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,
13
INTRODUCTION is immense, his spirit unquenchable • • . no featureless abstraction labelled Everyman, but a real character, almost a Dickensian one, conceived in comedy, executed in admiration'.l His supporting characters are almost equally vivid: A.L.P., 'Anna Livia" who is at once mother, wife, and the River Liffey, grows old as the book progresses, and her final speech (619.20 et seq.) in addition to being a wonderfully beautiful piece of prose, contains a complete and coherent picture of a change in family relationships shown in full perspective. Shem and Shaun, the warring brothers, may be based upon Joyce and his enemies and friends who form what Kenner has called 'his shadow selves? but in Finnegans Wake they are characters in their own right. In fact, Finnegans Wake is, as M. J. C. Hodgan insists, 'primarily a novel'.3 This may seem to be estaWshing the obvious, but it is an important fact which must be borne in mind when considering two secondary questions that arise: what is the novel about, and what-if anything-is it besides a novel? Any attempt to answer these questions must take into account Joyce's own attitude to his book. One of the certain facts about Finnega:ns Wake is the high and eamest sense of dedication with which Joyce wrote it. He saw himself as the Vates, the poet and prophet, and his work as the sacred book of a new religion of which he was the prophet and priest. Without this sense of dedication he could never have continued so long at his self-imposed task. But he felt that if it could only be written down correctly it would have a power of its own. His attitude bordered, perhaps, on madness; he himself admitted that he was superstitious about the power of his words. As early as 1919 he wrote to .Miss Weaver, 'The word scorching has a peculiar significance for my superstitious mind not so much because of any quality or merit in the writing itself as for the fact that the progress of the book is like the progress of some sandblast. As soon as I mention any person in it I hear of his or her death or departure or misfortune and each successive episode, dealing with some province of artistic culture leaves behind it a burnt up field." In his introduction to Joyce's Letters Stuart Gilbert reports that 'on more than one occasion Joyce told me 1 Adaline Glasheen, A Census of Finnegans Wake. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1956, p. 54, and London: Faber & Faber, 1957 (same pagin2tion). • Hugh Kenner, Dublin's Joyce. London: Chatto and Windus, 1955, p. 354. 3 M. J. C. Hodgart, 'Shakespeare and Firmegans Wake; The Cambridge Journal, Vol. VI, No. 12, Sept, 1953, p. 736. 4 Letters, p. 129. Letter dated '20 July 1919'.
I4
INTRODUCTION that certain incidents in his writings had proved to be premonitions of incidents that subsequently took place'.l When the Russo-Finnish War broke out shortly after the publication of Finnegans Wake Joyce wrote, 'As foretold by the prophet, the Finn again wakes.'2 He adds, 'I should not jest', but the next letter in the collection contains the passage, 'My daughter-in-law staged a marvellous banquet for my last birthday and read the dosing pages on the passing-out of Anna Livia to a seemingly much affected audience. Alas, if you ever read them you will see they were unconsciously prophetical!' And the letter ends, 'I have received a number of foreign notices of my book . . . the most curious comes from Helsinki where as was predicted, the Finn again wakes.' In fact Joyce believed that his words were 'Words of silent power' (345.I9). Eugene Jolas relates that Joyce once said to him, '1 have discovered that I can do anything with language I want.'3 Yet Jolas goes on to say that Joyce seemed to be 'constantly listening, constantly on the look-out for interesting or significant phrases which could be used in his book. The book was indeed his life and he believed that he was enttapping some part of the essence of life within its pages. While he could do 'anything with language' he believed that somehow the spirit oflanguage was working through him of its own volition. An anecdote given by Richard Ellmann4 shows Joyce's unusual attitude: 'Beckett was taking dictation from Joyce for Finnegans Wake; there was a knock on the door and Joyce said, "Come in". Beckett, who hadn't heard the knock, by mistake wrote down HCome in" as part of the dictated text. Afterwards he read it back to Joyce who said, HWhat's that 'Come in'?" "That's what you dictated," Beckett replied. Joyce thought for a moment, realizing that Beckett hadn't heard the knock; then he said, "Let it stand." The very fact that the misunderstanding had occurred in actuality gave it prestige for Joyce.' This incident shows-I thiukrather more than Kenner suggests. Joyce was not in his own opinion simply writing a book, he was also performing a work of magic. But the fundamental question-What is Finnegans Wake about?-has not yet received a satisfactory answer. One of the first, and at first sight most satisfYing, answers is that put forward by Samuel Beckett. 'It is Ibid., p. 30 • • Ibid., p. 408. • Sean Givens (Editor), Two Decades of Joyce Criticism. New York; The Vanguard Press, 1948, p. 13. 'Richard Ellmann, 'The Backgrounds of Ulysses,' The Kenyon Review, Vol. XVI, No. 3, Summer, I954, p. 359. 1
IS
INTRODUCTION not about something,' he wrote. 'It is that something itself.'l This could be interpreted to mean that Finnegans Wake is a microcosm constituting Joyce's challenge to God's macrocosm, and if this is what Beckett meant it is partly true. Indeed, Joyce wrote to Miss Weaver saying that 'Up till the last day I had to supervise it', and again to Valery Larbaud saying that 'I did stand behind those twelve Marshals more or less directing them what lines of research to follow up', 2 so it can be assumed that the essay by Beckett, who was the leader of the 'twelve Marshals', was on lines suggested by Joyce. But from the general tenor of Beckett's article it appears that what he was doing was putting down profound-sounding phrases which he had heard from Joyce without being sure of their significance and without being able to develop the themes they stated. He ties himself once into a quite inextricable knot with the remark, 'You complain that this stuff is not written in English. It is not written at all.'s Kenner says that Joyce found his Paris disciples amusing,4 and Joyce seems to remark in Finnegans Wake that Beckett did not understand the book. Beckett can hardly be blamed for this but he should have realized that he is the 'Boy' who is 'lost in the bush' (II2.3). The passage continues-'You say it is a puling sample jungle of woods. You most shouts out: Bethicket me for a stump of a beech if I have the poultriest notions what the farest he all means.' The word 'Bethicket' gives us a picture of Beckett lost in a bush, or thicket, and the whole passage is a goodhumoured parody of Beckett's prose style. It is notably good-humoured; Joyce never seems to lose patience with his critics. It is rather surprising that Kenner, who was the first to point out that Beckett and his collaborators in Our Exagmination were the origins of Joyce's twelve Marshals, does not realize that Joyce's tone to his critics is friendly or that he himself has arrived at roughly the same conclusion as Beckett. 'Joyce worked seventeen years to push the work away from "meaning"; adrift back into language ..• He had his attention fixed on people talking not on what the words "really" meant.'5 Joyce himself explained what he was trying to do in Finnegans Wake 1 Samuel BeCkett (and others), Our Exagmination Round His Factification for the Incamination of Work in Progress. Paris: Shakespeare & Co., Sylvia Beach, 1929, p. 9. This book was issued in America with the title An Exagmiru;;tion of James Joyce. In future I shall refer to it as An Exagmination. 2 Letters, p. 279. Letter dated '27 May I929', and p. 283, letter dated '30 July 192 9'. sAn Exagmination, p. 14• .. Dublin's Joyce, p. 362. G Ibid., p. 30 4.
I6
INTRODUCTION on many occasions. Louis Gillet describes how, 'With absolute simplicity, quite devoid of pretentiousness, he furnished me with the key to his work. He explained to me the mystery of the titanic figure H.C.E., the unique, many-faceted hero of innumerable incarnations ... He told me about the language he had adopted in order to give his vocabulary the elasticity of sleep, to multiply the meaning of words, to permit the play of light and colour, and make of each sentence a rainbow to which each drop is itself a many-hued prism.'l During a discussion of Sheridan Le Fanu's The House by the Churchyard with Frank Budgen, Joyce is said to have remarked2 that the basis of the book was an encounter between his father and a tramp in Phoenix Park. This encom:ter took place at the exact spot where Dangerfield was said to have struck. down Sturk in Le Fanu's novel. Joyce said to Jolas that he was 'Trying to tell the story of this Chapelizod family in a new way ... Time and the river and the mountain are the real heroes of my book.'3 The most detailed of Joyce's explanations are contained in his letters to Miss Weaver to whom he sent each section as it was completed, and often accompanied it with a note of explanation. Miss Weaver is always ready to help students of Jo)ce's work, and when I wrote to her some time ago to ask her opinion of the various interpretations of the Wake she replied, 'I own that the Skeleton Key, though extremely useful in many ways, has its irritating features-at least it has to me. The authors seem to me to read unwarranted things into the book. In particular their ascription of the whole thing to a dream of HCE seems to me nonsensical ... My view is that Mr. Joyce did not intend the book to be looked upon as the dream of anyone character, but that he regarded the dream form with its shiftings and changes and chances as a convenient device, allowing the freest scope to introduce any material he wished-and suited to a night-piece.' Another account of Finnegans Wake was given by Miss Weaver to Professor Joseph Prescott to whom she wrote, 'In the summer of 1923 when Mr. Joyce was staying with his family in England he told me he wanted to write a book which should be a kind of universal history and I typed for him a f<'""'N preliminary sketches he had made for isolated characters in the book.'''' When Miss Weaver complained to Joyce that she could not James Joyce's World, p. 178. Two Decades of Criticism, p. 352. 3 Ibid., p. II. ~ Joseph Prescott, 'Concerning the Genesis of Finnegans Wake; PMLA., Vol. LXIX, NO.5, Dec. 1954. 1
2
17
INTRODUCTION understand the extracts she was typing for him he replied, 'I am sorry that Patrick and Berkeley are unsuccessful in explaining themselves. The answer, I suppose, is that given by Paddy Dignam's apparition: metempsychosis. Or perhaps the theory of history so well set forth (after Hegel and Giambattista Vico) by the fout eminent annalists who are even now treading the typepress in sorrow will explain part of my meaning. I work as I can and these are not fragments but active elements and when they are more and a little older they will begin to fuse of themselves.'l These reports of Joyce's own explanations of the Wake seem to me to provide the only possible foundation on which to build an interpretation of the Wake. If Joyce's explanations seem to be selfcontradictory then an interpretation must be found which resolves the contradictions; and it seems to me that such an interpretation can be found. The book is, Joyce has told us, a universal history according to the cyclic theory of history, usually associated with Hegel, which Joyce took from Vico's New Science. The book itself is written in cyclic form not because it has no beginning and end-there is an obvious development as the book progresses and the houts of its night move towards dawn-but because when it has finished it all has to begin all over again in accordance with Vico's theory. What seem to be new characters in different parts of the book are better thought of as reincarnations. This is what Joyce meant by his reference to metempsychosis. Finn, for example, is not supplanted by H.C.E.; he becomes H.C.E. The book in fact is a novel about one man and his family which becomes a history of mankind.
The lengthened shadnw of a man Is history, said Emers/yll. Eliot's tag provides one explanation of J oyee's leap from the particular to the universal. Another could be found in the work of the modem psychologists: Jung's theories of the collective unconscious, and Freud's theories of the multiple layers of personality, together with the importance both attach to the dream in the study of mental life. Many other explanations could be given, none of which is in itself sufficient or excludes the possible importance of others. To put the whole matter briefly Finnegans Wake is based on two things: Joyce's life, and Joyce's reading. The difficulties it presents are due to various causes, of which the three main ones seem to be these: 1
Letters, p. 204. Letter dated '9 October 1923'.
18
INTRODUCTION first, since Joyce was writing on several planes of meaning, every sentence has several connotations; second, since much of his ma~erial is autobiographical, it can be understood only with the help of his biographers; and third, that Joyce's reading was extraordinarily wide and that he based his book on an amazing variety of other books. It is wi6 this third difficulty that the present book is concerned. W< en Joyce wrote to Miss Weaver explaining a passage in his book he otten told her of some book she oUght to read if she wished to understand what he had written. Some of the books he mentioned were well known: The Book of Kells, for instance; others, like Vieo's New Science, have become better known since Joyce's work was published. Sometimes they are books one would not have knO\vn if Joyce's letters to Miss Weaver had not been published; for example he wrote: 'Miss Beach will send you a book of spirit talks with Oscar Wilde which will explain one page of it.'l But he did not mention to Miss Weaver all the books he used. Indeed, his usual method was to make use of a book without mentioning it to anyone, so far as we know, and then to insert a reference to the book, as a kind of acknowledgement, somewhere in his own text. I think that I was the first to point out that several pages of Finnegans Wake are based upon Rowntree's Poverty,2 and many other books have been discovered that shed light upon various sections of the Wake. The special difficulty of tracing literary sources and literary allusions in the works ofJames Joyce has already been pointed out by Robert G. Kelly who wrote that Joyce, 'inunediately recognising his strong point, struck the pose of the intellectual. Whatever else might be against him he would exceed in intelligence all his rivals. He would exceed them, be it noted, not in the practical productions of such intelligence but in the mere self-sufficient fact of it, making intellectuality a virtue in its own pedantic right. As Gogarty says "No man had more erudition at so early an age." The young student sought, moreover, with defensive logic to excel in those areas of least competition. He became a literary antiquarian whose knowledge, conspicuous because of its strangeness, bore more weight per given quantity. He delved into medieval tracts, studied learned discussion of conscience (Agenbite of Inwit) by forgotten monks, and memorized quaint old ballads suitable to his musical taste and abilities.'3 1 Letters, p. 224. Letter dated 'I January, I92S'. See p. 48 for an account of the book in question. 2 T. L. S., Nov. 23rd, 749. 3 Robett G. Kelly, 'James a Partial Explanation,' PMLA, LXIV, March, 1949, p. 26.
19
INTRODUCTION The books described by Mr. Kelly are not, in fact, quite as recherche as he suggests, nor are they typical of anything but one aspect of Joyee's reading: its variety. The range of J oyee's interests can be seen better in a list he sent to .Miss Weaver:
• 'Shakespeare in Finnega1l$ Wake', p. 735. 20
I~TRODUCTION
a major tenet of their creed was 'Nommer est detruire', one sees that this was the purest politeness on Joyce's part. But there are other authors, such as Aristopl131'les-the 'Brekkek Kekkek' from whose Frogs is prominent on page 4-whose names do not occur, without there being any reason that I can see for their omission. Perhaps Joyce simply forgot, although he rarely seemed to forget any1:hing. But there are so few such omissions-perhaps a dozen out of the hundreds of quotations Joyce makes---':that there is probably a reason for each one, unless-of course-the answer is simply that I have not recognized the name I have looked for in its J oycean transmutation. What seemed at first likely to be a great help in this work was a catalogue which appeared in I949 of an exhibition including what was described as 'James Joyce's Working Library'.l The library itself was acquired in autunm I950 by the Lockwood Memorial Library of the University of Buffalo, and a descriptive bibliography entitled The Personal Library ofJames Joyce, by Thomas E. Connolly2 was published by the University of Buffalo in I955. This publication has proved helpful in several ways, but unfortunately the collection it describes cannot be more than a small fraction of Joyce's actual 'working library', and it contains many presentation copies of books, sent to Joyce by admirers, which he kept but never opened. Many books which Joyce said he had used, and many others which he can be proved to have used, are not included. One reason for this is that Joyce frequently changed his address and often had to store his books. He wrote to Miss Weaver in February, 1931, 'I have sent away four-fifths of my books, keeping only dictionaries and books of reference.' But towards the end of the same letter he complains that 'such an amount of reading seems to be necess~v:y before myoId flying n13chine gtun'lbles up into the air', 3 whici.J. must mean that he was getting fresh books. Moreover Joyce often made use of books belonging to his friends when he could no longer use public libraries owing to his defective visiOn. He wrote to Miss Weaver of 'Crosby-who has a huge illustrated edition of the Book of the Dead bequeathed him by his uncle'.4 A good deal of use is made of this book in Finnega:ns Wake, and from Joyce's description, and 1 Gheerbrant, Bernard (Compiler), James Joyce: Sa Vie, Son Rayonnement. Paris: La Rune, 1949. • Thomas E. Connolly, The Personal Library of James Joyce. Buffalo: The University of Buffalo Press, 1955. 3 Letters, p. 299. Letter dated '16 February 1931'. & Ibid., p. 28I. See below, 'The Sacred Books', for a detailed account of Joyce's use oftrus book.
2I
INTRODUCTION interior evidence, it must be the edition published by the British Museum in 1890. It was not, of course, in Joyce's library. A further difficulty arises from Joyce's custom of using his friends as research teams to look up facts which he needed for his book. The sort of thing that happened can be seen from an account given by Patricia Hutchins of a conversation she had with Stuart Gilbert. Gilbert said that he had never known anyone else with Joyce's gift for getting people to do things for him. '1 used to call them "Joyce's runabout men", said Gilbert.'l They looked up references in libraries, compiled lists of foreign words and made summaries of books. Sometimes Joyce supplied a copy of the book and then the notes were made in the book itself. One of the most interesting items in the Joyce library at Buffalo is a book annotated for Joyce by one of his helpers. The book is Heinrich Zimmer's Maya der indische Mythos and Professor Connolly reproduces some pages of notes which were put into the book by one of Joyce's helpers. 2 Kenner describes the scene more acidly: 'Against avant-garde Paris he was u'1e dean of a supergraduate-school, harnessing the adulatory energy of the Transition cenacle for secretarial work; we hear of them searching "through numerous notebooks with mysterious reference points to be. inserted in the text", or transcribing reports on assigned readings into notebooks which Joyce condensed into a line or a paragraph.' But I think that Kenner is right in his contention that Joyce did not allow his friends' contributions to occupy much space in his book, although some help was necessary because of his near-blindness which often made him unable to read at all. There does not, however, seem to be any simple answer to any of the complicated problems set by Finnegans Wake; and an attempt to trace the literary allusions which Joyce makes cannot be expected to follow any prescribed plan. The order in which I have dealt with the works that I consider Joyce to have used is based largely upon expedience. Works are classed together in groups, sometimes rather vaguely defined, according to some common factor they seem to share. I begin with a discussion of what I have called 'The Structural Books'-works such as Vico's New Science and Levy-Brubl's How Natives Think-from which it seems to me that the eclectic logic underlying Finnegans Wake was constructed. And I have ventured to extract from them some 'axioms' which may bear some resemblance to the tacit assumptions Joyce made when he was writing his book. Books considered under this head exert an influence on the Wake as 1
James Joyce's World, p. 168.
• CoDnolly, pp. 42-7.
22
INTRODUCTION a whole. In the second section I have tried to show how Joyce used books as a basis for particular sections of his work. I begin, out of respect for tradition, with the manuscripts he used-although in fact they were not manuscripts but reproductions or mere descriptions of manuscripts. I then try to show the use Joyce made of some typical books; of the writings of the Fathers of the Church; of Irish writers; and so on. I am aware of the shortcomings of the third part which is an attempt to analyse Joyce's use of the Sacred Books of the world, but several lifetimes would be required to do this properly, and I have simply tried to give the general outline of what I think Joyce was doing. Finally I have made a list of the minor literary allusions-in alphabetical order for ease of reference-and explained those I think I have understood. Such an undertaking is unlikely to be carried out either accurately or completely. I hope, however, that it will provide a basis for future work and help a little in the task of elucidating Finnegans Wake. But before attempting to describe Joyee's sources I will try to summarize what appears to me-after having searched through these sources-to be the subject of the Wake. An article in the Strand Magazine once described an attempt to discover vlhat the typical woman looked like by photographing thousands of women and then combining all the negatives into a single print. They called the result 'Eve'. J oyee is making a similar experiment in Finnegans Wake where he presents us with the story of one man and his family as a paradigm of universal history by telling, at the same time and in the same words, as many similar stories as he can contrive to collect and superimpose. The man lives in Chapelizod with his wife and three children. He is a publican and has been a sinner. All men have been sinners. Indeed he is all men: 'Here Comes Everybody' they call him; and when his wife speaks to him as she is dying we cannot be sure whether she addresses him as Finn or Brian Boru, or even as the sea itself; although at times he has seemed to be all cities while she was all the rivers. The youngest children are twin boys who play the parts of all the warring brothers in history or legend. The daughter is all the young girls who have ever been loved by old men. But as we look at them we know that the boys will become the father and the daughter will become the mother. And all the time we suspect that we are looking, through innumerable superimposed disguises, at a portrait of the artist and his family in prose which deliberately and mischievously leaves out the distinguishing facts. This device is symbolized in the Wake by the printed signs: '-.i ..', .0 ..1.' (514.18). This
23
INTRODUCTION stands for Finn's Hotel where Nora Barnacle worked when Joyce met her; and Finnegans Wake is the story of James Joyce and Nora Barnacle, superimposed upon the story of Joyce's father and mother, John Joyce and Mary Jane Murray, and upon the story of their parents, and theirs, and so on, through H.C.E. and A.L.P., to Adam and Eve and beyond, in cycle after cycle continually changing and eternally the same. What has prevented people from seeing this is the incredible thoroughness with which Joyce has developed his pattern of the recurring family situation. For he goes on, as I have said, beyond Adam and Eve, to establish the same pattern in mythology and religion.
Part
I
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS
The Structural Books 'The aximones' (285.29)
T
he books which Joyce used when he was writing Finnegans Wake can be divided roughly into two classes according to the way in which he used them. The larger class would consist of books from which Joyce took a few words, perhaps only a single word, perhaps a phrase, or perhaps-from some books-as much as a page or two; but these words and phrases were chosen not for what they said but for the way in which they said it: it was the words themselves that interested him, not the ideas which they expressed. Such books could almost be described as Joyce's sources for the vocabulary of Finnegans Wake, but I shall discuss in the present study, under the general heading of 'Literary Sources'. The other group is much smaller, and consists of books from which Joyce took not only words but ideas; ideas which he embodied in Finnegans Wake. They are a strange and seemingly incompatible assortment, but Joyce knew from the beginning exactly the kind of book he wished to write and chose precisely those books which could provide him with the theoretical structure he required. The inevitability of his choice struck him so forcibly indeed that he wrote to Miss Weaver saying that certain books had 'gradually forced themselves upon me through circumstances of my own life' .1 The strangeness of Finnegans Wake as a literary phenomenon can be analysed as a uniqueness of style, of structure, and, of what may be called the interior logic of the book. These three features seem to me to be based on certain axioms which Joyce assumed from those books which I am describing as structural. And underlying all the other axioms is the fundamental assumption that the artist is God-like in his task of creation.2 This romantic conception appears to me to be the basis ofFinnegans Wake. 1 Letters,
p. 241. Letter dated '21 May, 1926'. • 'Joyce seems to have taken quite seriously the romantic view of the artist as a kind of word-combining, word-erecting, surrogate for God.' Maurice Beebe, 'Whose Joyce?' The Kenyon Review, Vol. XVIII, NO.4, Autumn 1956, page 650.
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TRESTRUCTURALBOOKS There was a medieval. theory that God composed two scriptures: the first was the universe WIDCi"l he created after having conceived the idea of it complete and flawless in his mind; the second was the Holy Bible. What Joyce is attempting in Firt'ttegans Wake is nothing less than to create a third scripture, the sacred book of the night, revealing the microcosm which he had already conceived in his mind. And as the phenomenal universe is built upon certain fundamental laws which it is the task of science and prillosophy to discover, so the microcosm of Finnegans Wake is constructed according to certain fundamental axioms for which Joyce is careful to provide clues, but which it is the task of his readers to discover for themselves. None of his axioms originates entirely with Joyce, although his combination and development of them is fantastic in its originality, producing an account of a unique universe that is also unique as a literary phenomenon. It is an original and carefully integrated universe, but it cannot be understood without a knowledge of its basic sources. The structure is based on the cyclic view of history which Joyce took from Vico, elaborated by Bruno's theories of monadism and innumerable worlds which Joyce read as a student, and the studies of Vieo's New Science by A1.i.chelet and Quinet. The logic is taken from Levy-Bruhl's works on primitive psychology, from some aspects of the theories of Giordano Bruno and Nicholas of Cusa, and-to a lesser extent-from Freud. The style was prescribed, in the very year that Joyce entered university, by Arthur Symons in his book, The Symbolist Movement in Literature, from theories propounded by M.allarme. Joyce added to it Pound's dictum that every word must be fully charged with meaning; and developed it by using techniques from Wagnerian opera and other forms of music, by applying theories promulgated by painters, and by constant and unwearying experiment. An adequate treatment of these 'structural books' would require far more space than can be given here. Richard M. Kain remarked in his book about Ulysses that 'To attempt to do more than scratch the surface of the immense companion volume, Finnegans Wake, would dearly exceed any reasonable limits of time and space? and David Hayman has vvntten a work in two volumes upon the influence of Mallarme on J oyce2 without completely exhausting his chosen topic. Since the aim of the present work is to explore the entire literary background of the Wake it will not be possible to give a complete 1 Richard M. !Cain, Fabulous Voyager, James Joyce's Ulysses. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1947, p. 193. • David Hayman, Joyce et Mallarme. Paris; Lettres Modemes, 1956.
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THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS account of anyone aspect of it-even if I were certain that I knew every detail about it. All that I hope to do is to point out some of the basic facts. The first, and most important fact-for the would-be reader of the Wake-is that it is not necessary to have read all of these source books to understand Joyce's strange book. All that is needed is a knowledge of the axioms Joyce took from them. This appears from the fact that J oyee, who was careful to explain to Miss Weaver which books she ought to read if she wished to understand his writing, never once told her to read any of the books dealt with in this section. Instead he explained to her what the theory was that he had taken from them. So in this section I shall first point out the books from which Joyce derived his theories and then try to suggest which are the basic axioms upon which Finnegans Wake was constructed. But before doing so I feel that I should repeat the warning with which Samuel Beckett began the essay which first pointed out the importance of Vico in the Wake. 'The danger', he wrote, 'is in the neatness of identifications. The conception of Philosophy and Philology as a pair of nigger minstrels out of the Teatro dei Piccoli is soothing, like the contemplation of a carefully folded ham-sandwich. Giambattista Vico himself could not resist the attraction of such coincidence of gesture. . . . And now, here am I, with my handful of abstractions, among which notably: a mountain, the coincidence of contraries, the inevitability of cyclic evolution ... Literary criticism is not book-keeping.'l VICO
Beckett was the first to mention Vico, but almost everyone who has written about the Wake since has discussed his influence, for Joyce forces him upon the reader's attention. His name is used over and over again, usually in a context concerned with the theme that history repeats itself, such as 'moves in vicous circles' (134.I6), or
2
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THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS Vico taught that God planned the universe down to the last detail of its history before the act of creation commenced, and although God's creation was unutterably complex yet it was ruled to the smallest particle of its structure by God's rigid law. Joyce seems to have decided that he also would go to the uttermost extreme in his way of creation and call into existence something approaching in complexity and as rigidly integrated as the universe itself. But the best known feature OJ. Vico's philosophy is that he believed in the cyclic nature of history. This is a basic axiom in Finnegan> Wake which has been pointed out many times. It accounts for the circular structure of the book in which the incidents described are to be considered as happening over and over again: 'Teems of times and happy returns. The scim. anew. Ordovico •• .' (21 5.22). Satan fell, Adam fell, so also did Parnell fall and many another hero, and each fall is a repetition of the original story according to the 'Ordovico'. or Vieo's order. Vieo described how in the first stage of history 'Men of gigantic stature ... wander on the mountain heights. But at the first clap of thunder .•. as they felt the aspect of the heavens to be terrible to them and hence to inhibit their use of venery they must have learned to hold in check the bodily motion of lust.'l The giants are on page 4 of the Wake while the thunder rolls first on page 3. Vico goes on to describe how the giants dragged their women into caves for protection against the God of the thundering sky and so established the state of matrimony. 'Thus they founded families and governed them so that later as cities arose they taught the necessity of obedience and order.'2 By one of the odd coincidences which so often occur in the material of which the Wake is constructed Vieo comes very close here to quoting the motto of the city of Dublin: Obedientia civium urbis felicitas; and Joyce did not fail to make use of the coincidence, as will be seen when heraldry is discussed. But Vico's first Age of Giants is mentioned frequently in the Wake, 'When mulk mountynotty man was everybully' (21.7), for example, and the building of cities comes as a consequence of 'this municipal sin business' which follows 'that tragoady thundersday' (5.13). The theme, like all the themes in the Wake. recurs frequently, being given its most succinct expression in 'framm Sin fromm Son, acity arose' (94.18). Vico based his theory of the origin of language on the assumption that thunder was the voice of God. The first men. he tells us, were mute; their only language was gesture. But they attempted (blasphemously perhaps) to imitate the voice of the thunder, Their first 1
~
The New Science of Giambattista Vico, p. 378. Ibid., p. 379.
