, and under whose guidance much of it was written as a dissertation towards the degree of M.A. I am also deeply indebted to two other friends: Adaline Glasheen, the author of A Census of Finnegans Wake, with whom I have exchanged letters almost weekly for the past six years and who has given me an enormous amount of information on Joycean topics; and M. J. C. Hodgart, of Pembroke College, Cambridge, the chief academic authority on Finnegans Wake in this country, of whose work I have made considerable use, and who has given me much valuable advice, particularly on Joyce's use of the Sacred Books. A more recent friend, but an equally keen Joycean, Fritz Senn-Baldinger, of ZUrich, must also be thanked-both for the information he has given me on Joyce's use of Swiss-German and ZUrich, and for kindly offering to prepare the index. Writing a book of this kind makes inordinate demands on libraries. I am grateful to the librarians and staffs of the Wigan Public Library, the Harold Cohen Library at Liverpool University, and the British Museum Library for their unfailing courtesy and helpfulness. Thanks are also due to the editors of English Studies and Comparative Literature for permission to use material which has already appeared in their journals; and to the James Joyce Trustees for permission to quote from Finnegans Wake.

9

Introduction 'An argument/ollows'

(222.21)

P

erhaps-this must be the first word on such a subject-a final literary evaluation of Finnegans Wake will never be made, for any such evaluation must follow and be based upon a complete understanding of the book. No such understanding has yet been reached and none seems to be in sight in spite of the increasing flow of illustrative material. The article on James Joyce in the current edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica correcdy describes Finnegans Wake as 'the extreme of obscurity in modern literature', and might have added that it is not only extremely obscure but extremely long. Joyce worked at it for over seventeen years, often spending more than fourteen hours a day in composition and revision. To read through the book once is a full-time occupation for a week, providing that the reader is prepared to continue reading without pausing to consider the meaning of the words before him. If he does stop to consider there is no limit to the time he may spend; indeed Joyce claimed that he expected his readers to devote their lives to his book. Since its first publication in 1939 several hundreds of articles and over thirty books have appeared explaining its profundities from v:u.;ous view1'oints and in varying ways, but agreement has still not been reached on many fundamental points. Indeed as research continues more complexities are found and a considerable amount of odium theologicum seems to be arising between the chief exegetes. Even the basic plot or groundwork of the book has not been established with certainty. The most influential early attempt to explain the Wake to the reading public was Edmund Wilson's article 'The Dream of H. C. Earwicker' afterwards published in The Wound and the Bow.1 Wilson said that the whole book was an account of a dream by a drunken publican in Chapelizod. Joyce remarked at the time in a letter to Frank Budgen which has only just been published2 that 'Wilson Edmund Wilson, The Wound and the Bow. See Bibliography. Stuart Gilbert (Editor), The Letters of James Joyce. London: Faber and Faber, I957, p. 405. Letter dated 'End July 1939'. (New York: Viking.) 1

~

II

INTRODUCTION makes some curious blunders, e.g. that the 4th old man is lJlster'· But he did not suggest that Wilson was wrong in any-J:ring except minor details. Wilson's interpretation was probably the best, possible at t.~at time with the information then available, and has been followed by many critics including Campbell and Robinson whose A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wakel has provided the basis for much subsequent work; but it does not provide a satisfactory explanation of the Wake as a whole. Indeed Professor Harry Levin whose book, James Joyce, a Critical Introduction, remains in many ways the best introduction to Joyce's work, puts the problem with his usual succinctness when he says, 'these obiter dicta cannot be traced, with any show of plausibility, to the sodden brain of a snoring publican. No psychoanalyst could account for t.1J.e encyclopedic sweep of Earvv"icker's fantasies.'2 Professor Frands I. Thompson, one of the many American scholars who have devoted a great deal oftime to Joyce's work, has suggested3 that all Joyce's books are essentially autobiographies, and that, although 'Perhaps there is an occasional identification of the dreamer with H.C.E.', he is usually 'James Joyce alias Stephen Dedalus'. Louis Gillet, who was friendly vvith Joyce during the years in which the Wake was being written, quotes Joyce as saying that 'Finnegans Wake had nothing in common with Ulysses-f;'est Ie jour et 1a nuit'. But Gillet col1cludes his book with the remark that 'au fond M. Joyce n'a ecrit qu'un seul livre, au, si l'on prefere, differents etats du mente texte'.4 Perhaps Oliver St. John Gogarty can be said to be subscribing to the same theory when he remarks in his book, Rolling Down the Lea, that the 'moderns were left to talk to themselves for Virant of an audience. Joyce went one further and talked to himself in his sleep: hence Finnegans Wake'.s It is more likely, however, that Gogarty simply meant to say that the Wake was nonsense, although earlier in the same book he had written of 'Joyce who loves the Liffey and wrote about its rolling as no other man could.'6 This theory t.lJ.at Joyce is the dreamer has a great deal to recommend it; and stilI more evidence has lately been brought forward in its favour 1 Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson, A Skeleton Key to Firmegans Wake. London: Faber and Faber, 1947. 2 Harry Levin, James Joyce, a Critical Introduction. London: Faber and Faber, 1944, p. I24. • Francis 1. Thompson, 'A Portrait of the Artist Asleep,' The Western Review, XIV, I950, pp. 245-53. 4 Louis Gillet, Stele pour James Joyce. Marsei:Ie: Saginaire, 1941, p. ISO. 5 Oliver St. John Gogarty, Rolling Down the Lea. London: Constable & Co., 1950, p. II7· • Ibid, p. 58.

12

INTRODUCTION by Patricia Hutchins, who has spent several years travelling around Europe to visit the various places where Joyce lived in order to obtain more information about him. She has listed in her latest book, James Joyce's World,l a large number of biographical details of which traces can be found in the Wake. For example, the addresses on the 'Letter, carried of Shaun, son of Hek, written of Shem, brother of Shaun: (420.17)2 turn out to be addresses at which Joyee himself had lived, or at which his relations had lived. '7 Streetpetres. Since Cabranke' (420.35) is 7, St. Peter's Terrace, now Peter Street, Cabra, where Mrs. May Joyce died. 'Finn's Hot.' (420.25) is Finn's Hotel where, as Patricia Hutchins tells us,s 'according to one account' Nora Barnacle, who later became Joyce's wife, worked for a while in Dublin. So many details concerning Joyce's life have been noticed by Patricia Hutchins that she mentions the suggestion which has occasionally been made that Finnegans Wake is a kind of confession. This suggestion is supported by the use Joyce makes in the Wake of various famous books of 'Confessions', St. Augustine's, Rousseau's, James Hogg's Journal and Memoirs of a Justified Sinner, and so on. But in addition to biographical details which have already been pointed out in print there are a great number of others which the various commentators have either not known or not found room for. For example, Joyce usually wore a hat made by the Italian firm of Borselino. This firm and its products figure frequently in the Wake,