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS words were stuttering, as was to be expected since the thunder itself stutters. In Finnegans Wake we meet them as Jute and Mutt: 'Jute.-Whoa? Whoat is the mutter with you? Mutt.-I became a stun a stummer. Jute.-What a hauhaubauhaudibble thing, to be cause!' (16.16). So, says Vico, 'Mutes utter formless sounds by singing and stammerers by singing teach their tongues to pronounce.' Joyce tells us that 'the sibspeeches of all mankind have foliated (earth seizing them 1) from the Toot of some funner's stotter' (96.31). There is, as usual, another meaning here fOI Sanfundets Stotter is the Norwegian title of Ibsen's Pillars of Society. Society, we are being told, is founded upon stuttering. The th=e is repeated frequently: 'Suppwose you get a beautiful thought and cull them sylvias sub silence. Then inmaggin a stotterer. Suppoutre him to been one biggermaster Omnibil' (337.16). Another Ibsen play, The Masterbuilder-in Norwegian Bygmester Somes-is brought in to provide a symbol of a Fall. And it must be r==bered that stuttering, according to the modern psychologists, is a neurotic symptom caused by a consciousness of guilt. Joyce is suggesting that the original masterbuilder is God and that He stutters when His voice is heard in the thunder-thus proving that He is conscious of having committed a sin! This attribution of Original Sin to God is one of the basic axioms of Finnegans Wake. Joyce had studied theology under Jesuit teachers and knew that the official Catholic solution to the problem of the existence of pain in a world controlled by an omnipotent and loving God was to be found in the doctrine of Original Sin. Joyce transferred the responsibility for Original Sin to God. This, he says, is the original FalL I will discuss the nature of this primordial sin in a later chapter on Joyce's use of the sacred books. Perhaps it will be enlightening to study this situation on other levels of the Wake and, in particular, to consider it on the autobiographical level. For Joyce's cosmic image of an angry God expressing Himself through a thundering sky is repeated in every small boy's household when the father of the family is enraged. And serenely behind the outraged father there rests-in Joyce's version -the mother-figure, Anna Livia. She is always calm, and always right. It is, indeed, to be regretted that her neighbours tell strange stories about her; but unlike her husband, who is constantly stuttering his apologies, she is aware.ofher virtue. This is a typical situation. It is not the. autobiographical details that concern us here but the structural formulae. And from what has been said so far it can, I think, be laid down that the following axioms from Vico apply to Finnegans
3I
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS
Wake. I. History is a cyclic process repeating eternally certain typical situations. 2. The incidents of each cycle have their parallels in all other cycles. 3. The characters of each cycle recur under new names in every other cycle. 4. Every civilization has its own Jove. 5. Every Jove commits again, to commence his cycle, the same original sin upon which creation depends. It would appear to follow from this that creation is the original sin. Professor W. Y. Tindall has already pointed out that 'All three of Vico's languages appear in Finnegans Wake'.l According to Vieo the three kinds of language were first, 'A divine menta! language by mute religious acts or divine ceremonies • . . And it was necessary in the earliest times when men did not yet possess articulate speech .•• The second was by heroic blazonings with which arms are made to speak; this kind of speech ..• survived in military discipline .•. The third is by articulate speech which is used by all nations.'2 Not realizing the use that Joyce was making of this statement by Vieo I wrongly said in an article about Lewis Carroll and Finnegans Wake that by 'middle' and 'ancient tongue> Joyce meant simply .Middle Egyptian. It is always unwise to say that Joyce only means one thing, practically every word in the Wake has at least two meanings, and it is now apparent to me that heraldry is also a middle ancient tongue and that the passage in which the phrase occurs is concerned with heraldry as well as with .Middle Egyptian. The passage runs: 'To vert embowed set proper penchant. But learn from that ancient tongue to be middle old modern to the minute. A spitter that can be depended upon. Though Wonderlawn's lost to us forever. Alis, alas, she broke the glass 1 Liddelliokker through the leafery, ours is mistery of pain' (270.16). 'Vert' and 'Proper' are terms from heraldry brought into the Wake because it is Vieo's '.Middle language'. Alice Liddell, Carroll's Alice, is portrayed as being an Eve before the Fall. We, coming after the Fall, have the mystery of pain, which has just been discussed. But Joyce is repudiating the Christian explanation and brings in the Ancient Egyptian creation myth of Atem who populated the world by spitting on the fertile mud. ('Take your mut for a first beginning ••• Army lifHe mud .•• will doob') (287.5). Other versions of this creation myth say that the first pair of gods, Shu and Tefilut, were begotten from the primeval mud pile by Atem's self-abuse.3 This, of course, take~ us back to the theory that the original 1 W. Y. Tindall, James Joyce, His Way of Interpreting the Modern World. London: Charles Scribner's Sons, Ltd., 1950, p. 74. 2 Vieo, p. 693 See below in the chapter on 'The Sacred Books'.
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THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS sin was God's. And in the passage I have quoted there is a group of allusions to Lord Tennyson and Lewis Carroll to which I will return later. For the present we are concerned with Vico's middle language which is heraldry. The theme of heraldry is developed in various ways, the most frequently used example is the Dublin coat of arms. A. C. Fox-Davies, whose Book of Public Arms Joyce probably consulted, gives under 'DUBLIN, city of: Azure, three castles argent, Hammant proper. Supporters: On either side a female figure proper, vested gules ..• Motto: Obedientia civium urbis felicitas.' The various coats of arms mentioned in the Wake include references to this, as, for example: 'His crest ofhuroldry, in vert with ancillars, troublant' (5.6). 'Ancillars' suggests antlers and the favourite Elizabethan joke about cuckoldry, which is the word that has mutated heraldry into 'huroldry'. The word 'Ancillars' also combines Ancillae, Latin for 'Handmaidens' as in the Angelus, Ecce ancilla Domini, with 'anklers' showing that, as Adaline Glasheen points out, the two temptresses of the Wake are derived from the Dublin supporters who are shown 'coyly pulling up their skirts to display their ankles'.1 The three castles of the Dublin arms are used, in a way probably suggested by the old Irish expression, 'The Castle', for the government of Ireland, to serve as a sort of kenning for Dublin. 'His three shottoned castles' (22.33), 'the spy of three castles' (101.23), are examples of this usage. 'Shot two queans and shook three caskles' (I28.I7) brings in both the castles and the supporters. Heraldic mottoes are frequently quoted in the Wake, where they are probably intended to supply examples of Vico's 'middle language'. The Dublin motto is the one used most often and it is quoted at least seveu times in various distorted forms ranging from 'The hearsomeness of the burger felicitates the whole of the polis' (23.14) to 'And the ubideintia of the savium is our ervics feniotas' (6IO.7).2 The last example follows a distorted version of another motto which is often used in the Wake. This is the motto of the House of Savoy which is: F.E.R.T.' and is interpreted in two ways, Fortitudo eius Rhodum tenuit, and Foemina rot ruina tua. 8 Joyce gives five mutations of the first A Census, p. 136. The others are: 76.8: the obedience of the citizens eip the ealth of the ole. 140.6: Thine obesity, 0 civilian, hits the felicitude of our orb! 277.7: To obedient of civicity in urbanious at felicity • . • 494.21: Obeisance so their sitinins is the follicity of this Orp; and 540.25: Obeyance from the townsmen spills felixity by the toun. 3 Cf. Chassant et Tuasin, Dictionncdre des Devises. Paris, 1896, I, II9. Other meanings are given in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, article 'Annunciation' • 1
2
33 3
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS version all including a from Rhodus, Rhodes to Rhodanus, the river Rhone. 1 I suspect that in every case the reader is expected to infer both meanings. We are told that H.C.E. 'Made a fort out of his postern and wrote F.E.R.T. on his buckler' (127.9), and here again I thi:ok that both meanings are intended. The motto of Belfast, Pro tanto quid retribuamus '(521.10), and Ulster's 'Red hand' (522.4) are also used. Several versions of the Garter motto are given such as 'Honey swarns where mellisponds' (238.33), while the German name for the Order appears as 'rossy banders' (250.3), from Hosenband. Another thing Joyce took from Vico, in addition to his cyclic theory of history and his theory of language, was his way of using etymology. According to Vico the course of history could be inferred from etymology since the story of man's progress was embedded in the structure of the words we use. In Finnegans Wake words are constructed so as to contain within t.hemselves sufficient data to allow the structure of the entire work to be deduced from any word. Niall Montgomery, a Dublin architect, has already pointed this out-in phraseology suited to his profession-when he prefaced some valuable lists he has compiled of the occurrence of the letters H.C.E. and A.L.P. in the Wake by saying that they were intended 'pr.ncipally to show in what detail and with what fidelity the highly polished cladding reflects the structural details of Mr. Finnegan's unique building'.2
QUINET
It may have been the interest they shared in Vico that caused Joyce to be attracted to the work of Edgar Quinet. The sentence which is quoted in full (281.4) and twice parodied at full length (14.35 and 236.19) bas not, to my knowledge, been previously traced i'l Quinet's works. It comes from bis Introduction a la Philosophie de l' Histoire de l' Humanite. 3 In this essay Quinet discusses history as it is presented by Vico and Herder. 'Nous tonchons am;: premieres limites de l'histoire; nous quittons les phenomenes physiques pour entrer dans Ie declale 53. 1 6: In all fortitudinous ajaxious rowdinoisy tenuacity. 93.8: fortytudor ages rawdownhams tanyouhide. 25!!.4: Fulgitudes ejist rowdownan tonnout. 515.9: Fortitudo clus rho damnum tenuit? 610.6: Fulgitudo ejus Rhedonum teneatl ~ Niall Montgomery, 'The Pervigilium Phoenids', New Mexico Quarterly, Vol. XXIII, NO.4, Winter, 1953, p. 451. • Edgar Quinet, (Euvres Completes. Paris: Pagnerre, 1857, Vol. II, p. 3671
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THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS des revolutions qui marquent la vie de l'humanite ••• Le moindre grain de sable battu des vents a en lui plus d'elements de duree que la fortune de Rome ou de Sparte.'l Joyce uses the same idea: 'A hatch, a celt, an earshare.... When a part so ptee does duty for the holos we soon grow . to use of an allforabit' (18.30). All history is to be deduced from any part of the created universe. Yet it is found most completely in the mind of any human being. 'L'histoire; writes Quinet, 'telle qu'elle est refl.echie et ecrite dans Ie fond de nos ames, en sorte que celui qui se rendrait veritablement attentif ases mouvements interieurs, retrouverait Ia serie entiere des siecles comme ensevelie dans sa pensee ... J'apers:us, pour Ia premiere [ois, [on reading Vico] Ie nombre presque infini d'etres sembiables a moi, qui m'avaient precede ... Chaque empire avait envoye jusqu'a moi la loi, l'idee, I'essence des phenomenes dont . s'est compo see sa destinee. Amon insu, Ia vieille Chaldee, Ia Phenicie, Babylone ... s'etaient resumees dans l'education de ma pensee et se mouvaient en moi. Ce m' etait un spectacle etrange d'y retrouver leurs ruines vivantes, et de sentir s'agiter dans mon sein ... l' ame que mon etre a recueillie comme un son lointain apporte d'echos jusqu'a lui: z This is the way in which Joyce is writing his 'ideal eternal history', for Finnegans Wake can be taken as being the story of one man, or one family, or of one city or country, or of all humanity and the entire course of history, since all these are progressive expansions of one story.
NICHOLAS OF CUSA
This is by no means a new idea. Nicholas of Cusa himself connected it with the old theory of Man, the Microcosm. 'Human nature; he wrote, 'is raised above all the works of God, constricting the universe in itself, whence the ancients rightly named it Microcosmos.'3 Joyce mentions Nicholas of Cusa twice, first along with 'Coincidence of contraries' (49.36), his best-known doctrine, and secondly with 'learned ignora..Tlts' (163.16) from the title of his chief work De Docta Ignorantia. But there is no evidence that Joyce ever read any of his books, although he would have noticed that Giordano Bruno says that he derived some of his ideas from Nicholas of CliSa and often quotes him with approval,4 Ibid., p. 367. Ibid., p. 381. • Nicholas de Cusa, De Docta Ignorantia, III, 3, 46. • For example there is an entire paragraph from 'Lo dotta ignoranza del Cusano' quoted in the 4th dialogne of De l'infinito v:niversi e mondi. 1
2
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THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS and we know that Joyce had read Bruno while he was still an undergraduate, for he quotes from the Eroici FUTori in his :first published work) 'The Day of ue Rabblement'.l
GIORDANO BRUNO
Bruno and Nicholas of Cusa alike believed in the coincidence of contraries. Joyce uses this theory to strange effect in Fi:tmegans Wake where, for example, an arguing pair Eke Butt and Taff can suddenly become 'one and the same person' (354.8) because they are 'equals of opposites . . . and polat-ised for reunion by the symphysis of their antipathies' (92.8). Bruno also stated in his Of the Infinite Universe and Innumerable Worlds that 'The actual and. the possible are not different in '2 It is from this that Joyce derives his assumption that the events and characters described in history, literature a.lld myth have equal validity. Maria Martin, Hamlet and the Duke of Wellington are characters of the same kind. Bruno also maintained that each thing contairled the whole. By this he seems to have meant that the universe is made up of separate entities each constituting a simulacrum of the universe. This was a fairly oommon medieval theory and provides another source for the axiom already suggested that in Finnegans Wake each individual word reflects the structure of the entire book. Bruno's theories went much further and suggest several other possible axioms governing the construction of the Wake. He claimed that there was an infinite number of entities ranging in value from the minimum to the maximum-which was God; and that each entity except the last was continually changing and not merely by becoming greater or less hut by exchanging identities with other entities. This suggests the behaviour of characters and words in the Wake where every part tends to change its all the time. Bruno's name is mentioned over a hundred times in the Wake, much more often that. any other philosopher's. As has been frequently pointed out he is usuai!y personified as the firm of Dublin booksellers, Browne and Nolan. This is probably because of his habit of refe.-ring to himself in his writings as 'il Nolano'. Professor Tindall has pointed out that 'Tristopher and Hilary, the twins of the Frankquean legend, 1 In Two Essays. See Slocum and Cahoon, A Bibliography of James Joyce. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, I953, p. 7I. "John Toland, A Collection of Several Pieces with an Account fl.i Jordana Bruno's Of the Infinite Universe and Innumerable Worias. London, 1726, p. 322.
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THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS get their names of sadness and joy from Bruno's motto: In tristitia hilaris hilaritate tristis'.l It appears on the title page of Bruno's play, Candslajo. The title of one of Bruno's books is quoted in the 'Night Lesson' Chapter, 'Trion/ante di bestial' (3°5.15). This is Il Spaccio di Bestia Trion/ante, 'The Expulsion ofthe Triumphant Beast', but none
n
of the axioms that I have quoted is taken from this book. Many commentators on Finnegans Wake have discussed the influence of Bruno on Joyce. Probably Joyce was first attracted to him as a selfconfessed 'Restless spirit that overturns the structure of sound discipline' (Spirto inquieto, che subverte gli edifici di buone discipline),2 and as a heretic who was burned to death. But he is not likely to have read his work very thoroughly for Bruno is one of the most verbose of all writers and on one occasion takes a page to say that he himself, Il Nolana, calls things by their right names: Chiama il pane pane, il vino vina, il capo capo, il piede piede ...3 and so on to say that 'He ca)ls bread bread, wine wine, a head a head, a foot a foot' until he has given nearly a hundred examples of his own virtue in calling things by their right names. Joyce seems to have read this passage, and probably many more, for practic:e in Italian when he was an undergraduate, doubtless fortified against the boredom by the thrill of meeting so notorious a heretic in the original text, and by his confidence that Bruno was an author too obscure to be read by anyone else in Dublin. Years afterwards, when planning Finnegans Wake, he remembered the theories of Bruno. Probably he then looked up Bruno again and found him just what he was needing, although he also seems to have found his style irritating on a second reading, and appears to be parodying the passage I have just quoted in 'did not say to the old old, did not say to the scorbutic, scorbutic' (r36.ro). It also seems probable, from various hints in the Wake, that Joyce also consulted Coleridge's translations of parts of Bruno's works in The Friend (1809-10, No. VI, pp. 81-2). FREUD AND JUNG
Even more discussed than Bruno's influence on the Wake is the question of the extent to which Freud and Jung influenced Joyce's work. Kane and Magalaner suggest that the mythologica11evel in the Wake is based on the work of Jung,.;!, and point out that 'while Freud 'W. Y. Tyndal, James Joyce, p. 86. 2 Opere di Giordano Bruno, Nola:no, Leipzig, :1:830, Vol. z, p. 3. S Ibid., p. IC8. • Kane and Magalaner, p. 219.
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THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS and Jung may have disagreed in matters of detail concerning the relation of dream to myth, Joyce's genius for extracting from any system what suited his special needs allowed him to build his ccEyrwyggla saga" on elements from both analysts that, to the mind of the lay reader, would not appear to conflict.'l Yet it is to be noticed that the twelve essays in An Exagmination, which were on lines suggested by Joyce himself, contain no mention of Jung and only a passing one of Freud. This latter is by William Carlos Williams who writes, 'Rebecca West ... speaks of transcendental tash, of Freud, of anything that comes into her head',z which sounds as if he thought that Freud had nothing at all to do with Finnegans Wake. It is also significant that Joyce never suggested to Miss Weaver that L1.ere was anything derived from the work of Jung or Freud in his books. But both Jung and Freud are mentioned several times in the Wake, often combined as one person,3 and an essay by Frederick J. Hoffman" which was included by Seen Givens in his Two Decades of Joyce Criticism points out conclusively that the business at one point in Finnegans Wake is based on a dream described by Freud in his Interpretation of Dreams. Joyce is probably acknowledging this when he quotes the title of Freud's book, 'An intrepidation of our dreams' (338.29). Hoffinan goes on to suggest that Joyce makes use of all the various devices which Freud points out as typical of the dream:> Jung has written a paper on the subject of Ulysses 6 which discusses Joyce's work with respect, and Harry Levin remarks that 'The elementary symbols for man and woman are Freud's, a building and a body of water.' 7 Yet Joyce seems to have had a feeling of hostility to Jung. It was suggested by Herbert Gormans that Joyce lost the regular grant he was receiving from Mrs. McCormick because he refused to be psychoanalysed by Jung. The situation recurs in the Wake:
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THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS homosexual catheis of empathy between narcissism of the expert and steatopygic invertedness. Get yourself psychoanolised! -0, begor, I want no expert nursis symaphy from yours broons quadroons and I can psoakoonaloose myself any time I want (the fog follow you all) without your interferences or any other pigeonstealer' (522.30). In a letter to Miss Weaver Joyce wrote that when Jung was asked to write a preface to the German edition of Ulysses he 'replied with a very long and hostile attack',1 and it is noticeable that the mutations to which the names of Jung, and more particularly Freud are subjected are generally pejorative. A 'freudful mistake' (411.35) could be explained as being simply a description of the sort of blunder described by Freud in his Psychopathology of Everyday Life, and the reference to girls 'when they were yung and easily freudened' (II5.23), as a reasonable comment on the defencelessness of the immature before the modern psychological techniques. But 'Jungfraud's Messongebook' (460.20) carries an unmistakable suggestion of deceit and lies. Yet Joyce's dislike ofJung and Freud did not prevent him from using their discoveries. I doubt if he accepted Jung's theory of the collective unconscious; and the technical terms such as 'Libido' (417.17), 'subnesciousness' (224.17) and'sobconscious' (377.28) are generallymutated in such a way as to suggest that they are used mainly for decoration, as in 'ondrawer of our unconscionable, fiickerfJ.apper fore our unterdrugged' (266.30) where the last word is based on the German unterdruckt, 'repressed'. Perhaps the main axiom he takes from Freud is that 'A word, being a point of junction for a number of conceptions, possesses, so to speak, a predestined ambiguity.'2 Freud goes on to say that in dreams either/or equals and. Joyce quotes this (and the title of a book by Kierkegaard) as: 'either or. And. Nay, rather.' (281.27) This occurs on the page, to which I have often referred, on which the sentence from Quinet is quoted. It could be applied to the theory of the identity of opposites of Nicholas of Cusa. Indeed, Joyce succeeds in integrating his incompatible-seeming exttacts into a homogeneous whole. Letters, p. 294. Letter dated '27 Sept. I930'. Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, trans. A. A. Brill, 3rd ed. London: Allen and Unwin, I9I9, p. 3IS. 1
2
39
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS MORTON PRINCE
To oppose the identity of opposites which causes a fusion of opposed characters Joyce sets a tendency on the part of all his characters to split up into two parts. The chief source for this has already been pointed out by Adaline Glasheen.! It is The Dissociation of a Personality by Morton Prince,2 a neurologist who had as patient in Boston, Mass., a young woman whom he calls 'Miss Christine L. Beauchamp', and who was one of the most famous cases of multiple personality. Her subconscious self, identified by Prince as 'Sally', plays an important part in the Wake,s as the secondary personality, or looking-glass sister of H.C.E.'s daughter. Sally painted spots and moustaches on Miss Beauchamp when she was asleep, simply to annoy the personality who primarily possessed her hody. Joyce's Isay talks of <my liukingclass girl, she's a fright, poor old dutch, in her sleeptalking when I paint the measles on her and mudstuskers to make her a man' (459.4). The famous letter from Boston, Mass., in the Wake is given that address to connect it with Sally's letters. There were two sets of these. The first were written to Miss Beauchamp whom she was constantly mocking and addresses as 'My sainted Christine" when accusing her of being too friendly with Morton Prince. Joyce refers to this in a passage where Issy is talking about her secondary personalities: 'With best frolfl, cinder Christinette ifprints chumming' (280.21). Here 'prints' hides the name Prince with whom Christine is 'chumming' and finding a Prince Charming. Sally's second set of letters are still more unusual, for when she discovered that Morton Prince's treatment would end in the extinction of her personality she insisted that 'People before they died wrote their "last will and testament" .•. so she must write hers • • . I never saw it but heard about it from IV [another personality] who was puzzled by what she read.... Then Sally wrote a number of letters about people.'5 She then buried all her documents. 'I wrote me hopes and buried the page' (624.4), says Anna Livia, and there are a great many other allusions to Morton Prince's book. Prince finally found that Miss Beauchamp had four personalities and succeeded in integrating 1 Adaline Glasheen. 'FinMgans Wake and the Girls from Boston, Mass:, The Hudson Review, Vol. VII, No. I, 1953, pp. 90-6. • Morton Prince, The Dissociation of a Personality. New York: Longmans,
Green and Co., 1906. • A Census lists sixteen occurrences of the name Sally (p. 'The Dissociation of a Personality, p. 127. S Ibid., p. 487.
II 5).
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS them. His name is mentioned perhaps three times in the Wake, 1 most demonstrably as 'prince ... the mort' (460.12), but never very clearly, and always combined with other implications. This may be meant to indicate that other sources for the theme of dissociation are being used. One such source which I think is mentioned is that of a young woman called Mollie Fancher, whose numerous personalities had names including Idol, Pearl, and Sunbeam. 2 Vague reflections of this case appear in the passage which has already been mentioned where Issy speaks of her split personalities. 3 But there are many sources for the way in which all the characters in the Wake split up into parts at some place in the book. The map of Dublin suggests one possible basis for the phenomenon for the city of Dublin, which is-in a way-the hero of Joyce's story, is divided into two parts by the Liffey. The Liffey itself splits at Island Bridge, otherwise known as Sarah Bridge, a name which presents Joyce with another connection with Sally. The theme connects also with what Kenner· calls 'Joyce's anti-selves' and derives some of its intricacies from details of Joyce's life which I am not concerned with here. It is also necessary to remember that these cases of what is now called dissociated personality would not long ago have been described as demonic possession, for this is not a thing which Joyce would forget. Indeed, Christine Beauchamp herself told Morton Prince that she was possessed by a devil, and Joyce's Issy writes a footnote, 'Well, Maggy, I got your castoff devils all right and fits lovely' (273, note 6). But it is not usual in the Wake for women to be possessed by devils. This is a thing which happens to men while women simply split up into parts. JAMES HOGG
Perhaps the reason for the difference is that Joyce's source for demonic possession concerns only a masculine victim. It is James Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, in which the soul of the chief character is possessed by a devil named Gilmartin that drives him to ruin. The word 'gill' in the Wake has the meaning of 'devil' from this source. Every male character has an 'everdevoting fiend' (408.18) with whom he forms a 'musichall pair' (408.26). Gill is the 'oggog hogs in the lhumand' (366.26). Hogg's name lends itself to A Census gives: '239.29; 246.26; 280.22; 365.28; 460.I2 . . . 22'. Abram H. Dailey, Mollie Fancher, the Brooklyn Enigma. Brooklyn, I894. 3 'Da1y ... maid of the folley ... Rosecarmon.' (526.20 ••. 2I ..• 28). 'It's meemly us two, meme idoll' (527.24). 1
2
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THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS
Joyee's
mania for puns, so does Dublin's. H.C.E. is 'The dibble's own doges for doublin existents' (578.13), indeed 'There were three men in him' (II3.14). Butt speaks to Taif of 'is boesen fiennd' (345.33), which means a bosom fiend as well as a fiendish or Finnish bos'un, and 'salt bacon' (345.30) connects this to Hogg who is usually brought in in some similar way when fiends are mentioned. 'To be upright as his match ... did I altermoblie him to a flare insiding hogsfat' (483.23), says Yaun of one of his 'anti-selves'. References to Edinburgh in t.h.e Wake derive from Hogg's book in which much of the action takes place in that city. It is the devil who is responsible for 'The hubbub caused in Edenborough' (29.35), just as it was the devil who was responsible for the trouble in the garden of Eden. One of the incidents which is mentioned by Hogg: his hero's vision of his own shadow magnified enormously as it is cast on the douds from Arthur's Seat, is mentioned by Joyce in 'Heidinburgh in the days when old Head-in-Qouds walked the earth' (r8.2I).1 A..rtbur's Seat is mentioned as 'artbruseat' (577.28) facing the words 'the labyrinth of their samilikes and the alteregoases of their pseudoselves' (576.32), and Edinburgh becomes 'odinburgh' (487.9) inhabited by 'addlefoes', seven lines after it has been said that 'you might, bar accidens, be very largely substituted in potential secession from your next life by a complementary character, voices apart' (487.2). This 'complementary character' is usually an enemy, 'his hiogra:frend in fact, kills him' (55.6) as Joyce says, in a passage where I think the reader is also expected to find the words: 'By Hogg-a fiend.' The eifec( of this splitting up of characters in Finnegans Wake, or of their possession by devils, is to produce continual examples of the theme of the 'Warring Brothers'. The brothers constantly alternate between union and conflict. Sometimes both states are contained in a single word. For example 'Bettlimbraves' (246.33) is at fi.rst glance 'battling braves', and sho\vs the brothers opposed. But there is a S,YissGerman phrase, 'Brav Un Bettli', which has been reversed to produce the Redskin warriors and means 'Good children tucked up in their little beds'. Joyce may have made use of Rendell Harris's books on the Dioscuri for some of the ramifications of the theme, but usually it seems to be connected with the autobiographical level of the Wake. The opposed characters often seem to be Joyce and one or other of his friends and rivals, and as I am dealing here only with the literary sources I shall not pursue this theme further. 1 This passage also alludes to the sight of God's person granted to Moses and Haggai, Ex. 33:16, and Gen. 16:I3, and to Odin as 'Head in Clouds'.
42
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS
LEVy-BRUHL
The plurality of characters, however, ties up with another aspect of the Wake which has a literary source from which Joyce took little more than a few axioms. The source-books in this case are the works on anthropology by Professor Lucien Levy-Bruhl, whose appearance in Finnegans Wake has long been recognized and is discussed in A Skeleton Key} where his theories are said to 'be immensely helpful' to the reader of Finnegans Wake. But the passage where he is most obviously mentioned seems typically ambivalent in its comments. Joyce is 'downtrodding on my foes. Professor Levi-Brullo, F.D., of Sexe-WeimanEitelnaky finds, from experiments made by hinn with his Nuremberg eggs in the one hands and the watches cunldron apan the oven . . .' (I5I.II). Joyce is repeating the old joke about the absent-minded professor who boiled his watch while holding the egg in his hand. But in Finnegans Wake it is not certain which is the egg and which is the watch; indeed the egg is a Nuremberg egg, which is the oldest kind of watch, and the watch may be a witch's cauldron. But whichever they are the professor's equipment is undoubtedly old-fashioned. More important (in Finnegans Wake) his language is out of date-out of use, in factfor he 'importunes our Mitleid for in accornish with the Mortadarthella tradition' (-.19). That is, he is speaking in Cornish, a language nobody uses, and this is 'the poorest commonguardiant waste of time'. A little further down the page he has to share his identity, perhaps according to his own theories of bi-presence, with Wyndham Lewis as 'Llewellys ap Bryllars', and 'the plea, if he pleads, is all posh and robbage'. In spite of this attack on Levy-Bruhl in the Wake Joyce seems to have made use of his theories. Or at least, if it is assumed that his theories are being used, certain aspects of the Wake become less obscure. Joyce's 'Personal Library' at Buffalo contains two of LevyBruhl's books: 2 L'Ame Primitive, and L'Experience Mystique et les Symboles chez les Primitifs. But Professor Connolly notes 3 that the first book was apparently never opened: 'Though machine-cut there are hundreds of pages still attached at the upper right hand corner.' It was given to Joyce by the author, as was the other book which has an inscription mentioning a 'too short meeting' between Joyce and LevyA Skeleton Key, p. 95 note. Thomas E. Connolly, The Personal Library ofJames Joyce, p. 24. 3 Loc. cit.
1
2
43
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS B1"I.il"J at Copenhagen. Perhaps Joyce got his knowledge ofLevy-Bru.1U's theories from the conversation at this meeting-more probably he J:>..ad already read his books and never bothered. to reread th~m in his presentation copies. One thing Joyce took from Levy-Bruhl was u1e attitude of some primitive peoples towards number. Many primitive tribes do not count. They have only two numbers: one and more than one. The grammar of most languages makes the same assumption: number is either singular or plural. Levy-Bruhl tells us that: 'In a great many primitive peoples •.. the only names for numbers are one and two.'! Of one tribe in Borneo, the Abi.pones, Levy-Bruhl says they 'refuse to count as we do . • • They are not only ignorant of arithmetic but they dislike it. To rid themselves of questions on the subject they show any number of fingers they like, sometimes thus cheatmg themselves, sometimes others.'2 Again we are told that 'duality is often the antithesis of unity by qualities which are diametrically opposite since it signifies, implies and produces the exact contrary of that which unity signifies, implies and produces. Where unity is a principle of good, order, perfection and happiness, duality is a principle of evil, disorder, imperfection: a sign, that is, a cause ofmisfortune.'3 On the other hand, while numbers have no arithmetical significance they possess a magical importance. According to Levy-Bruhl, 'there is no number among the first ten that does not possess supreme mystical importance for some social group or other'.' Furthermore, 'certain multiples of numbers of mystic value participate in the peculiar properties of those numbers'.s This is the state of affairs in Finnegans Wake. So far as arithmetic is concerned there is simply unity and diversity. But each of the main characters has a number as wen as a symbol, and certain numbers-of which II32 is the most prominenthave a mystical value which has still not been satisfactorily explained. The particular character assigned to each number may have been obtained by Joyce from some works on occultism and the Cabbala. On the other hand he may simply have been fonowing the mocking advice given by Swift in A Tale of a Tub to pick out some favourite numbers and insist that all kinds of things could be explained by them. But before discussing this possibility I wish to point out another 1 Lucien Levy-Bruhl, How Natives Think, translated by Lilian A. elate. London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1926, p. 18I. • Ibid., p. 183. • Ibid., p. 209. • Ibid., p. 209. B Ibid., p. 219.
44
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS strange feature of Finnegans Wake that may owe something to the work of Levy-Bruhl. Joyce has an extraordina.y way of putting into his book the names of all kinds of things, and all sorts of people. There are several thousand characters identified in A Census, and at least another thousand may be hidden in the Wake, and for many-probably for most-ofthem Joyce seems to have been quite satisfied simply to include their names. Many hundreds of books are also named; and there are all kinds of more or less complete sets of different kinds of objects scattered through the book: most of the books of the Bible, about a hundred and eleven suras of the Koran, the titles-and, fantastically enough, the names of the original airs-of all Moore's Melodies. Most of the Lord Mayors of Dublin are named, and most of Ibsen's plays; and I .think there is at least one quotation from every single play by Shakespeare. All kinds of other things are listed. Probably the most widely known fact about the Wake is that it contains hundreds of river names. But nobody has ever been able to suggest what purpose is served by this inclusion of names, except that perhaps the reader will unconsciously absorb an effect of rivers from reading river names, and this can hardly be extended to Joyce's collection of the titles of the suras of the Koran. Did Joyce, perhaps, adopt a principle described by Levy-BrwJ as being almost universal among primitive people? believe that there is a real and material connection between a man and his name; and many peoples are confused as to the difference between a name and a thing. ' "I know," said one man, "that this man put many of our buffaloes into his book, for I was with him, and we have had no buffaloes since to eat, it is true." '1 It is not impossible that Joyce himself had some such idea in mind, indeed he frequently claimed that to be mentioned in his book had an effect on the people named that was often drastic and sometimes fatal. 2 He seems to have had some odd idea that his work could subsume the things it named, and it seems to have been something very close to the primitive belief which he must have thought to contain some element of truth.
THE OCCULTISTS
Joyce had, undoubtedly, many strange superstitions. He no longer believed in the Catholic faith, but this does not by any means imply that Levy-Bruhl, op. cit., p. 47. • E.G., Letters, p. 129. Letter dated '20 July 1919'. 1
45
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS he had lost all belief in the supernatural. Adaline Glasheen says in her introduction to A Census of Finnegans Wake that 'Joyce did not forsake received religion in order to enslave himself, as most rationalists have, to received history'. Instead, Joyce repeated the course of history in his own life, for, as Bertrand Russell pointed out, 'The first effect of emancipation from the Church \\ras not to make men think rationally but to open their minds to every sort of antique nonsense. '1 And it is precisely the philosophers whose work is fullest of antique nonsense to whom Joyce was attracted. His choice of sources leads one to reflect that in reality, as well as in its reflection on library shelves, philosophy quickly shades off into all kinds of shady subjects. Spiritualism, occultism, alchemy, the Cabbala, and the works of such people as Hermes Trismegisrus and Parace1sus: these are the sources in which we are given to understand that Joyce was deeply read. It is, however significant that the only quotation from the 'Hermetic sayings' or the 'Smaragdine Tablet' is 'The tasks above are as the flasks below, saith the emerald canticle of Hermes' (263.21), which is probably based on Arthur Symons's reference to 'the secret which he Smagdarine Tablet of Hermes betrays in its "As things are below, so are they above" ';2 for his version is closer to Symons's than to the original text which runs: 'that which is below is like to t."'1at which is above, to accomplish the miracle of one thing.' It seems to me very unlikely that Joyce was deeply read in esoteric lore. A great deal has been made of his use of the title of Michael of Northgate's Ayenbite of lnwyt in Ulysses. The suggestion has even been madeZ that the Ayenbite is a valuable, though obscure, source for some intricate points oftheology. In fact, there is nothing original in it from the viewpoint of theology and it is not really an obscure book. Joyce would meet it, no:: in the traditionally dusty recesses of some monastic library, but in some standard Middle English reader such as Sisam's Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose where it is stated that Michael of Northgate's work is simply a translation of a French book, and that 'his translation is inaccurate, and sometimes unintelligible, and the treatment. is so barren of interest that the work seems to have fallen flat even in its own day . . . But if its literary merit is slight, linguistically it is one of the most important works in Middle English.' The reasons for its importance are that it provides 'a long prose text, Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy. London: 1946, p. 523• Arthur Symons, The Symbolist Movement in Literature. London: William Heinemann, l899, p. I25· 3 J. Mitchell Morse, 'Augustine, Ayenbite, and Ulysses', MPLA, Vol. LXX, NO.5, Dec. 1955, pp. II43-II59· 1
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS exactly dated and exactly localized; we have the author's autograph copy to work from; and the dialect is well distinguished.'l In fact, for a student of the English language the Ayenbite is required reading, but no student of theology would give it a second thought; what attracted Joyce to it was its title, and that is the only part of it that he used. This is not to deny that Joyce's reading was extraordinarily wide, and that many of the books he used have not yet been traced. There are undoubtedly several books on alchemy underlying the chapter of 'Night Lessons' (260.308). The phrase 'mehrkurios than saltz of sulphur' (261.25), for example, refers to the alchemical equation of mercury, salt, and sulphur with the Blessed Trinity,2 as the Greek kyrios is pointing out. And the aspect of the Wake which has been most stressed in this section-its confrontation of the universe with a microcosm-derives ultimately from alchemical thought, to which it was-according to a modern authoriif-as important as the theory of Evolution is today. The concept in the passage 'topside joss pidgin fella Balkelly' (611.4) that the colour of an object is no part of its real nature, or alternatively is its only reality, may also derive from alchemical thought4 although its context suggests the works of Berkeley and some possible oriental source as well. There are frequent mentions in the Wake of ros, or dew, which was believed by the alchemists to be a powerful if not universal solvent; and this again ties up with Rosicrucianism, a subject on which I can offer no suggestion as to the range or scope of Joyce's reading. Thomas Taylor, the Platonist, seems to be mentioned occasionally, and Joyce probably knew his works. On the other hand, everything he uses in Finnegans Wake about the Cabbala seemed to be contained in the article on that subject in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. SPIRITUALISM
Details and methods from dozens of books about spiritualism are used in the Wake, particularly in the third book, 'The Four Watches of Shaun' (pp. 403-592). Conan Doyle's History of Spiritualism was Kenneth Sisam, Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose. Oxford: Clarendon 3rd impression, 1925, p. 33. the works of Jean P. Parizot and others. Cf. Ene. Brit., lIth ed., article 'Alchemy'. • A. F. Titley, 'The Macrocosm and Microcosm in Mediaeval Alchemy', Ambix, Vol. I, No. I (May I937), p. 68. £ See H. E. Stapleton, G. L. Lewis and F. Sherwood Taylor, 'The Sayings of Hermes', Ambix, III, NO.3 (April 1949), p. 87. 1
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THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS probably one of Joyce's source books. One book on spiritualism in his 'Personal Library', Allan Kardec's La genese, les miracles at les predictions selon Ie spiritisme,l was frequently underlined. It is possible that the technique in the third book, and perhaps elsewhere, owes something to the Myersian theories of 'cross-correspondences'. The entire third book is, on one level, a report of a spiritualist seance, and Joyce told Miss Weaver that 'a book of spirit talks with Oscar Wilde • . • will ex.plain one page of it. He does not like Ulysses. Mrs. Travers Smith, the "dear lady" of the book, is a daughter of professor Dowden of Trinity College, Dublin.'2 From this information it is certain that the book Joyce used was Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde 'edited' by H. T. Smith, according to which 'Mrs. Travers Smith at the Ouija Board, July 6th 1923, 1I.45 p.m.' asked Wilde the question: 'What is your opinion of "Ulysses" by James Joyce?' The reply which Mrs. Smith claimed to have received from Wilde begins, 'Yes, I have smeared my fingers with that vast work .•. It is a singular matter that a countryman of mine should have produced this great bulk of filth.' It goes on to describe Joyce's work as 'a heated vomit'.s Joyce's pardonable annoyance appears in the Wake between pages 419 and 424. 'Oscar Wild .•• Puffedly offal tosh' (419.24), 'properly spewing' (42I.27), and 'Obnoximost posthumust!' (422.12) are samples of it. But I am not sure how seriously Joyce took spiritualism, and the only axiom that I can ascribe in part to his reading in spiritualism and the occult is that certain numbers have undescribed but magical properties.
ARTHUR SYMONS
It is to be expected that Joyce would be interested in the occult for it was a topic constantly discussed in literary circles in Dublin during his formative years as a writer. Most of the prominent writers living there at the time combined an interest in such subjects as the Cabbala with an enthusiasm for the Symbolist movement which was then the dernier en from France. Mary Colum wrote4 that all the university students of Joyce's time were great admirers of Arthur Symons. Joyce certainly admired Symons and read his work carefully. It was Symons who was responsible for getting Joyce's first book, Chamber Music, 1 T. E. Connolly, p. 21. 'Letters, p. 224. Letter dated 'I January 1925'. 3 Hesther Travers Smith, Psychic messages from Oscar Wilde. London: Werner Laurie, 1924, p. 124. 4 Mary Colum, Life and the Dream. London: Macmillan & Co., 1947, p. 12I.
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THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS published, and Joyce was always grateful to him for this. He mentions him several times in letters to other people and seems to have written to him occasionally for advice. l He suggested that Symons should write an introduction to the Contact Collection of Contemporary Writers in which the first version of the 'Earwicker' episode of Finnegans Wake first appeared; and when The Joyce Book2 was published Symons wrote the epilogue to it. In this epilogue Symons compared the style of James Joyce to that of Mallarme, repeating a passage from Mallarme's own account of his theories of writing which he had already translated in his book on the Symbolist Movement, and which Joyce had copied down in Symons's translation in a notebook which he used in Trieste. 3 'Abolished, the pretension, aesthetically an error, despite its dominion over almost all the masterpieces, to enclose within the subtle paper other than, for example, the horror of the forest, or the silent thunder afloat in the leaves; not the intrinsic dense wood of the trees.'4 I do not think that sufficient attention has been given to this suggestion of Symons even now, although in a recent work, Joyce et Mallarme, David Hayman has devoted two volumes to an analysis of the influence of Mallarme upon Joyce; for it seems to me very probable that the major source is not Mallarme but Symons's account of Mallarme. The fact that Joyce copied down Symons's translation into his notebook instead of Mallarme's own words proves, I think, that this contention is true. It would be in Symons's The Symbolist MlYVement that Joyce found the formula, first laid down by Mailarme, which he was to use in writing Finnegans Wake: 'To evoke, by some elaborate, instantaneous magic of language, without the formality of an after all impossible description; to be rather than to express.'5 This is precisely what Beckett said about Joyce's writing: 'it is not ablYUt something; it is that something itself;'6 and, as Beckett knew, this was one of the principal aims of the Wake: 'to be rather than to express'. 'Imagine the poem already written down; continues Symons, 'the work has only begun . . . Pursue this manner of writing to its ultimate development; start ~ith an enigma and then withdraw the key to the enigma.'? This corresponds to the way Shem Letters, pp. 86-98. • Ibid., pp. 237, 294. The Joyce Book, edited by Maria JoIas. Sylvan Press, London, 1932. a David Hayman, Joyce et Mallarme, Vol. I, p. 28. 4 The Symbolist Movement, p. 134. S Symons, p. I30. 1
• An Exagmination, p. 14 (Beckett'S italics). • Symons, p. 134.
49 4
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS had of writing 'about all the other people in the story, leaving out, of course, foreconsdously, the simple worf;' (174.1), and I think it is the method employed by Joyce in writing Finnegans Wake. Certainly it is t)'l'icaI of his methods that 'the quotation most obviously relevant to the situation' is, as M. J. C. Hodgart was the first to point outl always carefully omitted. A comparison with Mallarme seems to be demanded also by his claim which Symons translates as 'out of many vocables he remakes an entire word, new, unknowr;. to the language', a claim which Joyce justifies more completely since he goes much further in remaking entire words, but which was first made by Mallarme. That Joyce studied Mallarme's work is shown by the entries in his 'Trieste Note-book' described by David Hayman,2 and by the quotations from Mallarm6's Hamlet et Fortinbras in Ulysses. s Yet it seems to me that the chief axiom Joyce took from Mallarme was tl>.at expressed most memorably by Walter Pater: 'All art aspires constantly to the condition of music.' According to Symons the particular type of music aimed at by Mallarme's art was that of Wagner. 'It is his failure not to be Wagner. And, Wagner having existed, it was for him to be something more, to complete Wagner,' said Symons. Joyce also aims at completing the work of Wagner, and in doing so makes use of Wagnerian techniques, particularly the leit-motiv, with which he had already experimented in Ulysses, and to which in Finnegans Walee he added several technical devices from polyphonic music which still await analysis by a competent musician. But so far as his use of Mallarme's work in the Wake is concerned Joyce need not have known anything more about it than is described in Symons's book. The same can be said of the work of all the other writers discussed by S'ymons apart from J. K. Huysmans' A Rebours4 which Joyce used as a source book. Professor W. Y. Tindall5 has already suggested that it was from Symons's book that Joyce learned about Gerard de Nerval. The authors of Joyce, the Man, the Work, the Reputations comment on this that 'Joyce must have derived equally from the artists themselves'. This may be so; but the important point, considet..ng the exorbitant demands Joyce makes on his readere, 1 M. J. C. Hodgart, 'Work in Progress', The Cambridge Journal, Vol. VI, NO.1, p. 29. 2 Joyce et Mallarmi, pp. I09-1I5. • Ibid., pp. 7-II. • See Appendix, p. 257. 5 w. Y. Tindall, James Joyce, p. no. o Kain and Magruaner, p. 148.
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THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS is that all the reader needs to know about the French Symbolists for Finnegans Wake is contained in Symons's book. Symons described De 1\erval's I.e Reve et la Vie as 'a narrative of a madman's visions by the madman himself', and its manuscript 'scrawled on scraps of paper interrupted with Kabbalistic signs and "a demonstration of the Immaculate Conception by geometry".'l This demonstration probably has something to do with the geometrical figure in the Wake (293) which shows 'figurat leavely the whome of your eternal geomater' (296.31), and parodies a Cabbalistic sign. It must have been Symons who first brought to Joyce's notice Rimbaud's sonnet on the vowels. This provides the basis for the many descriptions of the letters of the alphabet in Finnegans Wake such as, 'Every letter is a godsend, ardent Ares, brusque Boreas and glib Ganymede like zealous Zeus, the O'Meghisthest of all' (269.17). The universe of the Wake is created out of the letters of the alphabet: for which Joyce is duly thankful; the ideas, as has been shown, come from many places. Joyce's main interest was in words; his second interest was theology; it is difficult to say which interest was pursued by him to the greater ex.cess of idios:yncrasy. It has often been said that in writing Finnegans Wake he set out to create for himself a new language. 2 On the other hand many critics have protested that 'James J oyce Wrote English', 3 as Walter Taplin entitled an essay on this subject, and I think that this is true. What Joyce did try to create was a complete philosophical system. It is interesting in this context to consider a remark he once made to Frank Budgen. He was speaking to Budgen of the things which women have done, and he 'It brings me to this point. You have never heard of a woman who was the author of a complete philosophical system. No, and I don't think you ever wilL'4 It appears from this that Joyce felt that such a system was a special mark of the superiority of the male; and I have no doubt that he believed that he had created such a system himself. The last recorded description he gave of the Wake was 'the great myth of everyday life'.5 This was in an interview with a Polish journalist named Jan Parandowski whom he told that he had
89: 'Language is being born anew before spite of the difficulty of having to invent
a Walter
Wrote English', The Critic, Spring, 1947, p. 12.
• Frank of James Joyce. London: The Shenvall Press, 1955, p. S Jan Parandowski, 'Begegnung mit Joyce', Die Welrwoche. Ziirich, IIth Feb. 1949·
5I
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS taken !iterally Gautier's motto: L'inexprimable n'existe pas. I am suggestthat he took a number of other mottoes as bases, and said nothing about them. The most obvious of these is Pound's frequently repeated statement that: 'Good literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.' The Wake puts this into practice to an extent which might well be held to disprove it. But Manifestoes and statements of artistic Credos were in the air. Joyce spent his most creative periods in cities containing groups of painters who were fertile in devising theories of art and culture which they put into words as clear and comprehensible as their paintings were difficult and mysterious. In this latter aspect they resemble Joyce, and I do not think that the resemblance is simply a coincidence; more probably it results from their following similar lines of thought, although Joyce's range was, I think, wider. There are several axioms proposed by painters which Joyce may perhaps have used. Chevreul, for example, the 'heresiarch of cubism', wrote that '1 have had the idea of suppressing the images one sees in reality, the objects which have the effect of corrupting the hierarchy of colour.' This is what-as we have seen-Joyce called 'leaving out ... the simple woIf'; and, as applied to colour, is one of the ideas which Joyce is playing with in the 'topside joss pidgin fella Balkelly' (6r1.4) passage. There was also Larionov, who-as long ago as 19Io-declared his aim to be a new combination of space-time. More important, for the Wake, is Paul Klee, whose name Joyce puns on in many passages containing variants of the word key. The phrase 'arpists at cloever spilling' (508.33) includes Klee'sname along with Hans Arp's, and puns on clover/clever for Arp's experiments in poetry with distorted spellings. Klee announced that the most vital aim of the artist was to create new 'possible worlds'; Joyce seems to have applied himself to this aim with his usual thoroughness, and-from internal evidence in the Wake-it seems that he knew of Klee's theories, and probably found them useful to combine with Bruno's concept of innumerable worlds. Here, then, to sUlI'.marize, are what appear to be the main axioms of the Wake:
mg
I. The Structure of History. (Vico)
a. History is a cyclic process repeating eternallv certain typical situations. b. The incidents of each cycle have their parallels in all other cycles.
52
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS c. The characters of each cycle recur under new names in all other cycles. II. The Structure of the Universe. (Vico, Bruno, Nicholas of Cusa, Klee) a. There are an infinite number of worlds. (Bruno, Klee.) b. As each atom has its own individual life (according to Bruno) so each letter in Finnegans Wake has its own individuality. c. Each word tends to reflect in its own structure the structure of the Wake. (Bruno, the Cabbala.) d. Each word has 'a predestined ambiguity' (Freud), and a natural tendency to slide into another state (Bruno). e. Characters, like words, not only transmigrate from era to era (Vico and Bruno), but also tend to exchange their identities. This is most marked when they are opposites (Nicholas of Cusa).
III. Number. (Levy-Bruhl, Nicholas ofCusa, the Cabbala) a. Unity and diversity are opposed states each constantly tending to become the other. (Nicholas of Cusa.) b. Duality is the most typical form of plurality. Two of a kind therefore represent all of that kind. (Levy-Bruhl.) c. Numbers have a magical, not an arithmetical significance. (The Cabbala.) The numbers one to twelve also indicate certain characters or groups of characters. Certain numbers (e.g. II32) have special magical properties. IV. Theology. (Vieo, Bruno, Budge's notes to The Book of the Dead)
a. Original sin was committed by God. It is simply the act of creation. b. 'Each civilization has its own Jove.' (Vico.) c. Each Jove commits again, in a new way, to commence his cycle, the original sin on which creation depends. V. Style. (Symons, Mallarmi, the theory of music, Pound)
a. 'Every word must be charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.' (Pound.) b. 'It is the aim of language to approximate to music.' (Pater.) c. Musical techniques can therefore be applied in the Wake. The 53
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS Wagnerian leit-motiv, and the concept of 'Voices' in polyphony are frequendy used. d. Since the book is a whole all parts must cohere.
VI. Language. (VieD, Freud, Gautier, Jousse) a. 'Everything can be expressed.' (Gautier.) b. In its portrayal of the ideal eternal history the Wake must use the three forms in which language developed. These are: Symbolic acts, gesture. (Vico, Jousse.) Heraldry. (Vico.) 3. Human speech. 1.
2.
This last evolves from the attempts of men to reproduce the voice of thunder. Their first attempts were stuttering. (Vico.) c. Stutteri..ng indicates guilt. (Freud, Carroll.) d. As words contain in themselves the image of t.he structure of the Wake they also contain the image of the structure of history. (Bruno.) e. Thundering, being itself a.kind of stuttering, is an indication of guilt.
VII. Space-Time. Joyce's experiment in creating what Larionov called 'a new combination of space-time' has been left to the end of this section because I am neither confident of the correctness of my interpretation nor aware of any literary sources for Joyce's met.'lods. My suggestion is that Joyce's four old men represent in the first place Space, being geographically the four points of the compass and literally the first four letters of the Hebrew alphabet-thus standing for all the other letters so representing literary space. They have, of course, many superimposed qualities, such as their identification with Swift's Struldbrugs, who were impotent immortals. But they acquire these extra personifications because they are primarily Space. They represent the four walls of the room and the four posts of the bed, watching impotently and enviously the actions of the ever-changing figures that occupy 1:..\e space between them. They are Aleph, Beth, Ghimel and Daleth, eternal beings: 'semper as oxhousehumper' (I07.34) gives us the English meaning of their names-ox, house, camel; Daleth, the door, is named in 'till Daleth, mahomahouma, who oped it closeth thereof the. Dor' (20.17). As letters they are the 'fourdimmansions' (367.27); as points of the compass 'the bounds whereinbourne our solied bodies all attomed
an:a
54
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS attaim arrest' (367.29). Their order is unchangeable: North, South, East and West. It is probably from the old prayer 'Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, bless the bed that I lie on', that they become also the evangelists for they are still in the same order. As the four provinces they occur invariably as Ulster, Mnnster, Leinster and Connaught; never getting out of their order of precedence, and usually even speaking in that order. But I think it is as circumambient space that they are really important. They have been there all the time and know everything that has happened. That is why we can be told that 'the quad gospellers may own the targum' (II2.6) when the difficulty of understanding the Wake is being discussed, for the Targum is the book which explains the Old Testament and they were there when the events described in the Old Testament took place. This acconnt of Joyce's personification of Space may be completely wrong; but it seems to me to make sense of much that is otherwise incomprehensible if my theory is accepted. But for my interpretation of Joyce's treatment of Time I have less confidence. Time is, I think, personified by Tom, the manservant who brings things and takes them away. His name is also Tim which is what we dial in England to find the time by telephone. He is sometimes 'tompip' (178.27) which suggests the 'time-pip' given by the B.B.C. His name mutates into Atem and so on, for Time is a sort of God in that it puts a period to our lives. Tom Tompion, the watchmaker (I51.18), provides the typica1link L"Iat Joyce always seemed able to find between his fantasy and history. All I can really affirm with confidence, however, is that if Tom is Time a number of mysterious things in the Wake become a little less mysterious. And that is all that can he said for most of my suggestions.
55
Part II
THE LITERARY SOURCES
CHAPTER
I
The Manuscripts 'the Haunted InkbottZe' (182.30)
O
ne of the unique features of Finnegans Wake is its awareness of itself as a 'work in progress'. It comments upon itself as it goes along and always expects its readers to share its selfawareness. 'Quis est qui non novit quinnigan?' (496.36) it inquires; and one meaning of this seems to be 'Wbo doesn't know Finnegan?' It claims that it is being written by its readers; 'His producers are they not his consumers?' (497.1). Joyce is reported to have said on one occasion, 'It is not I who am writing this crazy book. It is you, and you, and you, and that man over there, and that girl at the next table.'l This was partly the result of the circumstances in which he was working. His sight was so bad that many of the mechanical tasks involved in the writing of a book were beyond him and he had to ask for help. Naturally enough he discussed the book he was writing with the people who were helping him to write it, and, as Stuart Gilbert remarked,2 he had a talent for making them feel concerned with his work. Furthermore, he was writing in France where the tradition of an artistic or literary group consisting of a master surrounded by a band of disciples is well established and well esteemed. It is still customary in France for an author to read extracts from his worK before publication to a group of friends and critics, and Joyce adopted this custom. He was indebted to his own circle for much of the publicity and most of the flood of explanatory articles (about the interior monologue and the Homeric parallel) which accompanied the first publication of Ulysses. This indebtedness was still more marked in the case of Finnegans Wake. As each extract appeared it was followed-or sometimes accompanied-by explanatory articles by disciples to whom Joyce had suggested the trend that their comments should take.a These disciples formed a deterHugh Kenner, Dublin's Joyce, p. 327. Patricia Hutchins, James Joyce's World, p. 168. 3 Letters, p. 283. Letter dated '30 July, 1929'. 1
2
59
THE LITERARY SOURCES roinediy avant-garde little group. Two of the chief spokesmen, Eugene 3!l.d Maria Jolas, contributed to a pamphlet in which it was said, 'we invented an artificial world with countless jokes, rites, and expressions that were quite unintelligible to others'.1 Sometimes they made portentous statements about the aims of Joyce's new work. These were afterwards collected and summarized by Eugene Jolas as 'to seek a pan-symbolic, pan-linguistic synthesis in the conception of a fourdimensional universe? a summary which may have come from Joyce himself-or at least the thought was probably Joyce's even if the words were chosen by Jolas-but which was not comprehensible at the time. Muc..."'l more useful at the beginning were the short notes that often appeared explaiuing what Joyce had said to be underlying some passage that had just been published. Joyce was aware of this and deliberately made use of his disciples. He even discusses the',x activities in the Wake itself and their publication of
Our Exagmz"nation Round his Factijicatwn for Incamz"natz"on of Work in Progress. Hugh Kenner asserts that Joyce is mocking his sycophants in this passage: 'Qui quae quat at Quinigan's Quake! Stumpl ... Your exagmination round his factification for incamination of a warping process. Declaim.' (496.36). Kenner is probably right, but I think he rather overstates his case, for it seems to me that in this passage Joyce is mocking himself almost as much as his disciples, although he was certainly not above teasing them upon occasions. He was, indeed, aware of the ridiculous aspect the group presented to some observers and admitted, on one occasion at least, that 'stric1y between ourselves there is a limit to all things so this will never do' (II9.8). But this was the result of a period of depression; usually he was as confident as any of his followers that he was in the process of ''''riring one of the great literary works of all time. The manuscript of the book, as it slowly accumulated, was the centre ofhls life. It is therefore only to be expected that the manuscript of the Wake ,,'ill be occasionally mentioned in the final text. In actual fact an entire chapter of the book is mainly concerned with its own manuscript. It has already been said that, 'Any true statement we may make about the nature of Finnegans Wake, even down to the very details of its creation, is told us within the work itself.':! It seems almost certain that 1 Georges Braque, Eugene Jolas, Maria Jotas, Henri Matisse, Andre Salmon, Tristan Tzara, Testimony Against Gertrude Stein. Transition Pamphlet, No. I, The Hague: Senire Press, 1935, p. 15. 2 Eugene Jotas, 'Frontierless Decade', Transition, XXVII, April-May, 1938, p.8. 3 Ned Polsky, 'Number 106', The Explicator, IX, NO.3, Dec. 1950. 60
THE MANUSCRIPTS this is true. Undoubtedly the book tells us a great deal about its own creation, and discusses its own manuscript at some length. This manuscript consists of an enormous and extraordinary collection of papers. The greater part of it was given by Joyce to Miss Weaver and by her to the British Museum where it can now be consulted. .Minor fragments are in the Lockwood Memorial Library of the University of Buffalo, but most of these are collections of material for the book rather than the actual manuscript of the book itself. They include, however, 'Fiftyeight small notebooks, listed in the La Hune Catalogue of Joyce's Paris Library', of which it is said that 'a cursory examination showed them to be fragments of Finnegans Wake, all apparendy composed when Joyce's sight was extremely poor, for they contain fragmentary notes, paragraphs composed from these notes, and then longhand copies probably in the hand of Madame France Raphael. These paragraphs were then apparently used in composing some of the later (to be written) passages of Finnegans Wake.'l There are also a few sheets of typescript and corrected proofs of various published extracts with significant variations which are still in private hands. But, as has been said, the bulk of the manuscript is now in the British Museum where it is bound into eighteen volumes catalogued as Additional Manuscripts 47471 to 47488 and accompanied with a volume (unbound when I last saw it) of letters and notes from lVliss Weaver to Mr. T. J. Brown, of the British Museum staff, who was responsible for arranging the half-hundredweight of papers. This extra volume is Add. MS. 47489. The earliest versions of the Wake in the British Museum contain some pages so densely covered with alterations that it is hardly possible to decipher the first draft. Revisions are written on top of revisions, additions are squeezed in wherever room can be found for them, crushed between the lines or crowded in the margin, upside-down or sloping across the page. Sometimes-presumably in order to avoid committing himself to any order of precedence-Joyce wrote down his notes at various angles. It looks as if he spun the page round every time he finished a note so as to produce a puzzle which can only be solved by being turned round in every direction. He often worked on the recto pages first, putting additions on the versos afterwards, with signs (sometimes a sort of capital F) on the rectos to show where the additions were to be inserted. Finally, when the page was finished with and a fair copy had been made, it was crossed out in red or orange crayonthus makmg it even more difficult to decipher. When Joyce describes his own manuscript he very often compares it 1
Slocum and Cahoon, p. 147.
61
THE LITERARY SOURCES to The Book of Kells. Many references are made to other famous manuscripts but The Book of Kells is accepted as the supreme masterpiece of Irish calligraphy and so is chosen by Joyce as the one to be compared with his own manuscript. For he sincerely believed this to be the manuscript of one of the world's great books-certainly the greatest Irish book-and so at least equal, if not superior, in importance to The Book of Kells. Some aspects of the use that Joyce made of The Book of Kells have already been pointed out, Stuart Gilbert, in his introduction to Joyce's Letters says, after mentioning The Book of Kells, that 'the similarity .between the graphic fantasies of the Irish monks and the verbal pyrotechnics of the Wake has often been remarked on',l The authors of A Skeleton Key devote two pages2 to a summary of Joyce's allusions to Sir Edward Sullivan's introduction to the Studio edition of The Book of Kells. a Joyce gave a copy of this book to Miss Weaver is mentioned in a letter dated 6th Feb. for Christmas in 1922. The 1923, 'I am glad you like the Book of Ke1lS.'4 Most of the allusions to this and other manuscripts come in a chapter of the Wake which is called 'Hen' in Joyce's list of chapter titles 5 but given the title 'The Manifesto of Alp' in A Skeleton Key. One of the extracts from Joyce's letters transcribed by Miss Weaver for Mr. T. J. BroVv'D. reads, 'The piece for the Criterion ("The Hen", I, v.) nearly drove me crazy. It came back from the typist (to whom I was too blind to explain the labyrinth) in a dreadful muddle. Yesterday with three magnifying glasses and the help of my son we chopped it up and today Mr. Morel will come and sew it up again on his sewing machine.'6 In the literal sense this chapter tells how a letter was scratched up out of a 'midden' (IIO.25) or'mudmound' (III.34). This midden is a symbol, elaborated later, for the inhabited world in which men have left so many traces. The letter stands as a symbol for all attempts at written communication including aJj other letters, all the world's literature, The Book of Kells, all manuscripts, all the sacred books of the Letters, p. 33. A Skeleton Key, pp. 90-I. • The Book of Kells, described by Sir Edward Sullivan, Bart., and illustrated with twenty-four plates in colour, 2nd ed. 1920. London, Paris, New York: Studio Press. 4 utters, p. 200. sBritish Museum Add. MS. 47489; f.25. This list was published by the present writer, with Miss Weaver's permission, as: 'Finnegans Wake, ChapterTitles' in N. &' Q., 6 1954, p. 270. • Add. MS. 47489, This letter is unpublished and was not included in Stuart Gilbert's edition of Joyce's Letters, 1957. The date given to it by Miss Weaver is 'I!.4.25'. 1
2
THE MANUSCRIPTS world, and also Finnegans Wake itself. One reason why The Book of Kells is included here is that it was once 'stolen by night . . . and found after a lapse of some months, concealed under sods'.l The monastery at Kells, where the famous manuscript is believed to have been written, is said to have been founded by St. Columba, 'otherwise known as Colum Cille' and so The Book of Kells 'is often called the book of Colum Cille'.2 Joyce calls it 'Hagios Colleenkiller's prophecies' (4°9.27). Joyce is perhaps bringing in here the legend of the two daughters of 'Loegaire son of Niall' who asked St. Patrick to let them see Christ and 'died after receiving communion'.3 He goes on to mention 'Hireark Books ... in their Eusebian Concordant Homilies'. This refers to plate I of the Studio edition, 'A page of the Eusebian canons', which lists in four columns parallel passages in the four Gospels. The first unmistakable mention of The Book of Kells in the Wake is 'all the French leaves unveilable out of Calomnequiller's Pravities' (50.9). 'French leaves' means missing leaves-there are at least sixty leaves missing from the extant manuscript, but it also means 'obscene pages'-the depravity of which cannot be veiled or concealed. 'Pravities' must derive from pravus, crooked, depraved; and 'Calomnequiller' must mean a writer of calumnies. This sets the tone for all the allusions to The Book of Kells in the Wake. Like all other acts of creation it has something sinful about it; indeed, it is something crooked and depraved. The only exception to this is in the last section which comes just before Alp's final letter and speech in which everything is forgiven. It is 'eccentricities transmitted by the ancient legacy of the past ... letter from litter . . . since the days of Plooney and Columcellas' (614.36). Colum Cille is here joined with Lucius Junius Columella who is mentioned by Edgar Quinet in that sentence, to which Joyce refers so often, about the immortality of wild flowers. Literature is also immortal, Joyce is saying, manuscripts such as The Book of Kells come to light again after they have been buried, just as the letter in the Wake was scratched by the hen from the litter. In several passages Joyce pokes fun at Sir Edward Sullivan's introduction to The Book of Kells. For example, 'The symbol known in Irish MSS. as "head under the wi.'1g" or "turn under the path"-which ... indicates that the words i.'llIllediately following are to be read after the end of the next fullline',4 becomes in the Wake 'the curious warning The Book of Kells, p. 4. Ibid., p. 7. 3 Whitley Stokes (Editor), The Tripartite documents relating to that Saint. London: Rolls 4 The Book of Kells, p. 10. 1
2
St. Patrick with other 1887, p. 99.
THE LITERARY SOURCES sign . . • which paleographers call a leak in the thatch or the Aranman
ingperwhis through the hole of his hat, indicating that the words that follow ma.y be taken in any order desired' (I2I.8). This probably refers also to the sign like a capital F which Joyce sometimes used in his own MS. Another statement by Sullivan, 'Attention is drawn to the errors by four obell in red? gives Joyce his source for 'Those red raddled obell cayennepeppercast over the text, calling unnecessary attention to errors' (120.14). An extra detail is taken from Sullivan's discussion of the pigments used by the scribes at Kells which, he thinks, included 'red Haemetite of an earthy nature, such as is termed raddle' .2 Here again there may be a reference to the red crayon marks which Joyce often placed on his own MS. He is, I think, amusing himself by writing the sort of notes 'to colUlllllkill all the prefacies of Erin gone brugk' (347.2I), which he imagined a future palaeographer might write about the Finnegans Wake MS. The Kells MS. was never completed. Sir Edward Sullivan writes of 'a space left vacant when the original artist had touched the Manuscript for the last time, I think, too, that we can almost see from the illumination itself the very place where he was hurried from his work ... The interruption of so very simple a feature of the work seems to tell a tale of perhaps even tragic significance'. :> Joyce amuses himself suggesting possibilities. 'The copyist must have fled with his scroll', he "'Tites. 'The billy flood rose or an elk charged him' (14.17). Or perhaps he was struck by lightning, or found a Dane knocking at his door. Whatever happened it would be lightly regarded at the time, says Joyce, for 'a scribicide then and there is led off under old's code with some fine covered by six marks or ninepins in metalmen' (I4.2I). Sir Edward Sullivan seems to share one allusion with Joyce himself. This is 'the blackband Shovellyvans, wreuter of annoyingmost letters' (495.1), for the passage continues 'and smriless ballets in Parsee Franch .. .' This parodies the title of an article in transition, '.Mr. Joyce directs an Irish Prose Ballet',4 with the addition of Percy French, whose songs· are always being quoted in the Wake. One connection which Joyce finds between himself and Sir Edward Sullivan is that they both claim to have found signs of non-Christian influences in The Book of Kells. Sullivan writes, 'The frequently occurring presence of serpentine forms all through the decoration of the manuscript has given rise The Book of Kells, p. 24. Ibid., p. 47. S Ibid., p. II. 4 By Robert McAlmon, afterwards included in An Exagmination, p. 10.3.
.1. 2
64
THE MANUSCRIPTS to the suggestion that these forms are in some way connected with the worship of Ophidian reptiles.'l He goes on to say that there is some evidence that snakes were worshipped in ancient Ireland, and suggests that it was St. Patrick's victory over this heathen practice which gave rise to the legend of his expulsion of snakes from Ireland. It is probably because of this remark that Joyce mentions 'Apep and Uachet! Holy snakes' (494.15), who are snake gods from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. But he goes much further. He suggests that the scribe was anti-Christian and is secretly mocking at the text he transcribed. This is 'the point of eschatology our book of kills reaches for' (482.33). Perhaps the genesis of the joke-for Joyce certainly does not mean this seriously-is in Ulysses where Virag says of Christ 'He has !'Wo left feet'2-with the implication that Christ was Satan. Of the only picture of Christ in The Book of Kells Sullivan says, 'It will be noticed that by some curious error . . . bOLh the feet of the Child are left feet.'ll This refers to plate II in the Studio edition. Joyce's comments are mainly about plate XI which he calls 'the tenebrous Tunc page of the Book of Kells' (122.22). This, he says, was plainly inspired by the letter which the hen found and suggests that the scribe's arrangement of the words on the page is intended to present a lewd diagram similar to the one which Dolph draws to scandalize Kev on page 293 of the Wake. Kenner pointed out solemnly that this design is 'strikingly like the alchemical formula quoted by Jung',4 and that 'all the secrets of the universe are extracted from it'. Joyce intended his readers to make such comparisons and could doubtless have suggested many other parallels such as the diagrams in Yeats's A Vision, and the Yeats and Ellis edition of Blake's Works, and so on, back to the diagrams in Bruno's philosophical works and Nicholas of Cusa's attempts to square the circle. But when he has finished his diagram Dolph boasts, 'And you can haul up that languil pennant, mate. I've read your tunc's dimissage' (298.6). This proves, I think, that Joyce was claiming to have discovered an appositeness for the diagram as an illustration of a part of a woman's body named by an anagram of Tunc. The 'tenebrous Tunc page' has a serpentine capital T in the top half followed by a line of capitals reading UNGGR and then a smaller capital u. The decorated capital T Joyce calls 'Big Whiggler' (284.25) following this by 'NCR'. In the bottom half of the page in The Book of Kells the words are arranged in two The Book of Kells, p. 42. • James Joyce, Ulysses. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, I947, p. 494. • The Book of Kells, p. 9. 'Dublin's Joyce, p. 327.
1
THE LITERARY SOURCES triangles with apexes touching to form a St. Andrew's cross. This with 'lines of litters slittering up andlouds ofletters slettering down' (II4.17), gives yet another parallel with the Finnega:ns Wake MS. The border of the 'Tunc page' is indented to allow for three rectangular panels each of which contains five faces in profile. These are referred to by Joyce in 'there are exactly three squads of candidates for the crucian rose awaiting their turn in the marginal panels of Columkiller, chugged in their three ballotboxes' (I22.24). Page 308 of the Wake contains a crude sketch of a nose ",ith a thumb to it and crossed bones which, as the authors 0: A Skeleton Key remark, 'Also carries a suggestion of the Tunc page of the Book of Kells.'l They begin, however, by ascribing cabbalistic meanings to these symbols. It is, I think, very probable that Joyee was doing the same thing and ascribing some cabbalistic meaning to the arrangement of words and ornament on this 'Tunc page' over which he must have pondered for many hours. He found there symbols suggesting at one and the same time crucifixion, death, salvation and spiritual rebirth in Christian symbols, blended ",ith the lingam and yoni of the Far East, a pagan serpent-perhaps phallic-emblem of ancient Ireland, and Rosicru.cian designs of which the derivation is best described as 'occult'. It is not knovm when The Book oJ Kells was written. Joyce remarks on 'The studious omission of year nun:1ber and era name from the date, the one and only time when our copyist seems at least to have grasped the beauty of restraint' (1.21.28). Sir Edward Sullivan tries to prove that 'The date of the Manuscript should be ascribed to a period which cannot possibly be earlier than the latter end of the ninth centllIY'.2 For the proof of this he relies on an analysis of the type of punctuation. Joyce parodies this in an account of how, 'Those paper wounds, four in type, were gradually and correctly understood to mean stop, please stop, do please stop, and 0 do please stop respectively' (124.3). Sullivan said that there were four ways in which a period or full stop could be represented in The Book oj Kells. He goes on to remark that 'Another point in connection with the punctuation . . . has been overlooked by all palaeographers. None of them seems to have noticed that the dots are, in the Kells volume, almost always square in shape or quadrilateral -notround.'3 This was Joyce's source for 'When some peerer or peeress detected that the fourleaved shamrock or quadrifoil jab was more recurrent whenever the script was clear and the term terse' (124.20). A Skeleton Key, p. 165. The Book of Kells, Pl'. vii and 35-6. • Ibid., p. 7-7.
1 2
66
THE MANUSCRIPTS Indeed, almost every sentence of Sir Edward Sullivan's introduction has an echo somewhere in the Wake. But Joyce could never be satisfied with one example. He had to pile up dozens. Indeed he was aware that he himself had not grasped 'the beauty of restraint', and he preferred the theory that 'The more carrots you chop, the more turnips you slit . . .' and so on, for another dozen examples, 'the merrier fumes your new Irish stew' (190.3). It is this supererogatory piling of decoration upon decoration and inserting of decoration within decoration which is the common characteristic of The Book of Kells and Finnegans Wake. One example is never sufficient. Having mentioned one manuscript Joyce has to bring in references to many other manuscripts; so many that it may be assumed that he meant to include references to all manuscripts, or at least to all manuscripts which have been tainted by doubt or destiny. Within the curves of his embroidery about the Kells manuscript Joyce speaks of 'the toomuchness, the fartoomanyness of all those fourlegged ems' (I22.36). This must refer to the suggestion, made first from a study of misprints in the early editions of Shakespeare, and supported by the MS. of the Play of Sir Thomas More, that putting four legs to occasional m's was Shakespeare's besetting sin as a writer. Joyce has succeeded in entwining an allusion to Shakespeare's manuscripts with an account of the Kells manuscript. Hamlet and Shakespeare's will are brought in on the previous page with a backward glance at Stephen's lecture on Shakespeare in Ulysses, 'the gipsy mating of a grand stylish gravedigging with secondbest buns' (121.32). This is followed by an erudite parody of a list of a family of manuscripts. I suspect that this includes at 'Brek II' (I2I.34) an allusion to Immanuel Bekker who introduced the system of arranging manuscripts in families. Amongst other things Finnegans Wake is a history of writing. We begin with writing on 'A bone, a pebble, a ramskin ... leave them to cook in the mutthering pot: and Gutenmorg with his cromagnon charter, tintingfats and great prime must once for omniboss stepp rubrickredd out of the wordpress' (20.5). The 'mutthering pot' is an allusion to Alchemy, but there is some other significance connected with writing, for the next time the word appears it is again in a context concerning improvement in systems of communication. The passage is: 'All the airish signics of her dipandump helpabit from an Father Hogam till the Mutther Masons .. .' (223.3). 'Dipandump helpabit' combine the deaf and dumb alphabet'S signs in the air-or 'airish signs' with the ups and downs of the ordinary ABC and the more pronounced ups and downs of Irish. Ogham writing. The Mason, following this, 67
THE LITERARY SOURCES must be the man of that name who invented steel pen nibs. But all I can suggest for 'mutther' is the muttering of Freemasons which does not fit the context, although they, of course, also make signs in the air. One of the most interesting and important stories in the history of the rediscovery of the classical manuscripts is that of the find made by Scipio Maffei in the monastery at Verona. His name seems to be concealed, almost as effectively as the manuscripts were which he found on the top of the book cases. It is probably hidden, combined with a reference to Cicero's Somnio Scipionis, which "'las also almost lost, in 'lost himself or himselfsomnione sciupiones, sowhitchoverswetch had he or gazet, murphy come, murphy go •. .' (293.7) where 'murphy go' etc. stands for Maffei, as well as potatoes. One famous and beautiful manuscript, the Luttrell P"alter, was bought by the British Museum in 1929, at a time when Joyce was writing about manuscripts, and the purchase was given much publicity. Joyce seems to mention it twice, on both occasions with a side-glance at the letters written by Henry Luttrel which betrayed Limerick to De Ginkell. 'Luttrell sold if Lautrill bought' (81.14), alludes to both purchases; 'Luttrelly' (534.9) probably does so too. The fortunate chance that preserved the bulk of the text of Beowulf is also mentioned. The only manuscript of Beowulf was damaged by fire in 1731 and part of the text survives only because copies were made before the fire for G. J. Thorkelin. 'Live thurkells' (91.9) followed by a reference to 'fire' is probably alluding to this, although there are several other implications concerning Thor and Thorgils, or Turgesius. The Beowulf manuscript w.is a part of the famous Cottonian library now in: the British Museum. 'Cotton' (108.24) is named in the 'Hen' chapter which is, as has been said, the main account of manuscripts in the Wake. The press-marks of the Cottonian library are taken from the busts of the twelve Caesars that, with the addition of Cleopatra and Faustina, used to surmount the original presses. The names of all fourteen occur in the Wake, and in a pattern of distribution which is, I think, significant. They are in a group clustered around the 'Hen' chapter,! but not evenly spaced out. The bulk of them are in or near the chapter on manuscripts and the further away you go from this the 1
Julius, 161.36. Augustus, I04.6. 3. Tiberius, IIS.II; 1I9.16; 123.30. 4. Callgula, 4.32; 60.26. 5. Claudius, 121.1. 6. Nero, 177.14. 7. Galba. (?) Sulpicius, 254.8. I. 2.
68
8. Otho,. 132.6. 9. Vitellius, 307 margin. 10. Vespasian, 132.18. II. Titus, 70.14; 128.15. I2. Domitian, 306 margin. 13. Cleopatra, 104.20. 14. Faustina, 83.29.
THE MANUSCRIPTS less likely you are to find any of them. The effect, indeed, is that the distribution follows the pattern of a gaussian probability curve, and a graph would show the cocked hat shape dear to statisticians. The reason for this is that Joyce is putting into practice the technique of the Wagnerian leit-motiv. This has been described by M. J. C. Hodgart as follows: 'When a "type" is about to be materialized its coming is announced by the faint and obscure sounding of motifs associated with that type; thus Swift may be heralded by scraps from the Journal to Stella, Lewis Carroll by puns on Alice, Liddell, lookingglasses, etc. When a type has become the main channel for the narrative the allusions to him are thickened, the leit-motiv stated more openly; but even after he has begun to fade out a few themes may linger on. To change the metaphor, a character-type acts as a magnet, attracting allusions like iron filings in its field, which may extend through several paragraphs or pages in either direction.'l The 'Letter' theme is one of the main elements of Finnegans Wake, and the Cottonian press-marks are just one of the groups of allusions to it, but they show the pattern in which they are arranged. Each of them carries another significance in its place; but this is norIIl.ffi in the Wake. 'Every word', we have been warned, 'will be bound over to carry three score and ten toptypsical reading' (20.14). It has been generally assumed that the 'Jymes' (181.27) who is 'out of a job, would sit and write', and concerning whom the question is raised: 'How very many piously forged palimpsests slipped in the first place from his pelagiarist pen', refers only to James Joyce. But in fact there was another James-or at least a Giacomo-who was involved in a scandal concerning a forged palimpsest. In 1884 Giacomo Cortese, an Italian scholar, described a palimpsest that he claimed to have found. It was actively discussed by classical scholars until 1904 when L. Traube proved that L1te page had been forged by Cortese who, by that time, was Professor of Classical Philology at Rome. It will be noticed that the reference to the forged palimpsest in the Wake is surrounded by scraps of Italian. Other forgeries are mentioned. 'Vortigern' (565.12) refers chiefly to William Ireland's forged Shakespearian play. Perhaps the word
THE LITERARY SOURCES One play, The Perfidious Brother, was claimed by someone else when Theobald said he had 'created it anew' for the first performance in 1715. Another play, The Double Falsehood, was asserted by him to be from a Shakespearian MS., but at the time he was accused of having forged it. It is now generally thought that he had a MS. by some minor Elizabethan, Shirley perhaps, on which he founded his text. He comes into the Wake inextricably mixed up with the non-existent St. Tibb whose eve proverbially never comes. Joyce is probably including both Theobald and St. Tibb in 'Tibbes gtey eves' (424.29), for this is followed by: 'Every dimmed letter is a copy ..• The lowquacity of him! .•. The last word in stolentelling! And what's more rightdown lowbrown schisthematic robblemint.' Theobald becomes Tibbald because Pope gave him that name when he enthroned him as hero of the Dundad. Joyce has various spellings intermediate between Theobald and Tibb.1 Another forger who may be named in the Wake is George Psalmanazar who pretended to be a native of Formosa and translated the Church Catechism into a language of his own invention which he called Formosan. His name may be included in 'Shalmanesir' (150.16). But the forger who is mentioued most often is 'Jim the Penman', although he is never given precisely that name-the nearest he gets to it is 'Shem the Penman' (125.25). There was a real criminal named James Townsend Savard who was known as 'Jim the Penman'. An account of his trial by George Dilnot is included in the Famous Trials Series,2 but as this was not published until 1930 it is not likely to have been used much by Joyce. A Victorian play, Jim the Penman, by Sir Charles Young, and 'A melodramatic novel of the same name by Dick Donovan', 3 have also been suggested as Joyce's sources. But Joyce took nothing from any of these except the title, and-of course-he took this because his own name was James. Why did James Joyce put himself-or one of his selves-down as a forger? One answer to this question follows from the claim that has been made that Finnegans Wake is intended as a third Scripture. Any such scripture made by a man must be a forgery. Joyce sometimes seems to fear that God will be angry with him for having usurped the divine function of creation. He was conscious of having created out of his own memory and imagination two people, Molly and Leopold Bloom, who were to him and to many of his readers as real as, if not more real than many of the God-created people one passes in the street. Perhaps it was II7.19: Tibbs; 159.31: theabild; 236.8: Tibbie; 263.5: theobalder. George Dilnot, The Trial of Jim the Penman. London: Geoffrey Bles, I930. • W. Y. Tindall, James Joyce, p. IS. 70 l
2
THE MANUSCRIPTS to compensate for this that he assumed all forms of creation to be sinful. I have discussed in this section all the manuscripts that I am sure Joyce mentioned in the Wake. There are probably many others which he mentioned but which I have not noticed. For example, I have recently received from Mr. F. Senn-Baldinger of ZUrich, who is working on an account of Joyce's references to ZUrich in the Wake, a suggestion that Joyce mentions the Manesse Codex in 'Dr. Melamanessy' (5°5.24). He writes: 'Ritter Riideger von Manesse made a collection oflyrical poetry by the minnesingers in the 13th century; and this manuscript, which was long kept at Heidelberg, is the most important source of the Minnesang poetry. There is, however, it should be mentioned, a Manesse-Strasse in Ziirich, but the existence of this street may have served to draw Joyce's attention to the Manesse Codex.' There are probably many other manuscripts such as this named or casually referred to in the Wake, since-as has been said-Joyce liked to pile up examples. But I think that enough has been said on this topic of manuscripts and will go on to consider Joyce's use of printed sources, which is much more widespread and complex.
71
CHAPTER
2
Some Typical Books 'thanks ever so much for the tiny quote' C395.!8) HOMER
'SUCh
an amount of reading seems to be necessary before myoId flying machine grumbles up into the air? wrote Joyce. I have already quoted this once but repeat it here because it shows Joyce's own awareness of one of the salient oddities of his talent. More t..'han any other writer I know of he needed a basis of some other writer's work on which to compose his own. He seems to have considered it as a sort of literary runway necessar.-y to gain momentum before creative work eould begin, and he always seems to have needed this stimulus. He was not, perhaps, unique in this, indeed Shakespeare may have had the same need. But Joyee had it in a higher degree and more consciously than anyone else of importance as a creator of original work. The piece of Joyce's early prose which has received most adulation is the closing passage of 'The Dead'. Richard Ellmann has discovered a similarity between this and a passage in Thoreau's translation of the iliad and comments 2 that 'Joyee has developed the Homeric figure .•. and he has prepared for it throughout the story. It is an imitation which transcends the usual meaning of that word.' In fact it is not so much an imitation as a 'Variation upon a theme', a concept with which Joyce, as a musician, was familiar. Another set of variations upon a Homeric theme is played in Finnegans Wake when Joyce describes Anna Livia's toilet (206.29). 'First she let her hair fall and down it flussed to her feet its teviots winding coils .. .' This is based on the passage in the fl£ad, XIV, I66-189, describk.g the toilet of Hera when she wishes to appear seductive to Zeus, but there is no attempt to copy the verbal pattem. Joyce uses only the facts. His river rhythms dominate the sound of the chapter so completely that it is not even possible to say which translation 1
2
Letters, p. 300. BUmann, 'The Backgrounds of Ulysses', p. 359.
72
SOME TYPICAL BOOKS he used.l. He must have used some translation for he had little knowledge of Greek. This was a deficiency in his education which Joyce always regretted. For Finnegans Wake he collected scraps of Greek from Beckett2 and others and scattered them about his text: 'Polyfizzyboisterous seas' (547.23), for example, from the epic formula 'l'COAU
(Unopened pages 53-60, 69-504). The Odyssey of Homer, translated by E. Shaw. New York: Oxford University Press, I934. See Connolly, p. 19. • See James Joyce's World, p. r69. 3 Envoy, V, 17 April 1951, p. 65.
73
THE LITERARY SOURCES flltleral games, which have been poring over us through homer's kerryer pidgeons' (5I5.21;). This appears to be saying that a funeral celebration of an ancient kind (like that in the 23rd book of the Iliad) is taking place in Ireland (in Kerry perhaps). Elsewhere a very minor English song writer, Frederick E. Weatherly, who wrote 'The Holy City', 'Roses of Picardy' and many other songs, as well as providing the English libretti for Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana, is described as 'our homerole poet ... Fred Wetherly'. This, I think, is just a family for in Joyce's home the writer of tenor songs played the role of Homer-or at least his were the sort of verses most frequently heard. Homer's name also comes, without distortion, in the margin of the 'Night Lessons' chapter (306) and, as 'Homeur' (34.12), in the second cr...apter, 'The Ballad'. This is the normal way in which material is distributed in the Wake. It is broken up into small pieces and scattered throughout the book, sometimes evenly in all sections, more often grouped, in the way which has been described i.'l the section on the Manuscripts, around some centre at which references cluster thickest. Joyce's patterns are often difficult to trace because of his practice of cramming as many meanings as possible into every word. But there does not seem to be any particular focus for the references to Homer. Like a number of other great writers who will be discussed later, his name or quotations from his work may appear anywhere and seem to be diffused evenly throughout the book. The names of the Homeric characters appear frequently,l although little weight can be to t..1Us as a proof of Joyce having used Homer, since many of them are also characters in Greek myth and drama, and their names recur throughout all European literature. Aja..'!:, for example, appears as 'Highjakes' (547.22). This was a favourite Elizabethan pun, especially a..f'ter the appearance of Sir John Harrington's The Metamorphosis of Ajax. 'Harrington's invention' (266.12) is used as a euphemism for water closet, and the trope is repeated (447.9) although euphemism was not a figure of speech to which Joyce was prone. But, as it will be frequently necessary to point out, the allusions shoot off in all directions making it difficult to follow any single thread. I have begun with Homer, partly because of his position in literature, partly because Joyce's nse of the Od:yssey as a framework for Ulysses is so well known, and also becanse Joyce's use of Homer provides a good example of the way in which some books are diffused throughout the Wake. But this was not Joyce's usual way with the books he used. 1 A Census lists seventeen characters from Homer's works appearing in Finnegans Wake.
74
SOME TYPICAL BOOKS Most are used only in a few passages, perhaps for a chapter, perhaps for a page or two, perhaps only for a single phrase. Many sections, perhaps all sections, of the Wake were written on the basis of some book which Joyce had beside him. Without a knowledge of the particular book which is being used it is often impossible to understand Joyce's text. When writing to Miss Weaver to explain a passage he was sending to her, Joyce frequently mentioned the book she must read if she wished to grasp his meaning. But he used a great number of books which he did not mention to Miss Weaver, and the only way in which these can be found is by following up the clues or 'Keys' which Joyce usually provides in such passages. The finding of such 'Keys' is not easy because Joyce's work is crammed with references to books of all kinds, often named only once. The Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius, for example, are brought in 'And tty to saviounse the nights of labour . . . what Aulus Gellius picked on Micmacrobius' (255.17). One meaning here is that Joyce, like Aulus Gellius, spent his nights working at literature, and, like Gellius again, chose examples from both small and great authors ('Micro-macro-'). Another meaning involves Macrobius Theodosius, whose work includes disrespectful references to Virgil, Cicero, and other great men. In his Noctes Atticae1 Gellius alleges that Demosthenes was guilty of unnatural vice. Joyce remembers this in 'I demosthrenated my folksfiendship, enmy pupuls felt my burk' (542.18), and uses the title of Ibsen's play En Folke Fiende, An Enemy of the People, to repeat it. But Macrobius, although his commentary saved for us me Somnium Scipionis (293.7), and he is remembered by students of English literature as me author whom the young Sam Johnson astonished the head of Pembroke College by quoting, never seems to be mentioned again. ROWNTREE'S
Poverty
One of the best examples of a book which Joyce used only in a few passages, which it dominates, is B. Seebohm Rowntree's Poverty, A Study of Town Life.2 It is used only for half of page 362 and for pages 543-5, but in these brief passages it carries the full stream of Finnegans Wake, and almost every word in mem is derived from it. But mere is a startling difference between Joyce's prose and the rather dull wording of me social investigators' notes which it transforms, and perhaps a Noctes Atticae, I, v, i. • London: Macmillan and Co., 1902..
1
75
THE LITERARY SOURCES comparison with the difference between the language of Shakespeare's Roman plays and that of North's Plutarch is not altogether out of place. The frequently occurring word 'respectable' is used by Rowntree with a connotation that defies definition; for example (p. 17): 'One child, respectable, wife and house dirty and untidy. Very little furniture'; or again (p. 19): 'Husband not quite steady, wife delicate-looking. Respectable; one boy sent to a truant school. House fairly clean.' Joyce uses the word as a sort of sardonic refrain or repeated comment ending with, 'the terror of Goodmen's Field, and respected and respectable as respectable can respectably be' (545.7). The effect of parody is produced through one statement being piled on top of another, often with the words unaltered, as lilies that needed no gilding, but more usually holes admitting numbers of mice' intensified and enlivened. (p. I56) becomes 'Copious holes emitting mice' (545.8). 'One foot of dust between banister and cracked wall' (544.20) is Joyce's summary of a paragraph (p. 155) by Rowntree. 'Harmless imbecile supposingly weakminded' (544.27) combines two entries on page 36 from which Joyce also took 'Floor of kitchen full of holes and dangerous for old men', altering it to 'Floor dangerous for unaccompanied old clergymen' (544.15). Another item on this page is 'Neighbours say sons lie in bed most of the day and go out with sisters at night'. Joyce turns this into 'Lieabed sons go out with sisters immediately after dark' (544.30). Joyce took a scrap or two from almost every chapter of Poverty and rearranged them in an order of his own. From the first chapter he took one single detail about how 'before many a house was a clog or stump of wood' (p. 23), which becomes simply, 'clumpstump before door' (544.9). The second chapter contains 'a few sample pages from the note books of the investigators', and these pages were the cream of the book for Joyce. The information obtained was set down in columns under headings such as 'Number of inmates', and 'Occupation of head offamily', with a wide column at the right-hand side of the page headed 'Remarks'. Joyce used many of the remarks. Four sample entries in this column from one page (47) read: 'Respectable. . Tidy. Nine young cbJIdren. Had Parish relief stopped for illegitimate child. Query-How they live? Wife paralysed. Respectable.' From this Joyce produces 'Has a tenth illegitimate coming, partly respectable' (543.35), and 'queery how they live' (545.6). 76
SOME TYPICAL BOOKS Rowntree's third chapter includes another set of notes but this time not arranged in columns. The first one reads, '1. No occupation. Married. Age sixty-four. Two rooms. The man "has not had his boots on" for twelve months. He is suffering from dropsy. His wife cleans schools. This house shares one closet with eight other houses, and one water-tap with four others. Rent 28. 6d.' (p. 33). Joyce takes from this-'man has not had boots off for t\ve1ve months' (544.18), and 'wife cleans stools' (544.21), while the shared closet, which is a detail repeated ad nauseam in Poverty, becomes 'sharing doset which is profusely written over with eleven other subscribers, once respectable' (544.2). 'Regular loafer' (544.22) comes from Poverty (p. 35) unchanged, and Joyce takes something from each of the next three pages. 'Resting after colonial service' (544.33) seems to be Joyce's rendering of 'Retired soldier. Married. Three rooms, one child. Parish relief. Ill. Husband after serving twelve years in India, receiving no pension. Dying of consumption. Poverty-stricken' (p. 38). Many of Joyce's other entries are ironical such as 'Decoration from Uganda chief in locked ivory casket' (545.8), which is a suggestion that these slum-dwellers received a very small share in the wealth of a great empire. This same chapter of Poverty contains three more lists of notes about houses classified as being occupied by people in successively improved financial states. The details become progressively less startling so Joyce takes three extracts from the first of them and none from the other two. 'The water tap is quite 100 yards away' (p. 50), becomes 'nearest watertap two hundred yards' run away' (544.16). 'This house has an earth closet; when it is emptied the night soil has to be removed through the house' (p. 51 and p. 53) becomes 'nights oil has to be removed through snoring household' (544.7). The last entry in this group of notes includes, 'The last three occupants have been "carried out" (i.e. died)' (p. 53). Joyce turns this into 'Last four occupants carried out' (545.6). Rowntree ends the chapter with a discussion of the lessons to be learned from his investigators' reports. In considering the life of women he decides that it is least monotonous in the slum districts where the women are 'constantly in and out of each other's houses, or meet and gossip in the courts and streets. But with advance in the social scale, family life becomes more private, and the women, left in the house all day whilst their husbands are at work are thrown upon their own resources ... In the deadening monotony of their lives these women become hopeless drudges.' Rowntree goes on to say that 'The husband commonly finds his chief interests among his "mates" and seldom rises
77
THE LITERARY SOURCES to the idea of mental comparionship with his wife' (p. 77). Joyee quotes 'mental companionship with mates only' (545.7). This is completely incomprehensible in the text of Finnegans Wake, unless the fact that it is a quotation from Poverty is known. The word 'mates' anywhere except the north of EngJand-of which Rovvntree is writing-would signify wives rather than male companions, even if the rest of the phrase were deciphered. There are several other expressions in this section of the Wake which are only comprehensible from a knowledge of their use in Poverty. 'Teawidow pension but held to purchase' (545.4) has a precise meaning when the passage it refers to is knmvn. It comes from the account of the family budget of a soldier's widow of whom it is said, 'She also has 58. per week from a "Tea Pension". (A Tea Company started a scheme under which a regular purchaser of t pound of their tea per week on being left a widow is entitled to a pension of 5s. per week during her widowhood,-the only apparent condition for the continuation of this pension being that she continue to buy the regular quantity of tea each week' (p. 269). The word 'anoopanadoon' (543.30) comes from Poverty (p. 152) where it is explained as 'a two-roomed house (usually called "an oop-an'-a-doon").' It is difficult to see any justification for Joyce's use of such words without explanation. On the other hand, the fact that he does use words in this way supports my contention that a thorough examination of the books Joyce used is necessary if the problems set by Finnegans Wake are ever to be solved. I have said that Joyce usually gives clues to the books he is using. The clue which is given to Poverty is 'Calories exclusively from Rowntrees and dumplings' (544.34). This refers to chapter four of Poverty in which Rowntree discusses diet, mentions dumplings (p. 99), and has a lot to say about calories. It has been shown that Joyce made use of something from each of the first four chapters. He uses nothing from chapter five. From chapter six he takes a description of a house: 'The sitting room often contains a piano ... Occasionally it is used by the husband when he has writing to do in connection with friendly or other societies, or by the children when practising music . . . A sofa, albeit of horsehair or American cloth .•• Upstairs there are three bedrooms' (p. 148). In F£nnegans Wake this becomes, 'Pair of chairs (suspectable), occasionally and alternatively used by husband when having writing to do in connection with equitable druids and friendly or other societies ..• a sofa albeit of hoarsehaar with Amodicum cloth, hired payono, still playing off, w;ed by the youngsters for czurnying out oldstrums, three bedrooms upstairs .•. (particularly perspectable)' 78
SOME TYPICAL BOOKS (362.26). Joyce has left the order unchanged and simply distorted the spelling of a few of the words to provide puns. The piano becomes a 'Pay? Oh no!' for which they are still paying off while the children strum out Karl Czerny's exercises. The Druids is a Friendly Society mentioned by Rowntree. J oyee takes nothing from chapters seven and nine. From chapter eight he takes a few phrases, the 'tea-,vidow pension' already mentioned, 'Dead sick of bread and butter' (p. 28r and 543.24), and 'reading work on German physics' (p. 255; in the next line of the Wake (543.25). It appears then that Joyce read Poverty from cover to cover since he uses material from six of its nine chapters and the three chapters he ignores contain nothing that seems suitable for his purpose. Yet all this material is put into two short passages in the Wake. Tbis is not Joyce's usual \vay of using a book although he uses Norman Douglas's London Street Ga:mes1 in the same way for a different passage.
DANTE
Joyce's usual method was to scatter quotations and so on throughout the entire chapter. The recognizable quotations from Dante provide a good example of this. They nearly all come in the 'Night Lessons' Chapter (260-308), and references to Dante and the Divine Comedy are fairly evenly spaced around this chapter. Two of the quotations are from the fifth canto of the Inferno dealing with those guilty of sexual incontinence. Here Dante meets many famous lovers and talks with Paolo and Francesca. Perhaps this gives a link with the warring brothers theme since Francesca was Paolo's brother's wife. It is interesting to note that the only quotation Joyee makes from Dante in his published Leuers2 comes from tills same canto. It is 'Siccome i gru van cantando lor lai' (Inferno, V, 46)-'As the cranes go chanting their lay'. Joyce is said to have been fond of quoting Dante3 and probably knew this canto by heart. One of the quotations is, 'Lamoor that of gentle breast rathe is intaken' (292.1). This comes from 'Arnor, cbe al cor gentil ratto s'apprende' (Inferno, V, 100), 'Love that soon teaches itself to the Letters, p. 284. See Appendix, p. 247. • 'Sooner or later Joyce would begin to recite Dante in Italian, "when that misty and intent look came upon his face and into his eyes I knew that friend Joyce wasn't going home till early morning".' Robert McAlmon, quoted in Hutchins, James Joyce's World, p. I27. 1
2
79
THE LITERARY SOURCES noble heart'. Joyce continues, 'seems circling toward out yondest (it's life that's all chokered by that batch of grim rushers).' 'Circling toward out yondes!' probably refers to the outermost circle of Hell in which Paolo and Francesca are confined. 'That batch of grim rushers' are the damned souls who are described by Dante in this canto as being whirled about unceasingly by the wind of Hell (Inferno, V, 15, and V, 28-39). Another quotation is hidden in the words, 'And the greater the patrarc the griever the pinch. And t.hat's what your doctor knows' (269.25). This also comes from the fifth canto, not far from 'Amor, che al cor gentil .• .' It is, 'Ed ella a me: Nessun maggior dolore, Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella rniseria; e cia sa i1 tuO dottore.' (Inferno, V, 121). This is translated by Dorothy L. Sayersl as: 'Then she to me: The bitterest woe of woes Is to remember in our wretchedness Old happy times; and this thy Doctor knows.' Joyce would know that Dante's editors disagree about the meaning of
tuo dettore. Some say it means Virgil and refers to the line, 'Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem' (Aeneid, II, 3). Others point out that the situation there is the opposite the situation in the Inferno, since Aeneas was being asked to remember sorrow in the midst of joy, and
of
they maintain that Dante is quoting a passage from Boethius's Consolatio Philosophiae iv, 4). But they agree that on every other occasion when the words tuo dottore are used in the Divine Comedy they mean Virgil. Joyce is creating here one of the mirror effects of which he was fond. His own passage is not comprehensible without a knowledge of a hidden quotation which is itself a passage containing a quotation about which scholars differ. 'Patrarc', which is explained in A Census to Fz"nnegans Wake as meaning Petrarch,2 is put in here mischievously by Joyce as a key to the wrong Italian poet. Logically the trope could be described thus: as Dante says IUo dottore which in his work should mean Virgil, to follow a qnotation from Boethius; so Joyce says 'Patrarc', which in his language should mean Petrarch, to precede a quotation from Dante. Another reference to the Inferno is made nine pages before the beginning of the 'Night Lessons' Chapter. It is, 'Look at this passage from
eu,
1 Dante, 1m Divine Comedy, I: Hell, translated by Dorothy L. Sayers, The Penguin Classics, p. 100. I A Census, p. 107.
80
SOME TYPICAL BOOKS Galilleotti' (251.25), and we are told that it comes from 'the Jingerous longerous book of the dark'. It was while reading a book about Galleotto that Paolo and Francesca fell in love and Francesca tells Dante that 'Galleotto fu il libra e chi 10 scrisse' (V, 137)-'A Galeatto was the book and he that wrote it .. .' Galleotto was the go-between for Lancelot and Guenevere and so his name in the Middle Ages became a synonym for a pander. There may be another quotation from Dante in the 'Night Lessons' Chapter. This is 'We keep is peace who follow his law' (276.26), which may be from the famous line, 'E'n la sua voluntade e nostra pace' (Paradiso, III, 85). Dante's name is brought into the Wake at least six times but always with some Joycean distortion. It is given as a key in the passage about 'Gali1leotto' which is said to be 'dantellising' (251.23). It is used along with Sophocles, Shakespeare and Moses to give iro;nical praise to the ballad on pages 44-7 which is interrupted by cries of 'Anonymoses!' and 'Seudodanto!' (47.19) and the like. In the 'Night Lessons' chapter it is included in the marginalia as part of a musical direction, 'Undante umoroso' (269). Joyce's Shaun thinks little of Dante but advises the girls to 'Skim over Through Hell with the Papes (mostly boys) by the divine comic Denti Alligator (exsponging your index) and find a quip in a quire arisus aream' (440.5). This is the only inclusion of the title of the Divine Comedy in Finnegans Wake. Shaun, whose tastes lie in the direction of a different kind of comedy, complains that there is little to laugh at in it, and is surprised to find that Dante placed three popes in Hell. Two other references include Dante with the big business of literature as 'that primed favourite continental poet, Daunty, Gouty and Shopkeeper, A.G.' (539.5), where 'A.G.' stands for the German LG.which is the same as our 'Ltd.' In 'Weepon weeponder, song of, sorrowmon! Which goatheye and sheepskeer they damnty well know' (344.5), Dante is again included with Shakespeare and Goethe as one of the three great authors, and probably 'with another allusion to Dante's references to sorrow. 'The irnponant theme in the Wake of the looking-glass sisters will be discussed later under 'Lewis Carroll'. But Dante also described two women looking at themselves in a mirror. They are Leah and Rachel 'who never stirs from her mirror'.l Probably this explains why the looking-glass girl is described as 'a barren ewe' (145.3) in the Wake. It also explains the presence of a quotation from Dante in another 1
Purgatorio. XXVII, Ioo-roS.
81 6
THE LITERARY SOURCES passage about looking-glasses. The phrase 'old rufin sippahsedly improctor to be seducint trovatellas' (366.23) includes a portion of 'A dicer «sipa" ..• "Via ruffian, qui non son fem.mine da conio".'l This means, 'To say [in the Bolognese dialect] "Yes" •.. "Away, pander, there are no women here to coin".' Joyce combines the dialect word Sipa, 'Yes', with the Turkish word for soldier, Sippah, and both add their meaning to the context. The word sipa has been discussed learnedly by most of Dante's editors; the word sippah is believed to be the source for the English word 'Sepoy', but is obsolete in Turkish. This combination of two obsolete but frequently discussed words from diverse dialects is typical of that seizing upon similarities which adds so much to the extraordinary local liveliness of the language ofthe Wake.
GOETHE
Goethe is not one of Joyce's favourite authors. His name is twisted
in the Wake to 'Gouty' (539.5) and 'Goatheye' (344.5)-and occurs nowhere else. 2 Such references to his work as do occur are often pejorative. For example when Franky, one of the schoolboys, is unable to do his Euclid and Algebra he says that they 'Bate him up jerrybly! Worse nor herman dororthea' (283.27). That is to say that Euclid and Algebra are even worse than Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea. But perhaps this should not be taken as being more than an opinion ascribed to a schoolboy that some subjects are even more tedious and difficult than German. Several references are made to Faust. 'Silence was in thy faustive halls' (74.9) combines Faust with Macpherson's Ossian, but the Faust in question is probably Gounod's, although Gounod is never mentioned in the Wake. It is probably the operatic character-a tenor, like Joyce-who is named in 'He spud in his faust' (83.29), 'And as I was cleaning my fausties' (252.1). But 'Faust of all and on segund thoughts' (288.9) is thinking of Faust as a person with a doppelganger, one who speaks confident 'that another would finish his sentence fer him' (288.4). It illustrates, I think, the working out of the idea that Demonic possession is in the Wake the male equivalent of split personality in a female. The essence of the sit'.mtion in Faust is that Faust's personality is divided. Faust himself explains this to Wagner, 1
Irrjel'1'.tJ, XVIII, 61 •.. 65.
2
A. Glasheen in A Census, p. 47, thinks that 'Wolfgang' (480.36) may refer
to him, but the context does not suggest Goethe and there are other Wolfgangs.
82
SOME TYPICAL BOOKS saying that there are two opposing natures in his soul. It is as a result of this that he gets his accompanying devil. This is what Joyce is talking about in 'The crame of the whole faustian fustian, whether your launer's lightsome or yout soulard's schwearmood, it is that, whenas the swiftshut scareyss of our pupilteachertaught duplex will hark back to lark to you ...' (292.22). The first phrase here, 'The crame of the whole faustian fustian', means the cream, or essence of the hackneyed situation in Faust. This is followed by several German words. 'Launer' is based on laune, mood; 'lightsome' probably includes leichtsinn, lightheartedness or levity; 'schwearmood' is swear-mood mutated by schwermut, melancholy mood. These are the two opposing natures Faust describes in his soul. It is a 'duplex'. The word 'scareyss' combines a caress, a scare and the name of Carey, the informer on the Phoenix Park murderers. But the conclusion is that 'you must ..• draw the line somewhawre' (292.31). 'From the faust to the lost' (356.1) combines from the first man to the last man, with from Faust to the devil. This again is in a passage full of German words. 'They had steadied Jura' (356.8) includes Jura studieren, to study law which is what Faust says he has done at the beginning of the play. 'Byspills' (356.14) are examples, from the German Beispiele. Another reference to Goethe is 'The collision known as Contrastations with Inkermann' (71.8). This must be the collection that Eckermann made of his conversations with Goethe, Gespriiche mit Goethe, which is usually known in English as Conversations with Eckermann. 'Song of sorrowmon' (539.6) combines the Song of Solomon with the Sorrows of Werther. 'No Sturm. No Drang' (300 margin) is an obvious allusion to the Sturm und Drang movement of which the Sorrows of Werther was the typical novel, and a quotation from the typical play, Gotz von Berlichingen appears on the next page: 'lekar ... aarse' (301.2). Perhaps 'Weissduwasland' (479.29) echoes intentionally Goethe's 'Kennst du das Land', but Joyce probably thought of this as a song rather than a poem. In fact, the conclusion I would suggest is that there is little from Goethe's works in the Wake and that Goethe, although his name is mentioned as one of the three greatest European writers, was not really one of]oyce's favourites. It is Goethe himself as a person who comes into the Wake, rather than his books.
SOME MINOR AUTHORS
There are many other writers besides Goethe who are named rather 83
THE LITERARY SOURCES than used in the Wake. Ludwig Boerne is probably referred to in <mine boerne' (263.I9). 'Cooper Funnymore' (439.I2) must be Fenimore Cooper. There are also a number of books-mainly novels-which are named without their authors being mentioned. I Promessi Spose, for example, is named in 'Spose we try it promissly' (361.9), but Manzoni's name does not appear. Marie Carelli's The Sorrows of Satan is probably being mentioned in 'A caughtalook of all the sorrors of Sexton' (230.10) and Joyce told Miss Weaver that he was using a book by Marie CorelILl But Marie Corelli's name is not mentioned in the Wake. More often Joyce includes botb. the author's name and the title of bis most important book in one passage. For example, 'Took a swig at his own methyr but she tasted a bit gorky' (132.35) is an unmistakable reference to Maxim. Gorki and his book, The Mother. 'Our boys, as our Byron called them' (41.I6) brings in Our Boys, a popular comedy, and its author Henry James Byron. 'Charley, you're my darwing. So sing they the assent of man' (252.28) is another example of the same kind, J oyee has combined the name of Charles Darwin with the title of his book The Descent of Man. Perhaps there is also here the assertion that Darwin's ideas have obtained great popularity and general agreement. It is interesting to note that Joyee has one brief reference to Hans Arp of whom CaroIa Giedion-We1cker wrote that he produced by similar means to those used by Joyce in the Wake 'the dreamlike, the subconscious life of words and their atmosphere'.2 Arp used the technique of distorted spelling, and it is with a reference to his spelling that his name is used by Joyce. 'Both were wbite in black arpists at doever spilling, knickt?' (508.33). The sentence has many meanings. There is a reference to the black arts and magic spells to connect those mysteries with the humbler art of spelling. There is also someone playing (German spielen, to play or perform) upon a harp. Hans Arp and his clever spelling are, however, the basis of the complex structure. It is the distortion of the spelling of 'clever' which brings in most of the extra meanings for there is a polylingual pun on clover, Klee, -clef, key that ties it up with a whole group of references to shamrock and dover and reminds us that Arp was for a time the publicity agent for Paul Klee and the Dadaists. Klee himself is clearly named as 'a budge of klees' (5II.30). I have already suggested that Klee's ideas may have contributed something to the theories underlying the Wake. Sometimes the name of a writer is carefully hidden. Perhaps the best utters, p. 302. Letter dated '4 March 193I'. • C[arola) Giedion-Welcker, In Memoriam James Joyce. ZUrich: Fretz and Wasmuth, I94I, p. 47. 1
SOME TYPICAL BOOKS example of this can be seen in Joyce's references to the name of Rene Descartes. He comes as 'a reborn of the cards' (3°4.27), and presumably is the point behind the footnote 'If she can't follow suit Renee goes to the pack' (269, note 2). His name is made use of-or made free with-in the same chapter, as the 'Cartesian spring' (301.25) being combined with a tag from Pope. The famous sentence from Descartes is given as 'Cog it out, here goes a sum' (3°4.31), shortly afterwards. These seem to me to be among the poorest of joyce's effects for there is no connection except the similarity of their names between Descartes and playing cards. Usually Joyce's puns have more significance than this, and it is perhaps important to remember here that Pascal, a contemporary and associate of Descartes, created the mathematical theory of probability on which all calculations about the ouds in games of chance are based. Pascal began this work to answer a question he had been asked by a gambler about the odds in a certain card game, but a recent book on mathematics says that, 'In the joint creation with Fermat of the mathematical theory of probability Pascal made a new world'.l It seems to me quite probable that Joyce, not being an expert in the history of mathematics, mixed up the work of Pascal and Descartes who was also a great mathematician but whose work is not connected with playmg cards. The facts of history so often played into Joyce's hands that he perhaps found it difficult to believe they were not always on his side. If Descartes had invented the theory of probability Joyce's pun would have been up to his usual standard. PASCAL
Pascal is mentioned by name in the plan Joyce made for the first two chapters of Book II (now pages 219-308). This uses the signs Joyce had for his characters but I have translated them here: 'Contredance, Hornies & Robbers. Shem deviL Shaun angeL Shaun prisoner. The guess (Pascal). Tug of love, Shaun falls .. .'2 It seems from this that Joyce was correctly ascribing the probability theory at the time he drew up this plan; which goes against my suggestion. But it is surprising how few references to Pascal can be found in the part of the Wake, where, according to this plan they ought to be found. The only passages I can find are: 'If he'll go to be a son to France's she'll stay daughter of Clare' (226.9) which may refer to Pascal's idea-which he never carried out-of becoming one of the community at Port Royal, 1
I
E. T. Bell, Men of Mathematics, Pelican Books, I9S3, Vol. I, p. 93. British Museum, Add. MS. 47482 A, p. I.
85
THE LITERARY SOURCES and his sister's entry into the community; but it is not at all certain that this does refer to the Pascals who never had anything to do with t.he Franciscan orders; perhaps Pascal's Pensees are being named in 'pansey (227.I6). But I can find no other possible reference to Pascal in this passage. The nearest approach to a quotation from Pascal's work is 'Cliopatta, thy hosies history' (271 margin), which can hardly be said to provide evidence that Joyce had studied the works of Pascal. Pascal and his circle seem to be in the background in the passage beginning, 'You see, chaps, it will trickle out, freaksily of course' (I72.27)-'Jansens Chrest' (173.12) may be intended as a key to this reference. 'Cornaille' (173.20) names Pascal's friend Pierre Comeille. The 'elusive Antonius' (167.1) with whom 'Margareen .•. a cleopatrician in her own right ... complicates the position' (166.30) perhaps refers to Antoine Arnauld in whose defence the Provincial Letters were written. Euphemia, the name Pascal's sister took in religion, may be the source of 'euphemiasly' (528.24); her baptismal name Jacqueline is mentioned in 'help our Jakeline sisters clean out the hogshole and generally ginger things up' (447.1). Yet I think it is true to say that Pascal is more important in the Wake as a person than his writings are, although it is possible that a few odd words here and there are intended as quotations. SOME REFERENCE BOOKS
But it is difficult to prove that quotations are being made when only a few words are quoted, unJless there is some unusual individuality of phrase. For example it can be said with certainty that Joyce used A Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography by J. S. Crone because Joyce quotes a misprint from this book. Crone's article on Charles Kendal Bushe says that he wrote 'Cease Your Fuming'. This must be Joyce's source for 'cease your fumings, kindalled bushies!' (256.12) since the real title of Bushe's book was Cease Your Funning-a phrase from The Beggar's Opera, but it is not often that accidents of this sort enable one to be certain of the precise source to which Joyce is referring. This proof that Joyce used Crone's Irish Biography brings me to the question of which other reference books Joyce consulted. There were certainly a large number; Lewis's jibe that he 'had emptied the contents of several encyclopaedias into his book' was not without justification; and Gorman speaks of 'the innumerable reference books he used', telling us that some of them were left to him by one of his old teachers, a Mr. Dempsey, but these seem to have been lost and I can do little 86
SOME TYPICAL BOOKS more here than suggest which works of reference seem to shed most light on the Wake and assume that these are the ones which Joyce used. To assist him in the business of cramming his book with historical :ligures Joyce would certainly need some general biographical dictionary. The one he used was probably Sir J. A. Hammerton's Concise Universal Biography. If so this would explain Joyce's fondness for the joke about the 'cock of the morgans' (584.25) which seems to need more significance than is given by the German pun; for, by anotl;).er odd misprint, Hammerton's book gives the title of Lady Morgan's novel The Wild Irish Girl as The Wild Irish Bird, which would give Joyce sufficient grounds to pretend he thought Hammerton was using slang. Certainly Hammerton's work often gives exactly the information which is needed to grasp Joyce's meaning, and so-even if it was not used by Joyce himself-it is useful to his readers. Anyone who tries to follow the allusions in the Wake is bound to:lind himself, sooner or later, consulting an encyclopaedia. There is only internal evidence as to which Joyce used, but it will be found that the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica sheds more light upon the Wake than do the more up-to-date editions. Joyce had certaiDly read the articles on 'Polar Exploration', 'Wax Figures' and 'The Kabballah'. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable is another book which often sheds light on the Wake. For example: 'Eggs squawfish lean yoe nun feed marecurious' (484.36) comes from Brewer's article on 'Mercury' in which we are told that 'Pythagoras said: Non ex quovis ligna Mercurius fit. That is "Not every mind will answer equally well to be trained as a scholar".' There are many other scraps of information which Joyce uses that he could have obtained from Brewer-but, as will have been gathered from the example given, the use he made of it is not always immediately apparent, and there could be other sources. The fact remains that it is useful to keep Brewer handy if you are trying to read Finnegans Wake; and the editions published before the war are better for this purpose than the modem revised and augmented editions. Another book Joyce used was Bell's Standard Elocutionist, but it was the 1892 edition~ and bears little resemblance to the work still published with the same title, which Joyce quotes as: 'Boawwll's Alocutionist, Deposed' (72.16); for it contains a number of Victorian favourite poems, by writers such as Mrs. Hemans, upon which would-be elocutionists no longer practise their art, but which J oyee had learned in his youth and quotes in the Wake. Indeed, one fact that seems to 1
See Connolly, p. 8.
THE LITERARY SOURCES emerge from a study of Joyce's literary allusions is that his tastes did not lie in the direction of modem prose and verse. But of course most of it was written after he had lost his sight, even if he had not also turned his attention away from the modern scene and fixed it upon his interior vision of a bygone city.
88
CHAPTER 3
The Irish Writers 'To remind me of .Lff!' (628.7)
I
rishmen have produced works of literature in three main languages. Irish writing in Latin is discussed later, in the chapter on 'The Fathers'; there remain Irish writing in Gaelic and English. It seems unlikely that Joyce ever had much knowledge of Gaelic, and it is fairly certain that the references to Gaelic books and the Gaelic language in Finnegans Wake are intended chiefly as a decoration without any basic structural purpose. Indeed, the Gaelic book which is most frequently mentioned, The Annals of the Four Masters, quite certainly owes its appearance to the coincidence in number between its writers and Joyce's four old men. 'The Four Masters' is the name which has been given to Michael, Canary and Peregrine O'Clery, and Fearfesa O'Mulconry who compiled the Annals in the seventeenth century. There is an English translation by J. O'Donovan, in seven volumes quarto, which was published in Dublin in 1851, but I have not been able to find any evidence thzt Joyce ever used this. He does, however, make use of the names of the Four Masters. They are first mentioned when Joyce makes a short paradigm of an annals using only the dates A.D. I I32 and A.D. 566, and introduced with the words, 'annals of themselves timing the cycles of events grand and national' (13.31). When Joyce's annals are completed he changes the subject with the phrase, 'Now after all that tarfatch'd and peragrine or dingnant or clere .. .' (I4.28). In a later chapter their names appear with less distortion: 'Conry ... Peregrine and Michael and Farfassa and Peregrine' (398.I •.. 15). The words 'the four masters' are never precisely used; but the name O'Clery occurs four tinIes,1 always in a context where Joyce's four old men are being discussed. Apart from these few references there is nothing in Finnegans Wake about Gaelic literature which deserves mentioning. The remaining, and by far the most important, section of Irish 1385-7; 386.20; 520.3; 520•15.
THE LITERARY SOURCES Literature, is that written by Irishmen in the English language. A great many English works by Irish writers are mentioned in Finnegans Wake; so many that it seems probable that Joyce's aim was to include them all. It may have been that, for reasons which I have discussed elsewhere in the present work,1 Joyce intended, by this quasiencyclopaedic naming of authors and books, to subsume their work into his own. It may have been his intention simply to use them as decoration, and to thicken the texture of his prose. His aims are doubtful, but his practice is obvious: many of the Irish writers he is satisfied to name, for others he quotes only the title of one of their books, more rarely he gives simply a short distorted quotation from one of their books, occasionally he uses the book at some length.
IRISH HISTORIANS
The Irish historians present a good representative sample of the way in which Joyce made use of Irish writers. Their names are brought in because Finnegans Wake is, in one sense, a history of Ireland. Most of the names are concentrated in one passage; in this case the passage is the 'Case of Conscience' (572.19-573.32) which is based on M. M. Matharan's Casus de matrimoni02 with a certain amount of borrowing from the synopses of Plautus's Comedies and the argument to Sejanus. Presumably we are to take this as being an inquiry into the facts of Irish history, for Joyce inserts in parentheses such remarks as, 'the supposition is Ware's' (572.32), and 'a cooler blend, D' Alton insists' (572.35). The names to which tlle remarks are attributed are all those of Irish historians. The two who have been cited are Sir James Ware, author of The Antiquities and History of Ireland, and the Reverend Edward Alfred D' Alton, author of the History of Ireland from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. The others are Charles HaHday who wrote The Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin, who is named in the phrase 'in Halliday's view' (573.2); J. T. Gilbert, author of The History of Dublin, is brought in with 'as Gilbert first suggested' (573.14). Giraldus Cambrensis, Welsh author of two thirteenth-century histories of Ireland, becomes plural in 'turpiter! affirm ex cathedris Gerontes Cambronses' (573.2o)-perhaps because he wrote two books, more probably because he is here combined Cf. 'The Structural Books', p. 45. • M. M. Matharan. Casus de matrimonio Jere quingenti quibus applicat et per quos explicat sua asserta moralia circa eamdem materiam. Parissis: Victor Retaux et Filius, I893. (See Connolly, pp. 25-7.) 1
90
THE IRISH WRITERS with Napoleon's General Cambronne who added a euphemism to the French language: Ie mot de Cambronne, by saying Merde! in public. This combining of the characters of Giraldus Cambrensis and Cambronne is repeated in 'Myrddin aloer! as old Marsellas Cambrianus puts his' (I51.31) in which Merde alors assumes a Welsh appearance. We are being told that Giraldus considered the condition of Ireland shameful. Last comes Luke Wadding, the Irish compiler of the Annales Minorum, the Annals of the Franciscan Order, who is named in 'according to Wadding' (573-26). Other Irish historians are named in other sections. D. A. Chart, whose Story of Dublin in the 'Mediaeval Towns Series'l is used often in the Wake, is named in the phrase 'a chart expanded' (593.19). This expanded chart is in one sense the history of Ireland and in another Finnegans Wake, which is Chart's book expanded. Chart is named again as 'Dr. Chart' (603.22). Several characters in the Wake are taken from Chart's Dublin. Kate Strong, for example, whom Chart describes as 'The most odious of the Dublin tax collectors', occurs as· 'Kate Strong, a widow' (79.27). One thing which Joyce almost certainly took from Chart is the quotation from Richard Stanihurst's Description of Ireland 2 which Chart uses as an epigraph for his book. Joyce has: 'If you would travers hills, they are not far off. If champain land it lieth of all parts. If you would be delited with fresh water, the famous river, called of Ptolemy the Libnia Labia, runneth fast by' (540.5). But Joyce does not name Stanihurst and quotes only-and all-the passage Chart quotes. It seems to me certain that if Joyce had read Stanihurst he would have quoted other passages, in particular the page-long praise of whiskey almost at the beginning of the book in which it is said that 'Being moderatlie taken it sloweth age, it strengtheneth youth, it helpeth digestion, it cutteth flegme, it abandoneth melancolie, it relisheth the heart, it lighteneth me mind, it quickneth the spirits, it cureth the hydropsie, it healeth the strangurie, it pounceth the stone .. .'8 and so on through a surprising wealth of properties. Other Irish historians who are named are J. M. Flood, the author of The Life of Chevalier Charles Wogan, an Irish Soldier of Fortune, who is named as 'I and Flood and the other men' (5H.IO). 'Meeting House Lannigan' 854.I7) is probably the Reverend John Lannigan who wrote The Ecclesiastical History of Ireland. W. E. H. Lecky is named several D. A. Chart, The Story of Dublin. London: Dent, 1932. (Revised ed.) • Richard Stanyhurst, A Treatise containing a plane and perfect Description of Ireland. (Included in Holinshed's Chronicles, 1586.) • Ibid., p. 8. 1
91
THE LITERARY SOURCES times: 'lecking' (276.16) and 'in the slack march of civilisation •.• becoming guilty ofunleckylike conduct' (438.25). No doubt the reason for his appearance is bis famous History, although Joyce does not seem to have made any special use of it. But his name always seems to bring with it the famous quotation from Der GiJtz von Berlichingen. 'Lea1and' (3II.S) and 'Leelander' (487.31) are both probably references to Thomas Leland, author of The History of Ireland. Thomas D'key McGee is probably named as a poet in 'wretched some horsery megee' (23I.14),1 but he also wrote A History of Ireland. A more recent historian, P. S. O'Hegarty, author of The Victory of Sirm Fein2 does not appear to be named in the Wake, although it is probable that Joyce quotes from his book. 'Devil era' (473.8) is meant as a pun on the times of Mr. De Valera. The title of Chapter XXIII of The Victory of Sinn Fein, which is about 'Mr. De Valera's gunmen's is 'Devil Era'. I have pointed out elsewhere4 t..hat P. S. O'Hegarty was the first to compare the state of modern Ireland to that of Humpty Dumpty after his fall, but it is not certain that Joyce saw it. One Irish history which Joyce certainly used is Walter Harris's History and Antiquities of the City of Dublin. The passage from Rowntree which has already been discussed is followed by a quotation from this book almost word for word. It is a paragraph from Dublin's first city Charter. 'Harris himself says' (326.32): 'Wherfor I will and firmly command that they do inhabit it, and hold it of me and my heirs, amply and honourably, with all the liberties and free customs, which the men of Bristol have at Bristol, and through my whole land.' The charter was given by Henry II, and is signed
92
THE IRISH WRITERS another 152 river names and it is now final as it will appear in the book except that I cannot get the way to render this in the annals "On this day the Liffey at Essex bridge was completely dry for two minutes".'l Perhaps what Joyce was trying to do was weave all the references to the Liffey into the A.L.P. chapter. But the detail he mentions does not seem to have gone into the book until the last few pages: 'If I lose my breath for a minute or two don't speak, remember! Once it happened, so it may again' (625.28). This is in Anna Livia's final monologue in which she recalls several other items from the 'Annals'. I have not, however, been able to find an edition of Thorn's Directory with this entry exactly as Joyce quotes it. The entry in every copy I have consulted reads: '1452. The Liffey was entirely dry at Dublin for two minutes.' This suggests that Joyce had some additional source which I have not found. A.L.P.'s final monologue contains many references to passages in the 'Annals'-she is reviewing the events of her life as she dies, and she is the Liffey. 'Eblanamagna' (625.26) recalls the first word in the 'Annals': Eblana. 'And I'd frozen up' (626.25) recalls the entry for 1338 when the Liffey was frozen over. 'You've never forgodden batt on tarf, have you, at broin burrow' (625.18) is based on the entry for 1014 about Brian Boru's defeat of the Danes at Clontarf. There are also references in all the other chapters. For example, the onset of plague is frequently mentioned in the 'Annals'; 1575 was one of the worst years. In the following year there was a storm so violent that 'neither bowman nor shot could go abroad'. This is recalled in the Wake in 'the buboes for ages and neither bowman nor shot abroad' (198.30). The two moons on page 502 derive from the 'Annals' for 1339. There is one phrase in the Wake, 'the reducing of records to ashes' (189.35), which has been usually taken as referring only to recent history. Joyce, who believed that history repeats itself, had actually modelled this phrase on the entry in the 'Dublin Annals' for 1304: 'A great fire in which most of the public records were burnt.' The following phrase in the Wake: 'the levelling of all customs by blazes' (189.36) refers to the repetition of this event. 'Decayed and blind and gouty' (211.24) is a quotation from the entry for 1780. There are a number of other details of Irish history in the Wake, but I have not been able to see any sinrilarity of wording to suggest that Joyce certainly used the 'Annals' for these details. Probably he made use of all the Irish histories that he could find to write his own version of the History of Ireland. J
Letters, p. 261. Letter dated '9 November 1927'.
93
THE LITERARY SOURCES
IRISH NOVELISTS
But the Wake is not only an Irish history: it is also an Irish novel; and so a great many Irish novelists are named in it, and many of their works are mentioned. Many of these are no longer read, either in this country or their own. Indeed, some of their books are now so scarce that they can only be found in the great national libraries. One of the less difficult to obtain is Rhoda Broughton's Red as a Rose is She, written in a style which may have provided Joyce with hints for the Nausicaa chapter of Ulysses. It is named in the Wake as 'a she be broughton, rhoda's a rosy she' (569.33). Herbert Gorman tells how Joyce used to 'demand old editions of Kickham, Griffin, Carleton, Banin, Smythe'.1 But we are not told whether he ever received any of the old editions he wanted; the weight of evidence seems to be against it, for none are ever mentioned as arriving, none were in his 'Personal Library' which is now at Buffalo, and very little use is made of them beyond the citing of titles and authors' names. Kickham, for example, is named once in 'kickhams a frumpier ever you saw' (208.3I). Just as there is a passage in the Wake where the names of historians are concentrated so there is a passage where the Irish novels are mentioned most frequently. It is the passage beginning 'Allwhile, moush missuies from mungy monsie ... son of Everallin' (228.3), and ending with a summary of Ulysses, 'Ukalepe. Loathers' leave. Nemo in Patria, The Luncher Out. Skilly and Carubdish. A Wandering Wreck. From the Mermaids' Tavern. Bullyfamous. Naughtsycalves. Mother of Misery. Walpurgas Nackt' (229.I3). The background of the passage describes how Joyce left Ireland and went to ZUrich. 'Paname' is the argot name for Paris, 'Turricum' (228.22) is from the Latin name for ZUrich, 'the Paname-Turricum' is the train from Paris to Zurich for which Joyce has a farecardobviously a German ticket. Titles of Irish novels are woven into this background. 'Unkel Silanse' (228.I7) is Uncle Silas, by Sheridan Le Fanu. 'Rovy the Rover' (228.24) is William Carleton's Rody the Rover. 'Knockonacow and a chow collegions' (228.32) are Charles Joseph Kickham's Knocknagow and Gerald Griffin's The Collegians. 'Gheol Ghiornal' on the next line, followed by 'foull subustioned mullmud', combines John Mitchell's Jail Journal with Oscar Wilde's De Profundis, to which the key is given by the reference to Sebastian Melmoth, the 1
Herbert Gorman, p. 185.
94
THE IRISH WRITERS name assumed in Paris by Wilde after his imprisonment, from the hero of Melmoth the Wanderer, by Charles Robert Maturin. 'Handy antics' (229.2) is Samuel Lover's Handy Andy. 'Croppy Crowhore' (229.I2) combines Michael Banim's Croppy with his Crowhore of the Billhook. Joyce has thus introduced the name of ten Irish books into a single one of his pages. Yet the page is crammed with other references to writers. The passage begins with a reference to the 'son of Everallin' (228-4). Everallin is Oscar's mother in Macpherson's Ossian, and is here intended to mean both Macpherson's character and Oscar Wilde.
OSCAR WILDE
Wilde occupies a place in Finnegans Wake as one of the constituent parts of the multi-personed figure of H.C.E. His full name, Oscar Fingall O'Flahertie Wilde, is not given, but 'Fingal Mac Oscar' (46.20) probably refers to him, and the word wild is usually spelled with a final e to suggest his presence in the background. 1 When it is suggested that H.C.E. should 'pay the full penalty' (61.9), the act under which he is to be charged is the 'C.L.A. act I885', which is the Criminal Law Amendment Act, under which Wilde was charged. Several allusions are made to Wilde's works. The Picture of Dorian Gray is twice named: 'dorian grayer in its dudhud' (I86.8), and 'they jeerilied along, durian gay' (257.6). Both extracts show Joyce's usual attitude towards Wilde: 'dudhud' must mean the state of being a 'dud', 'jeerilied' combines jeered and lied. It seems as if Joyce, who wrote wittily of sexual misconduct, could not forgive people who were actually guilty of it; and he treats Wilde with contempt and loathing to an extent which makes the allusions to him conspicuous in a book where the general atmosphere is one of kindliness and good humour. 'Foull subustioned mullmud, his farced epistol to the hibruws' (228.33) has already been quoted. Here again the implication of 'foull' and 'farced' cannot be mistaken. Three hostile references are recognizable only if one knows the remark made by Lady Colin Campbell that Wilde reminded her of 'a great white caterpillar'. Each time the caterpillar is mentioned in the Wake it is accompanied by references to homosexualism. The first is 1 The word 'wilde' occurs in the following places: 4I.9, 69.3, 8I.17, 98.2, 256.13, 510.II. 'Wild geese' (49.5) is not intended to suggest Wilde; it means the Irish soldiers who left Ireland after the Treaty of Limerick. 'Oscan Wild' (419.24) obviously does mean Wilde.
95
THE LITERARY SOURCES great white caterpillar capable of any and every enormity • • • lay at one time under the ludicrous implication of annoying Welsh fusiliers .. .' (33.23). Next he is attacked as 'a greyed vike cuddlepuller' (241.9), and called 'Master Milcbku, queerest man in the benighted queendom' (241.22), where both 'queer' and 'queen' are common slang words for homosexuals. The connection with Wl1de is reinforced by the sentence, 'Such askors and their ruperts they are putting in for more osghirs is also false liarnels' (241.31), in which 'askors' and 'osgbirs' both mean-amongst other things-'Oscars'. The third reference is to Oscar Wilde in court, although-as is usual when a court is mentioned-the Parnell Commission is brought in. It is: 'Mr. Llugewhite Cadderpollard with sunftawered beantonhole pulled up point blanck by mailbag mundaynism at Oldbally Court though the hissindensity buck far of his melove1ance teTIs how when he was fast marking his first lord for cremation the whyfe of his bothem was the very lad's thing to elter his mehind' (350.10). 'Oldbally' is, of course, the Old Bailey in which Wilde, wearing a flower in his buttonhole, was tried. The 'mailbag' is both the product of convict labour and the container of Pigott's forged letters. The 'hissindensity' is the antagonism of the public in court at both trials, as well as Pigott's misspelling. 'Melovelance' is made up of me, love, lance and, perhaps, melos to suggest music. Taken as a whole the word means a phallus, but it also suggests malevolence. The rest of the passage, about 'his first lord' and 'the whyfe of his bothem', jeers at Wilde's homosexualism. The work of Wilde which is most quoted is De Profundis. Perhaps Joyce is naming it in 'deprofound souspirs'; but more probably he was thinking mainly of Psalm 129 in the Vulgate, which is the chief Catholic prayer for the dead. In his De Profundis Wilde wrote: 'But I met you either too late or too soon', and the statement seems to have amused Joyce, who quotes: 'I have met with you, bird, too late, or if not, too worm and early' (37.13); and: 'We have meat two hourly ... meet too ourly' (60.31). Perhaps he is again referring to it in 'we first met each other newwhere so airly' (155.12). There is no doubt about the reference in 'I met with whom it was too late. My fate! 0 hate!' 845.13) or in 'the mightif beam maircanny, which bit his mirth too early or met his birth too late' (408.16). Perhaps the last suggestion is to the possibility that Wilde would have been less unfortunate in classical Greece or Rome, if only his birth had been very much earlier. Wilde's plays are named. The Importance of Being Earnest is brought in as 'letting punplays pass to ernest' (233.19), and Archie Moncrief from that play is 'Mongrieff' (536.12). Lady Windermere's Fan is named '$
96
THE IRISH WRITERS as Die Windermere Dichter (212.36); and A Woman of No Importance becomes
Goldsmith is another Irish writer Joyce mentions, although his name occurs only once, and then in combination with Sheridan's, as'Sherrlgoldies' (256.12). The well-known first line of his Deserted Village, 'Sweet Auburn! loveliest village oftbe plain', is parodied several times. It is first mentioned as 'An auburn mayde, 0' brine a'bride, to be desarted' (13.26), and again as 'Auborne-to-Auborne' (174.31). A typical example of the demands which Joyce makes from his readers may be seen in another quotation: 'Sweetsome auburn' (265.6), is followed twenty-two lines later by: 'Distorted mirage, aloofliest of the plain'. Another distortion is 'Hauburnea's liveliest vinnage on the brain' (381.4), and another, 'Swees Aubumn' (617.36). 'When lovely woman stoops to folly', a line borrowed by T. S. Eliot from The Vicar of Wakefield, is parodied by Joyce as 'When lovely woman stoops to conk him' (I7o.14). This brings in the title of She Stoops to Conquer and refers to an incident, described in the 'Annals', which took place during a performance of this play in Dublin in 1822 when a woman was said to have thrown a bottle at the Lord-Lieutenant.1 Tony Lumpkin is named in 'Toni Lampi' (323.32), quoted in 'Trollderoll" (324.1), and included in 'lumpenpack' (324.13). 'Melancholy Slow' (56.3°) follows 'our Traveller :remote, unfriended' (56.20). It is the first line of The Traveller: 'Remote, unfriended, solitary, slow" which Joyce is using to reply to Wyndham Lewis's attack on him in Time and Western Man. The actress who played the leading parts in The Good-Natured Man and She Stoops to Conquer was Miss Bulkley. Her name is always given in copies of the plays because she spoke the epilogues to both. Joyce speaks of 'winksome Miss Bulkeley' (327.26). Goldsmith wrote that his epilogue 'owes all its success to the graceful manner of the actress who spoke it', in a note to the epilogue to The Good-Natured Man.
BERKELEY
Bishop Berkeley's work is of considerable importance in Finnegans 1
See Appendix, p. 274, F. T. Porter.
97 7
THE LITERARY SOURCES Wake. It is used in a very different way from Goldsmith's, as is to be expected since it is a very different kind of work. The only frequently quoted words of Berkeley, 'to cheer but not inebriate', from his description of tar water in Siris, have been so completely appropriated by Cowper to praise tea in 'cups that cheer but not inebriate', that they are usually taken as Cowper's own. Joyce has 'the cups that peeves' (304,note 4), and severa! references to tar water: H.C.E. 'drinks thar and wodher for his asama' (130.4); Butt cries out: 'Mortar martar tartar wartar!' (341.12); and Shaun's 'Comb his tar odd gee' (409.14) may include a reference to it as well as being the Italian greeting Come sta oggi. Berkeley believed that tar water was valuable both as a food and a medicine and claimed that 'the Irish Giant' Cornelius McGrath owed his great stature to it. Joyce speaks of 'a physical body, Cornelius McGrath's' (98.9) but, as has been said, it is Berkeley's ideas rather than his words or actions which are important in the Wake. 'Berkeley Alley' (260.II) is named at the beginning of the chapter on 'Night Lessons' as one of the thoroughfares to pass in the 'Imaginary itinerary through the particular universal' (260, note), and Berkeley is probably the most important Irish philosopher. Joyce seems to have thought that Berkeley's philosophy »'as eastern or Asiatic in character. There are many indications of this. 'Compost liffe in Dufblin by Pierce Egan with the baugh in Baugbkley of Fino Ralli. Explain why there is such a number of orders of religion in Ases.!' (447.23) shows Berkeley closely connected with religion in Asia. The connection is more obvious in a passage towards the end of the book when an argument between St. Patrick and the Archdruid is described. The Archdruid is 'topside joss pidgin fella Balkelly' (611.4), and to illustrate his orientalness Joyce puts his remarks into pidgin-English. It is one of the few passages in which most of the difficulties are solved by reading the first version. 'The archdruid then explained the illusions of the colourful world, its furniture, animal, vegetable and mineral, appearing to fallen men under but one reflection of the several iridal gradations of solar light, that one which it had been unable to absorb. while for the seer beholding reality, the thing as in itself it is, all objects showed themselves in their true colours, resplendent with the sextuple glory of the light actually retained within them:1 This bears little resemblance to Berkeley's theory of acquired visual perception, for Berkeley held that the things which are called sensible material objects are not external but exist in the mind. They are impressions made on our minds by the immediate act of God according to certain rules called 1
British Museum, Add. MS. 47488, f.99.
98
THE IRISH WRITERS 'Laws of Nature' from which He never deviates. Joyce does not deny the existence of sensible material objects and his druid is concerned solely with methods of perception. But Berkeley's view of Laws of Nature which he describes in Sins as being: 'applied and determined by an Infinite Mind in the macrocosm or universe, with unlimited power and according to stated rules-as it is in the microcosm with limited power and skill by the human mind', seems to me to be a possible source for the entire structure of the Wake. Joyce's repetition of the motto of Dublin perhaps owes something to another passage quoted in Siris which says that: 'As life holds together the bodies of animals, the cause whereof is the soul; and as a city is held together by concord, the cause whereof is law: even so is the world held together by harmony, the cause whereof is God. And in this sense the world or universe may be considered either as one animal or one city.' The passage comes from a fragment, now regarded as spurious, by Occellus Lucanus, but provides the dearest description I know of the attitude which Joyce and Berkeley shared.
WILLIAM CARLETON
It is certain that Joyce intended to make use of Irish authors. A letter asking for copies of old Irish novels has already been quoted. But I have not been able to trace any pattern in Joyce's use of their work. William Carleton, for example, is perhaps the greatest Irish novelist before Joyce, but his name does not occur in Finnegans Wake, although his work is undoubtedly made use of; and although one of his books is named it is not the one that Joyce used most. In fact it seems possible that Joyce's plan for the use of Irish writers was to confuse all his references as completely as possible. Joyce's ShaUll seems to take his name from Boucicault's ShaUll the Post and perhaps the resemblance between his character and that of a Shaun described in Carleton's Tales and Stories of the Irish Peasantry is a coincidence. But the resemblance is striking. Carleton wrote: 'Everyone knew Shaun Buie McGaveran to be the cleanest best conducted and most industrious boy in the whole parish of Faugh-aballagh ...1 He was a fine, well-built handsome young man as you could meet in a fair, fu"1d so, sign was on it, maybe the pretty girls weren't 1 William Carleton, Tales and Stories of the Irish Peasantry. Dublin: James Duffy, 1849, p. 78. Faugh-a-Ballagh, 'Clear the way', was the motto of the L..-ish Brigade. It is quoted, 497.5 and 54I.18. 99
THE LITERARY SOURCES likely to pull each other's caps about him. Shaun, however, was as prudent as he was good looking; and although he wanted a wife, yet sorrow the one he preferred taking but a well-handed smart girl.' There are twelve pretty girls in pursuit of this Shaun, as against twenty-nine seeking the Shaun in the Wake, but Carleton's Shaun arranges a spi.nni.ng contest to decide which shall be his bride. All the twelve enter, but only two are considered to have a chance of wi.nni.ng. These two are Bridget and Sally, both prominent names in the Wake, although never as a pair. Another character in the same story is a fairy named 'Even Trot' who is perhaps the source of the 'Mrs. Trot' (440.17) in the W~e. There are several other scattered allusions. For example, the phrase 'Calomnequiller's Pravities' (50.9) has many meanings and sources; one of its sources is Carleton's story of the 'Irish Prophecy Man'.1 This contains many allusions to a mysterious character called 'DOC'. Joyce's 'what the doc did in the doll' (256.27) probably contains a reference to the prophecy in Carleton that 'the triumph of the country will never be at hand till the DOC flourishes in Ireland'. 2 There are also references to modem Irish politicians hidden in the phrase, but these do not concern us here.
THE PARNELL STORY
Much more
unOOl:taIlt
in the Wake than modern Irish politics are
the politics of Joyce's childhood, particularly the years 1887 to 1891, when Joyce was between five md nine years old, and Parnell triumphed and fell. Some of Joyce's information about Parnell may have been
remembered from what he was told, or overheard, as a child. This is certainly the impression one receives from the famous description of the quarrel at u~e Clli"istmas dinner in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. But probably Joyce checked all his recollections from printed sources although the only book on the subject he ever mentioned is St. John Irvine's 'Life' of Pameli, which he told Miss Weaver he would like hex to read 'to begin ,-vith. It is not good but you ought to know some of the facts.'s I suggested that Joyce had used this book some years before his letters were published,4 for Finnegans Wake contained Tales and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, p. Z17. Ibid., p. ZI9. 3 Letters, p. 24I. Letter dated '7 June, 1926'. 4 'Lewis Carroll and Finnegans Wake',English Studies, Groningen, XXXIII, Feb. 1952, p. 8. 1 2
!
roo
THE IRISH WRITERS two tiny but unmistakable quotations from it: 'Fuyerescaper' (228.29)1 and 'unsmiling' (II5.2I). But the main book Joyce used for the Parnell case was undoubtedly John Macdonald's The Diary of the Parnell Commission Revised from the 'Daily News" which was published in London in 1890 soon after the commission had published its report. It is an ordinary piece of reporting by a higbly competent professional journalist, but is more interesting and more important than most of the other books considered in this chapter. Joyce was a great admirer of Parnell throughout all his life; and Parnell holds an important place in all his books. He is the only hero in Dubliners, in A Portrait he is described as 'my dead king', in Ulysses as 'the chief'. In Finnegans Wake he is, as Mrs. Glasheen says, 'in many ways the pattern fallen hero? and, as she points out, 'References to Parnell and his career pervade FW; much of the 4th. section of the book is based on accounts of the Parnell Commission (see John Macdonald).' By 'the 4th. section of the book' is meant pages 74 to 103 in which every paragraph contains some reference to Macdonald's book. 'Prodooce O'Donnerl' is a cry in the Wake. 'Ayl Exhibit his relics! Bu! Use the tongue mor! Give lip less! But it oozed out in Deadman's Dark Scenery court through crossexam.ination of the casehardened testis' (87.31). 'O'Donner' here is, in the fust place,:" Macdonald's Diary. 'His relics' are the details about Parnell, and 'Deadman's Dark Scenery COurt'4 is the Probate Court No. I in which the Parnell Commission sat. 'Bu!' is an exclamation well suited to this passage for if it is taken as an English word: Boo! it means 'Down with someone or other'; on the other hand, iiit is taken as a Gaelic word, Bu! (and it is spelled that way), it means 'Up with-this unnamed person'. 'Use the tongue mor! Give lip less!' seems, at first glance, to ask ,vith unusual brevity and precision for more information with less impudence. But 'mor' is Gaelic for 'hig', and so the advice could be simply to speak Gaelic, or even to use Gaelic guile. Most of the witnesses brought by The Times were suspected of having been briefed-and perhaps bribed-by The Times solicitor, Mr. Soames, who had an office in the Strand. Many oblique references were made to 'a certain office'. (The phrase is repeated twice in the Wake: fust vllithout alteration, 'a certain office' (190.13), and then as 'a certain holy office' (190.14).) But it was seldom that any positive conclusion was reached. 1 St. John Ervine, Parnell. London: Benn, 1925, pp. 168 and 271. • A Census, pp. I03-4. • There is also a reference to a certain Mr. O'Donnell who shot Patrick
Carey. • But see Appendix, p. 247, Douglas, Norman. 101
THE LITERARY SOURCES 'Except when the comic element was present,' says Macdonald, 'The evidence of the Kerry men was confused, lacking in precision, and, although doubtless useful, wearisomely difficult to get at.'l An example of the cross-examination bears out Macdonald's statement: 'Were you knocked down and beaten? -And if I was I don't remember and I shouldn't blame the League for it. -Were you beaten? - I don't think I understand the word at all. (Laughter.) -Since making the statement to Mr. Shannon have you spoken to anyone about the evidence you would give here? -No sir; never a word. Sir Charles Russeli-I think I ought to state at once, my lords; that, as far as we know, there is no foundation for the suggestion that the witness has made a statement to anyone instructed by us. Mr. Atkinson-There is just one more question I should like to ask. The President-Do you expect to get anything more out of him? Mr. Atkinson-etc the witness)-Did you go to any office near the Strand the other day? - I don't know any office, sir; but I was on the strand picking seaweed the other day.'l This is not very far from Joyce's: 'You are alluding to the picking pockets in Lower O'Connell Street? - I am illuding to the Pekin packet but I am eluding from Laura Connor's treat' (5°7.26). The section of the Wake in which Macdonald's book is used most begins: 'Remarkable evidence was given . . .' (86.32). 'Hyacinth O'Donnell, B.A., described in the calendar as a mixer and wordpainter', is probably meant to suggest Macdonald. 'The perplexedly uncondernnatory bench' (90.35) is undoubtedly the bench presiding over the Parnell inquiry. 'The spoil of hesitants, the spell of hesitency' (97.25) refers to the way in which Pigott was trapped by Sir Charles Russell into giving himself away by misspelling the word 'hesitancy' as 'hesitency'; a mistake which had been made by the writer of one of the letters condoning the Phoenix Park murders which The Times claimed had been written by Parnell. 2 Four lines below 'the spell of hesitency' in the Wake comes 'Assembly men murmured. Reynard is slow!' Reynard is the name given to the fox in various fables; Russell is used in the same 1 John Macdonald, M.A., Diary of the Parnell Commission revised/rom 'The Daily News'. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1890, p. 55. 2 Ibid., p. 52.
102
THE IRISH WRITERS way in other fables. In Finnegans Wake the word is carefully chosen as the only one which can, at one and the same time, indicate· the triumphant Russell and the hunted Pigott. 'Assembly men murmured' describes the scene in court when the news was given that Pigott had flown, 'The inarticulate murmur of surprise among the spectators? is how Macdonald describes it. Sir Charles Russell is probably being mentioned again in 'Bravure, surr Chorles! Letter purfect! Culossal, Loose Wallor! Spache!' (181.2). Of course the word 'hesitency' is used frequently in the Wake. 'Irishmen usually remember the Piggott [sic] trial by this catchword', wrote Joyce to Miss Weaver.2 'Hesitency was clearly to be evitated' (35.20), the first use of the word in the Wake, is followed shortly by 'that purest of fibfib fabrications' (36.33). 'Fabrication' was a favourite word with Pigott,S who used it in exactly the same indignant tone that H.C.E. does. Another question which frequently arises in the Wake is 'Who struck Buckley?' Many suggestions have been made as to the identity of Buckley, who often is confused with Bishop Berkeley in the Wake. Mrs. Glasheen says that he 'slays the material universe', Nathan Halper claims that Buckley, as a Russian word, would mean 'Son of Vasily' and that, therefore, Buckley is 'the Archetypical Son'.4 It does not clear up the situation at all to point out that there was a Buckley who gave evidence at the Parnell inquiry who had quite a lot to do with striking. On one occasion, indeed, he knocked down a policeman to prove that 'he was an honest man and no detective'. 'My orders', said Buckley, were to drag Sheehy outside and ... to shoot him!' And a man came forward later to say 'I swear on my solemn oath that Buckley did his best to shoot me dead on the spot.'5 One of the answers to the question 'Who struck Buckley?' (101.15) given in Finnegans Wake is 'it was Buckleyself (we need no blooding paper to tell it neither) who struck ... ' (101.19). So the Buckley in the Parnell inquiry may have something to do with the Buckley in Finnegans Wake. On the other hand Richard Ellmann is probably right in saying that Joyce took the character from a story which his father used to tell;6 and the complete answer is probably that Joyce was intending to convey all these suggested meanings, for Ibid., p. 162. Letters, p. 241. 3 Macdonald, Diary, pp. 152, 157, 181. • Nathan Halper, 'James Joyce and the Russian General', Partisan Review, XVIII, July-August 1951, p. 425. 5 Macdonald, Diary, pp. 82-5, II7, II8. 6 Richard Ellmann, 'The Backgrounds of Ulysses', Kenyon Review, XVI, Summer 1954, p. 349· 1
2
103
THE LITERARY SOURCES in general it is safe to say that Joyce always wanted to suggest as many meanings as possible. And when Joyce mentions The Book of Kells or the Domesday Bookl it is possible that he intends a reference to the secret book of the Fenian Pa..'"ty which was known by the titles of these famous manuscripts as well as to the manuscripts themselves; and perhaps it should be remembered that, in the language of the Fenians, 'Pen meant revolver; flock meant the Fenian Party'. 2 Certainly 'Le Caron Crow' (496.32) refers to the secret service agent known as Le Caron who testified to the Parnell Commission; but it is just as certain that there are other meanings implied by the phrase. Perhaps it is true to say that the light cast upon Finnegans Wake by the Diary of the Pamell Commission serves rather to explain the reason for the obscurity than to relieve it. Much of the business is a matter of 'wordsharping' (422.2). 'Office', for example, may mean a solicitor's rooms, or the Inquisition, or the prescribed daily reading for a priest. Much of the confusion at the Parnell inquiry was due to the fact that the different In: races in COlli'"! did not realize that they spoke different Finnegans Wake Joyce is inventing a language for every character and all the characters are cons:tantly misunderstanding each other's language. 'His root language' (424.17) is what Shaun objects to about Shem; and the basis of the typical situation when HCE meets 'a cad with a pipe' (35.II) is that each has misunderstood what the other has said. This situation is repeated throughout the book.
MINOR IRISH WRITERS
Many other Iris!, writers remain to be dealt with. Four are named together as 'gumboil owrithy prods wretched some horsery megee plods coffin acid odarkery pluds dens fioppens mugurdy' (231.13). They are John Boyle O'Reilly, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, Kevin Izod O'Doherty and Denis Florence MacCarthy,. and are described in A Skeleton Key as 'second rate American journalist poets of the nineteenth century'. 3 Two of them did end their lives in America, but a[ were born in Ireland, and it is as Irish minor poets that Joyce is thinking of thenl. What he is saying in this passage is that perhaps his own writing is no better than theirs was; and it is for this reason that he points out, and exaggerates, their inferiority by bitterly distorting their names. On the very next See above, 'The Manuscripts" and below p. 246. Macdonald, Diary, p. 27 8• 8 A Skeleton Key, p. 127, note I.
1
2
I04
THE IRISH WRITERS page Kevin !zod O'Doherty becomes '0 doherlynt' (232.13) instead of 'coffin acid odarkery', and Denis Florence MacCarthy is given a lyrical turn as 'Dinny Fineen me canty, oh' (232.6). The page is full of Irish song-writers and singers: 'the lost of the gleamens. Sousy-most' (line 7) is Michael Moran, 'the last gleeman', nicknamed 'ZOzllnUS' from the most popular of the ballads he sang in the Dublin streets. 'Isle wail for yews, Odoherlynt! The poetesser' (line I3) is part of a diffused account of the love story of Kevin Izod O'Doherty. This is told briefly in Crone's Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography in the article on O'Doherty's wife: 'O'Doherty, l\-iary Anne, poetess; b. Kelly ... wrote patriotic verses in Nation, over pen name of "Eva"; beloved by K. 1. O'Doherty; he was offered his freedom if he pleaded guilty, but she advised him not, saying, "I'll wait for you'" which she did, and they were married two days after his return to Ireland'.1 The paragraph beginning 'Now a run for his money' (232.27) contains many references to the sea and sailors to describe O'Doherty's voyage home; and he is the Kevin mentioned in 'pilgrim prinkips, kerilour kevinour' (234.20). 'The kerl he left behind him' (line 7) is 'Eva' or Mary Anne Kelly because of whom Kevin 'has his tristiest cabaleer on'. This refers also to a passage in Jail Journal describing Kevin O'Doherty in Australia: 'St. Kevin is sometimes gloomy and desponding •.. There dwells in Ireland a dark eyed lady ... The potency of those dark glances, darting like electricity through the dull massive planet, strikes him here and flashes on his daydream.'2 It seems likely that O'Doherty and St. Kevin are connected in the Wake because of Mitchell's habit of referring to ,O'Doherty as 'St. Kevin'. There are a number of minor references to both Mitchell's book and O'Doherty scattered through the surrounding pages. Another Irish poet whom Joyce quotes and probably names is Thomas Davis, who vvTote 'The West's Asleep' and 'A Nation Once 3 , both quoted in Finnegans Wake. 'A nation wants a gaze' (43.21) is obviously the title of one, and 'the wastes a'sleep' (64.1) equally obviously the title of the other even if it were not followed eleven lines later by a quotation: 'rouse him out o'slumber deep'. The title occurs again as 'westasleep' (449.35), and there is another quotation in 'Till Irinwakes from Slumber Deep' (32I.I7). Davis's name is combined with King David's in 'let not the song go dumb upon your Ire, as we say 1 John S. Crone, A Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd., p. 182. • John Mitchell, Jail Journal. London: T. Fisher Unwin, I913, p. 254. 3 Thomas (Osborne) Davis, National Ballads, Songs, and Poems. Dublin: James Duffy, 1869, pp. 38, 93.
1 05
THE L][TERARY SOURCES in the spasms of Davies' (391.27). The basis of the parody here is 'Let not the sun go down upon your anger' and by changing 'sun' to 'song', 'down' to 'dumb>, and 'anger' to 'Ire', Joyce succeeds in making it refer to Davis's request in The Nation for a constant supply of Irish patriotic songs. But Joyce's attitude to such songs is doubtful: 'the Gillooly chorus, from the Monster Book of Paltryattic Puetrie' (178.16) is a phrase suggesting strongly that he disliked them. To deal adequately with Joyce's use of songs would require an enormous amount of space and is not within the scope of the present work. I shall, therefore, leave the questions of Joyce's use of Davis's songs without further discussion and go on to consider how Joyce uses his own earlier works in Finnegans Wake. JOYCE'S WORKS IN THE
Wake
The quotations from Joyce's earlier works are not numerous but seem to have been chosen with Joyce's usual care; his aim, in this case, being to provide at least one example of everything he ever wrote. This was to be expected; for if Finnegans Wake was to contain references to all the important Irish books it must contain references to all the works of James Joyce. The earliest of these works is wb..at he described in a letter to Miss Weaver as 'a piece of sentimental poetry ... I actnally wrote at the age of nine: "My cot alas that dear old shady home ...".'1 This becomes 'My God, alas, that dear olt tumtum home . . .' (231.5). The most noticeable references are those to Dubliners. The title of the work can hardly be distinguished from the usual meaning of the word, which occurs frequently in the Wake, but 'dabal take dabnal' (I86.IO) probably refers to the book, for it comes on a page where a list of the titles of the stories in Dubliners begins. These are, in the order in wblch they occur: 'The deathfete of Saint Ignaceous Poisonivy, of the Fickle Crowd' (line 12) Ivy Day in the Committee Room. 'Sistersen' (line 19) Sisters. 'Foul clay in little clots' (line 23) Clay. 'Wrongcountered' (line 24) An Encounter. 'Eve1ing' (line 24) Eveline. 'Boarde1house' (line 34) The Boarding House. 'Grazious' (line 31) Grace. 'After the grace' (line 34), Grace, and After the Race. On page 187 there are: 'The painful sake' (line 3) A Painful Case, 'Countryports' (line 7) Counterparts, 'The dead' (line 10) The Dead, 'Arra..'lbejibbers' (line II) Araby, 'Two gallants' (line 12) Two Gallants, and 'What mother?' (line 15) A Mother. This accounts for all the stories except A Little Cloud which is 1 Letters, p. 295. Letter dated '22 November, 1930'. This letter was first published ill Envoy, V, 17, May !95 1, p. 57.
!06
THE IRISH WRITERS probably indicated by 'little clots' (186.23) which has already been quoted. 'Labaryntos' (187.21) refers, of course, to Stephen Dedalus. The title of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is quoted in 'endlessly inartistic portraits of himself' (182.18). Like the titles of the Dubliners stories this is given in the 'Shem' chapter (pp. 169-195) which is very largely about James Joyce as a writer. Professor Levin pointed out in his James Joyce that it 'discusses the suppression of Dubliners'.l This is in a passage beginning 'when Robber and Mumsell' (185.1) which alludes to the firm of Maunsel and their representative, Mr. Roberts. The British printers refused to set up the type. 'Too base for printink!' (187.17) declares Joyce and goes on to address the artist from the opposing standpoints of Justice and Mercy. As he does so he mentions the title of a poem which he wrote to tho1>e he left behind in Dublin. The title has already been discussed when considering The Diary of the Parnell Commission; it is The Holy Office. Joyce is referring at the same time to his own poem and an incident in the Parnell case. 'Gash from a burner' (93. I I) is another poem, Gas from a Burner. Chamber Music is mentioned several times, for example as 'chambermade music' (184.4) in the 'Shem' chapter, and as 'a period of pure lyricism of shambred music' (164.15), in the chapter before it. Joyce's first appearance in a book was when two of his songs were printed in The Venture in 1904.2 These 'two cardinal ventures' (131.1) underlie the 'tempt-in-twos will stroll at venture' (245.19), are mocked in tl1e 'Measly Ventures of Two Lice (106.21), and explain why the word 'venture' (272.15) comes near the notes of music. Even the article which Joyce wrote on Mangan for the St. Stephen's of March, 1902,3 is quoted. Shaun's boast that he can translate 'from the Otherman or off the Toptic' (419.25) is echoing a statement made by Joyce in this early paper that readers 'have sought to discover whether learning or imposture lies behind such phrases as "from the Ottoman" or "from the Coptic".' Anot..her essay, 'The Day of the Rabblement', which was printed with an essay by F. J. C. Skeffington in a pamphlet entitled Two Essays,4 is named as 'lowbrown schisthematic robblemint' Harry Levin, James Joyce, p. 123. See Slocum and Cahoon, p. 72. S Reprinted, St. Stephens', I930. Also reprinted in National Student, March I952. A facsimile is given in Patricia Hutchins, James Joyce's Dublin, pp. 57-9, and another reprint in The James Joyce Review, Vol. I, No. I, Feb. I957, PP·3 1-8. 4 The title page is reproduced in Patricia Hutchins, James Joyce's Dublin, p. 56. The opening paragraph is quoted in the same work, p. 60. 1
2
107
TH3 LITERARY SOURCES ('P4.36), and as 'Two dies of one rafHement' (302.27). Joyce's essay begins with the words, '''No man," says the Nolan, "can be a lover of the good and the true unless he abhors the multitude.'" By 'The Nolan' he meant Giordano Bruno who forms part of a pair of characters, often called Brown and Nolan after a finn of Dublin booksellers, who are mentioned frequently in the Wake. 'Lowbrown' and 'Robblemint' must refer to this essay. 'Two dies' includes a reference to Mallarmes Un Coup de as well as to 'The Day of the Rabblement'> for the misspelling 'rafHement' brings in 'raffies'-the allocation by lottery of prizes to u1.e subscribers to a charity, and the French ra;fte, a game of dice. It has often been pointed out that the words 'Once upon a time and a very good tilne it was there was a moo cow', which begin A Portrait, are parodied in the Wake. 'Eins within a space and a wearywide space it wast ere wohned a Mookse' (152. I8) is the best known version. 'Once upon a drunk and a fairly good drunk it was and the rest of your blatherumskite!' (453.20) is another. But it is possible that Joyce is really referring to a story which his father actually told him, and not to his own reconstruction of it. For he wrote to Paul Ruggiero asking for the usual Greek way of beginning a fairy tale and saying that, 'in English you begin: Once upon a time and a very good time it was .. One passage in A Portrait which is certainly being parodied may also have another source. It is, 'Like a scene on some vague arras, old as man's we:L-mess, the image of the seventh city of christendom was visible to him across the timeless no older nor more weary nor less patient of subjection than in t.h.e days of the thir.;,gmote.'2 This appears inFinnegans Wake as: 'JIt scenes like a landescape from Wildu Picturescu or some seem on dome dimb Arras, dumb as Mum's mutyness, this mimage of the seventyseventh kusin of kristansen is odable to os across the wineless Ere no oedar nor mere eerie nor liss potent of suggestion than in the tales of the tingmount. (Prigged!), (53.1). The final word 'prigged' has at least three meanings. First we are told that the passage is not original in the Wake. The bint about Wilde tells us that it was not entirely original in A Portrait either. .A..nd Joyce is far enough from the young man who wrote A Portrait to have forestalled Professor Levin's criticism: 'Stephen seems ... priggish.'3 And 'the seventyseventh knsin of krlstansen' tells us that the young author is distantly connected with Ibsen.
Des
:1
1
Lerrers, p. 400, Letter dated' 4 September, !938'.
2
Travellers' Library Edition, Jonathan Cape, I948, p. James Joyce, A Critical Introduction, p. 62.
3
][08
I90.
THE IRISH WRITERS
It is noticeable that Joyce's comments on his earlier work are usually unfavourable. The cumulative effect of such words and phrases as , 'shambred', 'lowbrown', 'foul clay in litde clots' and so on, is unmistakable. But when we come to Ulysses the treatment is different. There is one derogatory statement about 'his usylessly unreadable Blue Book of Eccles' (179.26) but this is meant-I think-almost entirely as a joke, and is followed at once by the jocular praise that 'every splurge on the vellum he blundered over was an aisling vision more gorgeous than the one before'. And all these extracts are from the 'Shem' chapter, in which the basis of the situation varies between Shem making 'endlessly inartistic portraits of himself' (182.18), and his creation of 'piously forged palimpsests' (182.2). In the 'Mime' chapter Glugg (the Shem character) is first asked to solve a charade on the word 'Heliotrope'. It is acted three times for him, three anagrams are then given: '0 theoperil! Ethiaop lore, the poor lie' (223.28)-but he fails every time. Then the girls set him the problem of finding what colours they represent. He tries vainly to get help from religion (227.29).l Then he decides to try literature and surveys the history of Irish writing in a passage which has already been mentioned as containing the titles of many Irish novels. He ends with a summary of Ulysses: 'Ukalepe. Loathers' leave. Nemo in Patria .. .' (229.13) and appears to reach the conclusion that an Irish writer can succeed only if he leaves Ireland. But the summary of Ulysses is preceded by an allusion to 'she, the lalage of lyonesses, and him, her knave arrant' (229.10). Joyce is repeating here an allusion to BulwerLytton's play The Lady of Lyons which he first made in A Portrait, and which was discussed by Kain and Magalaner in their book on Joyce. 2 Their book is-of necessity, owing to the range and diffuseness of their subject-extremely concise; but they take over four pages to deal with this one point. The fact that they establish is that Joyce worKs out a parallel between Claude Melnotte setting out to gain fame and fortune so as to win Pauline, his 'Lady of Lyons? and Stephen planning by 'exile, silence, and cunning' to win both artistic and worldly success. Glugg's adolescent daydreams are detailed on pages 228-30. He sees himself as Casanova and as the hero of Marie Corelli's Sorrows of Satan. Stephen's 'exile, silence and cunning' are personified, as 'the bruce, of speech which comthe coriolano and the ignacio' (228.10), a The paragraph describing this was first elucidated in A Skeleton Key, p. I25. • Marvin Magalaner and Richard M. the Man, the Work, the ReputatIOn. New York: New York University 1956, pp. II5-19. 3 'My Lady of Lyons' C449.II) combines the with a pun on Lyons's teashops. 'Pauline, allow!' (34.33) refers to the by name. 1
109
THE LITERARY SOURCES pletes the parallel. The trope rul'lS: 'MeInotte's fantasies have a personified focus, Stephen's have not, Glugg expands the original form and personifies not only the aim of Stephen's and Melnotte's fantasies but the means Stephen plans to employ.' Glugg is, of course, a personification of one aspect of the character of James Joyce. There is a sense in which Joyce only wrote one story: his own, or-as Magalaner and Kain express it-there is 'Joyce's deliberate projection, throughout his career, of successive images of himself as artist, images that are as much ironic distortions as refiections'.l But the biographical, or pseudo-biographical, details in Finnegans Wake concern us here only in so far as they relate to the literary background. Here the main question is what books is Joyce known to have read, and one part of the answer to the question is to be found in Gorman's biography of Joyce.
The House by the Churchyard
Gorman lists what he describes as 'Joyce's father's library'-a somewhat grandiloquent name for four books. They are: Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Pelham, or the Adventures of a Gentleman. Francis Edward Smedley, Harry Coverdale's Courtship. Jonah Barrington, Memoirs of My Own Times, and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard. The list should be of importance, for Gorman can only have obtained it from Joyce who must have remembered these books all his life. But, like many of the bibliographical aids to the study of Joyce's reading, it gives little real help. One of the books, Harry Coverdale's Courtship, does not seem to have contributed a single word to the Wake. Barrington is named with Jonah Whalley as 'Barrentone, Jonah Whalley' (536.32) and would be Joyce's source for 'Borumborad' (492.22), an Irishman named Patrick Joyce, who masqueraded under this name as a Turkish doctor with such success in Dublin that he persuaded the Irish government to provide funds for building a Turkish bath. Barrington describes a famous incident when a large number of prominent Dublin citizens fell into the bath. 'To see what was my watergood' (492.24), following the mention of Borumborad, probably refers to this accident. Pelham may be the original source of the mysterious character of 'the Russian General' in the Wake, for it contains a Russian General who i.s once mentioned abruptly as a person whose 1 Marvin Magalaner and Richard M. Kain, Joyce, the Man, the Work, the Reputation, 1956, p. 30. HO
THE IRISH WRITERS anger is to be feared and never mentioned again. This jack-in-the-box behaviour may have impressed him upon Joyce's memory. The fourth book, Le Fanu's House by the Churchyard, is one of the major source books of Finnegans Wake and needs treating in detail. We know that Joyce used a copy while he was writing the Wake; or, to be accurate, we know that he used two copies, for he wrote to Frank Budgen asking him to 'Bring with you or send me Lefanu's book. I want to see something in it. My own copy is in the gardemeuble.' In another letter to Budgen written just four years laterl Joyce asks a lot of questions about The House by the Churchyard and says that 'the encounter between my father and a tramp (the basis of my book) actually took place at that part of the park'. He is referring to a spot in Phoenix Park where a man named Sturk is stunned and left as dead by Charles Archer, alias Dangerfield, the villain of the book. Sturk is 'resurrected' by an operation performed by Black Dillon and, though he dies later, is able to name his murderer. This 'Crime in the Park' is one example of the Fall and Resurrection, or Redemption, of Man. The Park is also a symbol of Eden. This is dear from one of the main references to The House by the Churchyard in the Wake: 'where the plaintiff was struck, she left down ..• her filthdump near the Serpentine in Phornix Park . . . that dangerfield circling butcherswood where fireworker oh :fl.aherty engaged a nutter of castlemallards and ah for archer stunned's turk, all over which fossil footprints, bootmarks, fingersigns, elbowdints breechbowls, a. s. o. were all successively traced of a most envolving description' (80.4). Dangerfield, Archer and Sturk are named, as well as Fireworker O'Flaherty and Nutter, Lord Castlemallard's steward, who a comic duel in the Park. All the action at this spot recalls the real 'Crime in the Park': the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish and his friend by the 'Invincibles'. Like Finnegans Wake, The House by the Churchyard is a story about events in two places: Phoenix Park and Chapelizod. It is in Chapelizod that the Earwickers' public house stands. There are several echoes in the Wake of the opening paragraphs ofLe Fanu's book describing the appearance of the village, and-by one of those coincidences which Joyce seemed to find everywhere-the style and subjectmatter of the first paragraph has something in common with the sentence from Quinees essay on Vico which Joyce used elsewhere. I will quote the paragraph from Le Fanu in full: 'We are going to talk, if you please, in the ensuing chapters, of what 1 Letters. p. 337. Letter dated dated '9 September 1937'.
'10
Sept=ber, 1933', and p. 396, letter
III
THE LITERARY SOURCES was on in Chapelizod about a hundred years ago. A hundred years, to be sure, is a good while; but though fashions have changed, some old phrases dropped out, and new ones come in; and snuff and hair powder and sacques and solitaires quite passed away-yet men and women are men and women just the same-as elderly fellows like your humble servant can testify will.' The stone and the tree which :figure so prominently in the Wake, 'tale of stem or stone' (::u6.4), could have been taken from the first three pages of The House by the Churchyard. The stone comes on page two: 'Then there was' the village church; with its tower dark and rustling from base to summit with thick piled bowering ivy. The royal a...-rms cut in bold relief in the broad stone over the porch-where, pray, is that stone now?' The tree is on page three: 'One glance ... before you go, you will vouchsafe the village tree-that stalworth [sic] elm. It has not grown an inch these hundred years. It does not look a day older than it did fifty years ago I can tell you. There he stands the same . . . listening, as it seems to me, always to the unchanged song and of the river, with his reveries and affections far away among by~gone times and a buried race. Thou hast a story, too, to tell, though slighted and solitary sage, if only the winds would steal it musically forth, like the secret of Midas from the moaning reeds.' 'Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm!' (216.3) wrote Joyce, anc.1ater described the church and stone and tree at Chapelizod. 'Yon creepered tower of a church ofEreland ... with our king's house of stone ... the loftleaved elm Lefanunianabove· mansioned, each, every, all is for the retrospectioner' (264.3°). 'Ereland' is a neatJoycean coinage for Ireland long ago to which 'the retrospectianer' is asked to 'vouchsafe' a backward glance, and perhaps it is from this source that 'midias reeds' (158.7) and other references to Midas come so often in the Wake. There are several places in the Wake where Joyce seems to be directing his readers' attention to The House by the Churchyard. It is named, or nearly named, in 'Lefanu (Sheridan's) Old House by the Coachyard' (213.I). Another version is 'The old house by the churpelizod' (96.7), and it is given in Dutch as 'De oud huis bij de kerkegaard' (245.36). These, of course, refer not only to the book but also to the actual village of Chapelizod, which is said to get its name from Iseult. But it is to the book that Joyce directs his readers' attention in such passages as 'In the ink of his sweat you Vlrill find it yet. What Gipsy Devereux vowed to Lylian and why the elm and how the stone' (563.20). Lylian Walsing~ ham is the pure heroine of The House by the Churchyard and loves 'Handsome Captain Devereux 1Gipsy Devereux, as they called him, for lI2
THE IRISH WRITERS his clear dark complexion.'l But she rejects him and dies when she finds he is unworthy of her. Another character Joyce mentions is 'Ezekiel Irons' (27.23), the sexton at Chapelizod, who is given the task of holding Finnegan down when he tries to rise. It is, however, probably true to say, as Adaline Glasheen does, that The House by the Churchyard is used 'mosdy for decoration')! Perhaps the same could be said of the use Joyce made of Yeats's works, with the exception of A Vision, which Joyce seems to treat as if it were a book he had written himself, and is one of the many books 'subsumed' into the 'Night Lessons' Chapter, where it is most apparent on the pages near the diagram (291-30I).3 James Stephens is probably named in the same section (300, note 2), but Joyce seems to ignore his work altogether and adopt his personality as another facet of his own; probably because Stephens had promised to complete the Wake should Joyce be incapacitated.4 There remains one other Irish writer, that I am aware of, to consider as a source for Finnegans Wake-this is Swift. But Swift is, both in himself and in the use which is made of him in the Wake, so completely sui generis that he must be considered by himselfin a separate chapter;
I Richard Sheridan Le Fanu, The HOU$e by the Churchyard, London, J866, P·24· S A Census, p. 73. 3 See Appendix, p. 290. 4 See Letters, p. 288.
8
CHAPTER 4
Swift: a Paradigm of a God
' T h e influence of Swift on Joyce,' wrote L. A. G. Strong, 'goes beyond likeness and coincidence. It is assimilated into the fabric of the mind. little language of the Journal to Stella contributed to the vocabulary of Finnegans Wake, but the allusions to Swift's life are deeply woven into the book's texture.'l Edmund Wilson has made almost the same comment,2 while Harry Levin says that the 'great prose master of Dublin who has left his mark on nearly every page of Joyce's book. Swift •.. likewise presides over the mythology of Finnegans Wake. He oscillates back and forth between the "sosie sesthers", Stella and Vanessa. His unmistakable voice breaks in when we least expect it nagging Esther Johnson in as bigh a key as Yeats's Words upon the Wt?zdowpane. His pet name for her, "Ppt", is the father's name for his daughter, and the girl's for her doll ..•. Joyce's mouthpiece, Shem, is clearly to be identified with Swift: the two are consubstantial in "Mr. O'Shem the Draper". And the Dean of St. Patrick's is a model as well as a theme. We have only to recall the puns, jingles, and pastiches that interlard his miscellanies, the conscientiously recorded cliches of Polite Conversation, the "little language" of the Journal to Stella, or the letter to Dr. Sheridan that looks like English and reads like Latin.'3 Indeed almost every writer who has dealt at any length with Pinnegans Wake has commented on the frequent allusions to Swift it contains. But Professor Levin is the only one who has come near to explaining the use which Joyce has made of Swift's complex character. In the passage which has just been quoted he states that 'Shem is clearly to be identified with Swift'. This is certainly true, but it is only a part of the L. A. G. Strong, The Sacred River, pp. 76-'7. • Edmund Wilson, The Wound and the Bow. See Bibliography. a Harry Levin, James Joyce, p. II7.
1
!l4
SWIFT: A PARADIGM OF A GOD truth. There are three main male characters in Finnegans Wake: H.C.E. and his two sons, Shem and Shaun. Swift is identified with all three. As Draper he is Shem, the writer of Swift's Drapier Letters transmuted to The Crazier Letters (104.I4); as the Dean he is Shaun; and as himself he is H.C.E. This mystery of three persons is deliberately contrived to provide this level in the Wake, and this era in our history, with a properly constructed deity. Jonathan has become 'Trinathan' (478.26). Obviously he is 'Shaunathaun' (462.8), and Shaun, speaking of Shem's 'prentis pride' (422.20), says 'Well it is partly my own, isn't it?' and takes, to illustrate this, 'a hearty bite out of ... his hat, tryone, tryon and triune' (422.23). The most unmistakable equation of Shaun with Swift as the Dean is in the speech to which the Ass replies 'Hopsoloosely kidding you are totether with your cadenus. . . . Two venusstas! Biggerstiff! ... Otherwise, frank Shaun, we pursued. . .' (413.27). In this speech Shaun uses Swift's 'little language' from the Journal to Stella; 'two little ptpt coolies worth twenty thousand quad herewitdnessed with both's maddlemass wishes to Pepette . . . from their dearly beloved Roggers,M.D.D. O.D.' (4I3.22). The allusions to Swift and his works in this passage are numerous and complex, but all that I will say of them for the present is that they prove that Shaun is to be equated with 'Cadenus', the Dean. The identification of H.C.E. with Swift has frequently been made. Swift, like Lewis Carroll and King Mark of Cornwall, stands for the old man with child lovers. The authors of A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake1 somewhat surprisingly can see only Swift in 'that exposure of him by old Tom Quad, a flashback in which he sits sated, gowndabout, in c1ericalease habit, watching bland sol slithe dodgsomely into the nethermore' (57.24). It seems to me that Carroll, whom they do not mention, holds the foreground here with Swift undoubtedly present but well in the background. Adaline Glasheen's A Census to Pinnegans Wake provides a useful tool for the elucidation of such problems in the Wake. She states that 'Shem is Swift; at least he is Swift as Draper'.2 But an examination of the appearances of the word swift in A Census shows that it is as common when H. C.E. occupies the centre of the stage as when his sons occupy it. Swift's 'little language' can be shown from the same source to be used equally by all three. The word Pepette, for example, in various spellings, represents in the Wake, the 'Ppt' which Swift used for Stella. It comes on twenty-four pages at roughly 1 Joseph Camp bell and Henry Morton Robinson, A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake. Lendon: Faber and Faber, 1947, p. 64. • A Census, p. I26.
:us
THE LITER.ARY SOURCES equal intervals throughout the book! and is just as frequent in the H.C.E. passages as in any others, except perhaps Chapter III of Book III, which describes the inquest on Yaun (474-554), and contains all the characters in the book. It is undoubtedly H.C.E. who is described as 'serene, synthetical, swift' (596.33). And 'Old yeasterloaves may be as stale as a stub' (598.20) which combines a reference to A Tale of a Tub with one to Esther is equating SWJ't, whom Esther loves, with H.C.E., the father-figure of the Wake. Joyce's synthetical Swift is not only divided into three persons; he is also provided with two natures, presumably to be considered as joined in hypostatic union, and thus completing the paradigm of a deity which he is constructing. In the first of those four paragraphs which are, as the authors of A Skeleton Key have said, 'in effect an overture, resonant with all the themes of Firmegans Wake',ll we are told that 'Not yet, though all's fair in Vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone uathanjoe' (3.II). This is e>.:plained in A Skeleton Key as 'Not yet, though all's fair in the game of love, were those saucy sisters wroth with their father-surrogate, the two-in-one Wise Nathan and Chaste Joseph. (There exists a little riddle, attributed to Vanessa herself, which plays on Jonathan Swift's name in this way).'3 It is from this idea of a Sv.i.ft divided in hirr.se1f that Joyce quotes the remark about 'That letter se1fpenned to one's other' (489.33), for it was Swi:ft4 who was accused of writing letters to himse1f-owing to the similarity of Stella's handwriting to his own. The 'letter' in Finnegans Wake has many meanings, but the chief one is that it is Firmegans Wake itself, written by Joyce, the writer, for Joyce, the reader; or perhaps by Joyce for his Creator. There is one other feature in the deification of Swift in the WaRe; this is the number and variety of names which he possesses. Allah is said to have ninety-:nine names; in the Wake there are 'Twentynine names of Attraente' (105.25). Swift is given about twenty-nine names. He is Swift (294.16, etc.), swipht (303.6), Schwipps (146.12), Jonathan (192.22), Broth6t Jonathan (307.5), Jauuathaun (454.9), Shaunathaun, (462.8), Trinathan (478.26). He is Dean (460.31), Deanns (248.26) Dane (288.19), and Draper and Deane (ZII.2), Mr. Q'Shem the. Draper (421.25), and Draeper . . . drawpers . . . droopers (608.5). He is Archicadenus (55.3°) and cadenus (413.27), Bickerrsta..fl's (I78.23), 1 A Census, p. 106. The pages given there are: 14, 96, 143, 144, 232, 248, 272, 276,301, 366, 374,4 1 3,449, 459, 470, 478, 500, 50Z, 540, 563, 571, 580, 601. 2 A Skeleton Key, p. 22. 3 Ibid., p. 55. • Journal to Stella, edited by Harold Williams. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948, p. 183.
u6
SWIFT: A PARADIGM OF A GOD bitterstiff ... or battonstaff (366.I9), Biggerstiff (413.29). He is presto as Prestissima (256.4) and priesto (289.17). And all these are undoubtedly referring, in the first place, to Swift. Even the last one, 'priesto', which does not at first sight suggest Swift, was originally written 'presto'l from the Italian Duchess of Shrewsbury's name for Swift; and all of them come in passages where Swift is unmistakably present. References to Swift as a person are almost as common in Finnegans Wake as references to his works, and many have already been pointed out, particularly by Harry Levin and L. A. G. Strong. Strong points out that 'The most frequent association is, naturally enough, with Stella, and Vanessa is a close second? but the situation is much more complex than was realized when Strong wrote his account of Fin:negans Wake in 1949. Esther Johnson and Esther Vanhomrigh are identified with the split personality of Issy who is modelled on 'Christine Beauchamp' the subject of a case of multiple personality described by Dr. Morton Prince in the Dissociation of a Personality. She is also Alice and her image in a mirror; and, to add to the complexity, she is 1seult who is usually named 1sold or 1ssy in the Wake to provide links with Chape1izod, and Parnell who said, 'If you sell me get my price'. Several of these facets of the character of Joyce's ingenue can be seen in 'With best from-cinder Christinette if prints chumming, can be when desires Soldi, for asamples, backfronted or, if all, peethrolio, or Get my Prize' (280.21). 'Peethrolio' is an anagram of heliotrope, the a,'lswer to the 'Find Me Colours' (626.17) game which the girls, in their ultimate dissociation into twenty-nine persons, play with Shem. Prince is included in 'prints'; Solm is 1sold's mirror image, as well as being a soldier's pay in Italian. Esther is hidden in the same passage as 'yesters' (280.7); indeed it is hard to n."1d a passage in the Wake which does not contain some allusion to these girls; they appear-as has been pointed out-on the first page, and 'Yhesters' (624.25) comes in Anna Livia's final speech. Often the allusions are combined with allusions to Swift as in: '0 sey but swift and still a vain essaying!' (486.26). This has 'stilla' and 'essay' as well as 'vain essa-'. The first meaning is 'Say simply: Swift and Stella and Vanessa'; it also means: 'Speak quickly so that we can stop our useless experiments'. There are many questions on the obscure relationship of Swift and his two Resters which no one has solved. One of the minor ones is the meaning of , Coffee' in the letters from Swift to Vanessa. The question British Museum, Add. MS. 47478, f.8. • Op. cit., p. 78.
1
II7
THE LITERARY SOURCES is posed, and all the known facts in Shane Leslie's The Skull of Swift,1 where the conclusion is reached that 'All this coffee may have been innocent enough though Horace Walpole was to comment: "I think you will see very what he means by coffee", and Dr. Birkbeck Hill concludes: "Coffee certainly in all the letters to the daughter had a hidden " But Vanessa's coffee remains yet another of those secrets which every reader of Dean Swift must solve for himself.' The corresponding puzzle in the Wake is Joyce's use of the phrase, 'A tea set' (262.16,17,18, and 308.2) which is probably a key to the cryptogram in the 'Night Lessons' chapter (pp. 260-308). Joyce also makes great use of cocoa, and this may owe something to Vanessa's coffee. A passage about 'what closely resembled parsonal violence ... from Mr. Vanhomrigh's house' (174.24) may combine Joyce's own solution to the coffee puzzle with 'Gibsen's tea' (170.26). Swift's life is subsumed into the Wake. His birthplace, a little house in Hoey's Court, Dublin, is named in 'Huey' (63.13), following, 'No such parson'; and Swift as a child appears in 'the godolphing lad in the Hoy's Court.' (563.26). Moor Park where he lived with Temple is often mentioned-usually as a sound heard from outside. It is 'morepork! morepork!' (407.19) where, as Harry Levin has pointed out,2 'The cry of the Australian whippoorwill "more pork" (359), is transposed to "Moor Park" (433)'. Temple himse1fis named in 'tembledim' (258.21). Jane Waring, whom Swift wooed as 'Varina" is named with 'Estella Swifte' as 'Varina Fay' (IOI.8), and probably 'Quarta Quaedam' on the next li..J.e refers to Betty Jones whom Swift knew before he went to Moor Park. Swift's works are continually mentioned and are amongst the most noticeable features of the background of Finnegans Wake. Perhaps A Tale of a Tub is named most often. The allusion to it which was the first to be written is in the Anna Livia chapter when one of the washerwomen says: 'That's what you may call a tale of a tub' (212.21). So it is possible that when it is named in other sections of the Wake the reference may be to the conversation of Joyce's washerwomen as well as to Swift's book. J[t lP.ay be named in the word 'buttended' (3.II) -along with Isaac Butt-in the line before the first mention of Swift in the Wake. It is certainly named on the second page along with Swift and Sterne in: 'One he struck his tete in a tub for to watsch the future of his fates but ere he swiftly took it out again . . .' Shane Leslie, The Skull of London: Chatto & Windus, !923, p. 197. 20p. cit., p. II7. Levin confused his references. 'Mooreparque' (359.35) and 'mere pork' (433.U) are Joyce's actual words. 1
!I8
SWIFT: A PARADIGM OF A GOD (4.21). Three pages later there is: 'Tilling a teel of a mm' (7.5), following 'issavan essavans and her patterjackmartins' which brings in the two Esthers and Peter, Jack and Martin, the three brothers who represent the Roman, Anglican and Lutheran religions in A Tale of a Tub. These three are named again as 'Peter, Jake or Martin' (26.5) and as 'padderiagmartin' (86.2). 'The toil of his tubb' (354.36) comes in a passage in which Swift is not mentioned. But the next time the book is named: 'the tell of the tud' (423.4), the sentence goes on to speak of 'the decan's, fast aslooped in the intrance to his polthronechair.' Here 'the decan' must mean decanus, the Dean, whatever other meanings it may have; and 'intrance' must refer to Swift's last illness as well as to an entrance. There is another mention of the madness of Swift in Finnegans Wake; this comes in the 'Night Lessons' chapter: 'Early clever, surely doomed to Swift's, alas, the galehus!' (294.16). In October, 1928, when Joyce's eyes were at their worst and he had been unable to read for over four months, he wrote a very short piece which he entitled: Twilight of Bl£ndness Madness Descends on Swift. 'Unslow, malswift, pro mean, proh noblesse, Atrahora, Melancolores, nears; whose glauque eyes glitt bedimmd to irnm! whose fingrings creep o'er skull: till, qwench! asterr mist calls estarr and grauw! honathJohn raves homes glowcoma.' He sent a copy of it, with a commentary which he jokingly described as being 'just forty seven times as long as the text? to Miss Weaver; and it was published in Le Navire d'Argent in December, 1928. It is important as being the only example of writing in Joyce's final style for which we have a complete explanation by Joyce himself; for the notes he sent to Miss Weaver about sections of Finnegans Wake are never long enough to give more than a small fraction of the explanation which would be needed to understand Joyce's entire meaning. But the piece was not included in the Wake, probably because its atmosphere of unrelieved gloom made it unsuitable. It has since provided a trap for several critics who have attempted to write about Finnegans Wake without reading it, and supposed this formed part of the text. The Drapier's Letters are named only as The Crazier Letters (1°4.26) but Wood's halfpence which the letters attacked are mentioned several times; indeed most of the money in the Wake is wooden through their influence. There are 'woodpiles ofhaypennies' (11.21); and a few pages later a 'Jute' tries to pass to a 'Mutt' II 'sylvan coyne, a piece of oak' (16.3 I), which is rejected with the remark: 'How wooden I not know it.' Shaun speaks of 'pay and perks and wooden halfPence' (413.36); 1
Letters, p. 273.
II9
THE LITERARY SOURCES 'wood's haypence' (586.23) are mentioned; and there are many less obvious allusions such as: 'the wood industries . . . Coppercheap' (574.1 ... 13); while 'drapier-cut-dean' (550.27) is mentioned as one of H.C.E.'s 'telltale sports', a pun on the Tailtean Games. The Predictions for the Year 1706, and the other pamphlets attacking Partridge, the astrologer, have several echoes in the Wake. I have already pointed out the use Joyce made of the name Bickerstaff, under which Sv-r..ft wrote these pamphlets. Partridge's name is also used, coming in as: 'Yia! Your partridge's last!' (344.7), and-with Croagh Patrick-in: 'On his laughside lying sack to croakpartridge' (3°1.29). He is also probably included in: 'I am perdrix and upon my pet ridge' (477.28), which refers in the first place to the story ofPerdix in Ovid's Metamurphoses (VIII, v, 220, et seq.), since Perdi."{ was Daedalus's rival. But by the simple (for Fmnegans Wake) substitution of Swift, the writer, for Daedalus, who is Stephen, we find that Partridge can stand for Perdix, the defeated and be made game of in another sense. Gulliver's Travels is never exactly named in the Wake; 'gullible's travels' (I73.3) is the nearest Joyce comes to it. A 'boudeville song, Gorotsky Gollovar's Troubles' (294.18), followed by a scrap of parody of Swift's epigram on the Magazine: 'By his magmasine fall', is one version of it; and probably 'Bollivar's trouble's' (453.13) is another, since it continues the mutation which has been already begun in a way which is typical of the mutations in Finnegans Wake, and must be meant to combine Simon Bolivar with Gulliver. Gulliver himself appears as 'Shemuel Tulliver' (464.13)-with an admixture from Tf.e Mill on the Floss; and as 'Galliver and Gellover' (620.13) who are, from the context, undoubtedly the two sons of AL.P.: Shem and Shaun: gall-liver for the jaundiced Shem, girl-lover for Shaun of the twenty-nine sweethearts. There are many allusions to details of one kind and another in Gulliver's Travels but I have 1:.ot been able to find any direct quotation from this book in Finnegans Wake. 'Braudribnob's on t.~e bummel? -And lillypets on the lea' (491.21), us H.C.E. as Brobdingnag and AL.P. as Lilliput. This is repeated in: 'Bigrob digna&:,aing his lylyputtana' (583.9). We are being told that H.C.E. is very large and his wife very small; but there is some other meaning about a cyclist and a girl on the grass which I do not suppose has a literary source. Swift'., Yahoos and Houyhnhnms are used several times. 'Houhnhymn songtoms' (15.13) turns Swift's wise horses in.to hymns; and the words of the Irish patriotic song 'The Memory of the Dead' are twisted from 'True men like you men' to In mantram of true men like yahoo120
SWIFT: A PARADIGM OF A GOD men' (553.32). 'Yahoort' (205.30) brings in a kind of Turkish food. 'Yaa hoo' (348.1) probably includes Ya Hu!-the twenty-eight times repeatea. refrain of James Clarence Mangan's poem 'Trust not the World, nor Time'. Mangan adds a note that Ya Hu! is 'the familiar cry of the dervishes. Turkish for yes, indeed or alas.' The final mention of the houyhnhnms comes in A.L.P.'s last speech: 'With her strulldeburgghers! Hnmn hnmn!' ~623.23). Here they are obviously following Swift's Struldbugs who occupy an important place in the Wake. Swift's Stnildbugs seem to be the original source of Joyce's four old men. The particular number of the old men comes, of course, from quite different sources. The old men are the four Evangelists, the four provinces of Ireland, the Four Masters, the four cardinal points, the four winds and many another four. But the conception of immortals who have outlived their potencies and retain only envy, covetousness and vanity; who waste their undying lives in doddering and malicious gossip; this conception is Swift's and Swift's only. The island they lived in was named Luggnagg. By Joycean etymology this could be taken to mean a place where people lug, that is 'drag with difficulty', a nag, which should mean a wretched horse but could perhaps be taken to mean a donkey. This may have been the way in which Joyce was first prompted to have his old men accompanied by a donkey. Quotations of the precise words of Swift's works are not common in Finnegans Wake. The 'Epigram on the Magazine' has already been mentioned and Joyce's quotations from this were pointed out in A Skeleton Key.l 'Behold a proof of Irish sense! Here Irish wit is seen! Where nothing's left that's worth defence, They build a magazine.' This is distorted into: 'Behove this sound of Irish sense. Really? Here English might be seen. Royally? One sovereign punned to petery pence. Regally? The silence speaks the scene. Fake!' (12.36) But the words are printed as prose. It is difficult to decide what the meaning of the passage is, but the parody of Swift is obvious. Perhaps the 'sound of Irish sense' means the language of the Wake in which 'English might be seen'; for it is fundamentally English in spite of its 1
Op. cit., p. 43. 121
THE LITERARY SOURCES foreign additions and its Irish accent. Another allusion to Swift's epigram has already been noticed and several others are made.1 Svr.ift's well-known advice to the Irish to 'Bum everything English excepting their coals? is transformed by Joyce into 'Burn only what's Irish, accepting their coals' (447.4); while another remark of Joyce's about 'the axiomatic orerotundity of that once grand old elrington bawl' (55.35) may be describing the actor Thomas Elrington whom Swift mentions in his Billet to the Company of Playactors, or it may refer to F. Elrington Ball who edited Swift's correspondence and wrote a book on his verse.s Probably Joyce intended the allusion to be shared equally between the two. Several minor figures in Swift's life make momentary appearances in the Wake. The Reverend William Tisdall, an Irish clergyman whose attempted courtship of Stella was abruptly stopped by a letter from Swift,' comes in as 'Tisdall' (468.28). It is said that when Swift was at Laracor :the services were very badly attended; and that once when the only ot-her person present at a weekday evening service was his clerk Roger, Swift began with the words 'Dearly beloved Roger'.s This is l'ecalledin the Wake by 'dearly beloved Roggers, M.D.D .O.D.' (4I3.25). And Joyce was doubtless aware that 'Roger' was the common slang word in Swift's time for the male organ. 'Huffsnuff' (124.35) may be from Vanessa's name for Swift when he was cross: 'Governor Huff'.6 Swift's remark about Dublin, that it is a place where everything is known in a week and magnified a hundred degrees 7 was probably in Joyce's mind when he vvrote the passage beginning, 'Retire to rest without first misturbing your neighbour . . .' (585.34;' This ends, 'every ditcher's dastard in Dupling will let us know about it ... This is seriously meant. Here is a home1et nor a hothel. That's right, old oldun' (586. I 5). Joyce could undoubtedly have reached these conclusions for himself, but I think that the 'old oldun' here is Swift. Another strange aspect of Joyce's use of Swift remains to be discussed: this is the way in wl'Jch Joyce uses the two names Swift and Supra, p. II. See also: 334.24. Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufactures. • F. Elrington Ball, Swift's Verse. London: John Murray, 1929. F. Elrington Ball (Editor), The Correspondence of Jonathan Swif" D.D. London: G. Bell & Sons, 1914. • Correspondence, Ball, Vol. IV, p. 479. S John, Earl of Orrery, Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Swift. London, 1751, p. 20. • A. Martin Freeman (Editor), Vanessa and her Correspondence with Jonathan Swift. London: Selwyn & Blount, 1921, p. I26. ? Ibid., p. 99. 1
2
122
SWIFT: A PARADIGM OF A GOD Sterne as if there were some close tie between them. Swift has Sterne as a doppelganger whenever he is mentioned by his own surname. But Sterne is only named once when Swift is referred to by any of his other names. This is one of Issy's footnotes in the 'Night Lessons' chapter: 'Have you ever thought of hitching your stern and being ourdeaned ... ' (291, note 4). One example of Sterne and Svvift as a pair has already been quoted, it is 'sternely ... swiftly' (4.2I). Another is 'sw'ill to mate errthors, stern to checkself' (36.35). But why-the question remainsdoes Joyce 'mate authors'? People move 'swiftly sterneward' (256.14). There is 'a stern poise for a swift pounce' (282.7). 'Swift ... sternly' (292.24 ... 30) and 'Starn ... Swipht' (303.6) continue the companionship. When Shaun turns 'to see what's loose' (454.22) (which is a Joycean version of the German Was ist los?-What's the matter?) he does so 'swiftly ... starnly ... sternish'. When Joyce writes '0, sey but swift' (486.26) two lines later he adds 'sign it sternly'. Various suggestions have been made as to the reason for this pairing. Mrs. Glasheen says that 'Joyce felt that Sterne and Swift should have exchanged their names in order to describe their work properly'.l Perhaps the connection is that when H. G. Wells reviewed A Portrait of the Artz'st as a Young Man he said that the book was 'to be ranked with the works of Sterne and of Swift'. 2 Joyce was very sensitive to criticism and Wells's appreciation was one of the first laudatory reviews he ever received. Possibly Swift and Sterne stayed together in his mind for ever afterwards. Stephen Dedalus mentions Swift in the 'Circe' episode of Ulysses in 'Doctor S,vift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their shirts' . In fact what Swift wrote was-as Miss Mackie L. Jarrell has pointed out in a recent paper3-'Eleven Men well armed will certainly subdue one Single Man in his Shirt.' Joyce distorts this in several ways in the Wake: 'For one man in his armour was a fat match always for any girls under shutts' (23.8), and 'How a mans in his armor we nurses know' (36I.13) to S"rjft as the man in are two examples. I think Joyce is armour who was too strong for the girls he opposed.
A Cens'us, p. 124. H. G. Wells, 'James Joyce', New ""lou!.',,", March 10, 1917, pp. 15I-60. Conversation in the "Circe" • Mackie L. Jarrell, 'Joyce's "Use of episode of Ulysses'. PMLA, Vol. 1957, p. 551. The Swift quotation is from The Drapier's ed. Davis. Oxford University Jarrell for sending me a copy of this Press, 1935, p. 79. I am grateful to pap':r. 1 2
123
CHAPTER S
Lewis Carroll: The Unforeseen Precursor
I
n the Preface to Sylvie and Bruno Lewis Carroll remarks that 'Perhaps the hardest thing in ail literature . . • is to write anything ocigin21..'l But Carroll was so determined to be original that he spent twenty years making sure that the book which he intended to be his masterpiece was unlike anything else ever written. James Joyce worked for seventeen years on Finnegans Wake, a book quite as original as Sylvie and Bruno; indeed one which will probably remain for ever the standard example of the danger of being too original. Yet many of the wildest and most startling features of Finnegans Wake are metely the logical development, or the working out on a larger scale, of ideas that first occurred to Lewis Carroll. Joyce rarely fails to acknowledge a literary debt, and he admits his borrowings from Carroll with as much clarity as his final technique will allow: 'To tell how your mead of, mard, is made of. All old Dadgerson's dodges one conning one's copying and that's what wonderland's wanderlad'll flaunt to the fair. A trancedone boyscript with tittivits by. Ahem' (374.I). 'Old Dadgerson' followed by a reference to wonderland must be Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll. The 'wanderlad' is Joyce, who was always conscious of himself as an exile and:'5 present as the 'us (the real Us), (62.26; 446.36) throughout Finnegans Wake. The 'Dodges' he is copying are of all kinds; the most obvious being the verbal novelties of the 'Jabberwocky' type'Jest jibberweek's joke' (565.I4), says Joyce. 'Jabberwocky' was first published in Through the Looking-Glass, but the first verse, and the germ of the whole poem, dates back to Misch-Masch, a household magazine which Carroll wrote in his· youth. 'Misch-masch' is the German for 'Hodge-podge'; but Joyce is probably referring to Carroll's juvenile work when he uses the words 'mitsch for matsch' (366.13), and 'mishmash' (466.12), while there can be no doubt about the reference in '(msch! msch!) with nurse Madge, my linkingclass girl' (4594). 1 See The Complete Works oj L8'"dJis Carroll. London: Nonesuch Press; New York: Random House, 1939, p. 279.
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LEWIS CARROLL: THE UNFORESEEN PRECURSOR Both Carroll and Joyce were constantly being surprised at the enormous difference which a slight change in the letters of a word can make to its meaning. For Joyce tbis is symbolized by the word hesitency, wbich was discussed in the section on Irish writers. Carroll had no special symbol but he invented and practised all kinds of tricks with words. He tried condensation. 'Your Royal Highness' became 'Yrieuce' ,1 Joyce's 'msch! msch!' is the same sort of tbing, so is 'Gwds with gurs are gottrdnmu:ng. HIls vlls' (258.1). Carroll tried accretion. 'Litterature'2 is the name he gave to the unwieldy pile of disconnected notes he accumulated when he was preparing to write Sylvie and Bruna. Joyce, as has been pointed out, collected notes with the same lack of apparent system. But his neatest example of accretion is the word 'Healiopolis' (24.18). The additional letter here connects the ancient Egyptian city of the sun-god with Dublin where T. M. Healy was once installed as Governor-General, and with the Dublin suburb of Chape1izod where T. M. Healy lived for many years,S Carroll invented what is usually called the 'Word Ladder', although the name he gave to it was 'Doublets',4 Tbis is a game in which the players turn one word into another by altering one letter at a time but always making a word. It is still revived occasionally in children's periodicals. Joyce plays at his own variant of this word game in Finnegans Wake, but only in passages where Carroll is being mentioned. The passage which has just been quoted contains a word ladder in 'Tell how your mead of, mard, is made of', as an example of the 'dodges' Joyce is copying. The last word in the extract, 'Ahem', is both a forced cough dra\ving attention to an indiscretion and the last word in the series: 'Item ... Utem ... Otem .•. Atem .. .' (223-4). The implications of this will be discussed later, but it may be mentioned that the word 'Item', according to Partridge, is slang for 'a hint'. Another of Carroll's verbal tricks is the reversal of the letters of a word. He can hardly be said to have invented this for the palindrome is an ancient device. But he made his own peculiar use ofit. For example, he makes his Bruno say that evil is the opposite of live. s Joyce was probCarroll, Works, p. 288. Ibid., p. 278. 3 See T. M. Healy, Letters and Leaders of My Day. London: Butterworth, I928, Vol. II, p. 467. 'Chapelizod, 8th. Jan. I904. Wyndham calls my new house Heliopolis as he looks down on it from the Park.' 4 Carroll, Works, p. I274. 3 Ibid., p. 529. 1
2
125
THE LITERARY SOURCES ably referring to this passage when he wrote, 'Evil-it-is, lord of loaves in Amongded' (418.6). The last word is an Anglicization of the Middle Egyptian Amentat, 'Place of the Dead'. The very idea of reversing the letters of a word suggests looking-glasses. Joyce is reversing the letters of the name Alice with Through the Looking-Glass in mind when he writes of 'Seci1as through their laug.tUng classes' (526.35). But the most obvious, and the most important, of Joyce's verbal borrowing from Carroll is the portmanteau-word. Carroll's invention of this is undisputed, and it is Humpty Dumpty, 'the official guide to Joyce's vocabulary? as Harry Levin called him, who defined it first: '''Slithy'' means "lithe and slimy". "Lithe" is the same as "active". You see it's like a portmanteau-there are tlvo meanings packed up into one word.'2 Joyce, however, was seldom content vl'ith just tlvo meanings. In fact he seems to have aimed at packing as many meanings as possible into every single word. Humpty Dumpty himself, for example, is a symbol of the Fall of Man-he fell off a wall! He also signifies resurrection-an Easter egg! His name may be taken as meaning up and down: 'Humps when you hised us and dumps when you doused us!' (624.13). This connects him with Vico's cyclic theory of history. He is also one facet ofH.C.E. He sometimes seems to be Finnegan. He is the cosmic egg of Egyptian mythology, the egg of 'The Great Cackler' (237.34) as Joyce says, quoting from The Book of the Dead. And in addition to all this he is the city of Dublin, and sometimes represents all Ireland. The identification of Dublin and Humpty Dumpty is made several times in the Wake, but most dearly in a little poem which Joyce wrote to advertise Anna Livia Plurabelle when that chapter of his work was published. It may be read in full in Herbert Gorman's biography, James Joyce,s but there are only two verses. The :first is abont Anna Livia, the multitudinously beautiful, who is both a lady and the river Liffey. The sec~)lld verse is for 'Humpty Dump Dublin': 'Humpty Dump Dublin squeaks through his norse; Humpty Dump Dublin hath a horrible vorse; But for all his kinks English, plus his irismanx brogues Humpty Dump Dublin's granddada of all rogues.'
In this verse HUt"11pty Dumpty and Dublin are put into apposition as being, grammaticaJ.1y at least, more or less the same thing. This seems very odd, but in spite of its oddity a similar thing has happened before. 1
Harry Levin, James Joyce, p. 132.
a Carroll, Works, p. 215.
sP·34°· !26
LEWIS CARROLL: THE UNFORESEEN PRECURSOR There is a book by P. S. O'Hega.rty', Joyce's first bibliographer, called The Victory of Sinn Fein. It describes the Irish civil war from the standpoint of one who took part in that »"ar, and so Joyce, who tried hard to keep in touch with his native land, is almost certain to have read it. Even if he missed reading the entire book he must have come across the following passage from it, which has been quoted in several other books, notably in Sir James O'Connor's History of Ireland;l 'The Irregulars drove patriotism, and honesty, and morality out of Ireland ... They demonstrated to us that our deep-rooted belief that there was something in us finer than, more spiritual than, anything in any other people was sheer illusion, and that we were really an uncivilized people with savage instincts. And the shock of that plunge from the heights to the depths staggered the whole nation. The "Island of Saints and Scholars" is burst like Humpty Dumpty.' Humpty Dumpty is, of course, a nursery-rhyme character in his own right as well as being a character in Carroll's books, and it is as a nursery-rhyme character that O'Hegarty was speaking of him and Joyce was using him. Joyce, who worked on pre-arranged schemes, choosing his material carefully to fit into the framework he had planned, was not at first aware of all the parallels with Carroll's work that I have pointed out. I suspected this some years ago, and suggested it in an article published in 1952.2 The publication of Joyce's Letters made it certain that this is true. Joyce had worked out for himself his technique of distorted spelling and polysemantic coinmgs under the impression that he was doing something which had never been done before. And when his first experiments were published people said that his work reminded them of Lewis Carroll's. 'Another (or rather many),' he wrote to .Miss Weaver, 'says he is imitating Lewis Carroll. I never read him till Mrs Nutting gave me a book, not Alice, a few weeks ago-though, of course, I heard bits and scraps. But then I never read Rabelais either though nobody will believe this. I will read them both when I get back.'3 The book Mrs. Nutting gave to him was probably Sylvie and Bruno. When his attention had been drawn to Carroll's work he began to study the Alice books and Collingwood's Life, a copy of which is in the Buffalo collection from his library.' Joyce's situation at this stage, when confronted with the work of Lewis Carroll, was something like Captain Scott's when he reached the 1 P. S. O'Hegarty, The Victory of Sinn Fein. Duolin: The Talbot Press, I924, p. 126. 2 'Lewis Carroll and Finnegans Wake', English &udies, XXXIII, I, p. 14. • Letters, p. 255. Letter dated '31 May 1627'. , Connelly, p. II.
THE LITERARY SOURCES South Pole to discover that Amundsen's flag was already there. It was not only the similarities in the verbal coinages; it was the entire dreamworld-and Joyce was probably the first person to realize that Lewis Carroll was a fertile inventor of new and accurate devices to portray the dream-state. For Carroll was very interested in what went on in the mind of a sleeping person, and tried to follow the pattern and logic of dreams in his books. Sometimes his dreams went into his books without alteration. 'There are at least two instances of snch dream-suggestions;l he says in the preface to Sylvie and Bruno, and he goes into minute detail about the ways in which one character in a dream can merge into another, or manage to become two distinct and even contradictory persons at the same time. This does, indeed, happen in dreams, but I think Carroll was the first to make literary use of it. It is very obvious in Sylvie and Bruno where the fairy Sylvie is also the society lady Muriel and the Professor is never quite sure that he is not also 'the Other Professor'. At one point the narrator himself seems to have become, for a moment, a beetle lying on its back. This situation is not stressed by Carroll, but Sylvie, who has just helped a beetle to get back onto its feet, says to the narrator, 'You've no idea how funny you look, moving your legs about in t..he air as if you were walking'. 2 Joyce has, 'We were but thermites then, wee, wee' (57.12); and describes how 'closer inspection of the bordereau would reveal a multiplicity of personalities ... In fact~ under the closed. eyes of the inspectors the traits featuring the chiaroscuro coalesce, their contrarieties eliminated, in one stable somebody' (1°7.23). He uses this trick, or 'dodge', of two characters being merged in a dream quite often. Butt and Tatf, for example, begin as a couple of cross-talk comedians and end as one person: 'BUTT and T AFF (desprot slave wager and foeman feodal unsheckled, now one and the same person ...)' (354.7). This idea of a change in personality in a dream is first mentioned in Alice in Wonderland when Alice meets the caterpillar: ' "Who are you?" said the caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, "1-I hardly know Sir, just at present-at least I know who I 'Was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then." '3 Firmegans Wake is full of references to Alice. Joyce found her exactly what he needed to complete the elaborated symbol of 1:J.\e Virgin which he formed out of the combined characters of Alice, Iseult, the dissociated Carroll, Works, p. 278. Ibid, p. 45 2 • S Ibid., p. 53.
1
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LEWIS CARROLL: THE UNFORESEEN PRECURSOR personality girl Christine Beauchamp, and Swift's two Stellas. Alice, of course, was the looking-glass girl; there were two Iseults-and Miss Beauchamp had many personalities. The combination of them all gives Joyce the effect he wanted of constantly changing personalities in the same character. We are probably not meant to conclude that anyone of the personalities is the main one, for Joyce seems to try to give them all equal value. But for his attempt to create characters repeating themselves to infinity Alice's character has a greater suitability than any of the others. Not only was she the original looking-glass girl, but she was based on a real Alice Liddell whom Carroll photographed. There is a lovely photograph of 'Alice Liddell as Beggar-child' reproduced in Collingwood's Life which we are told that Lord Tennyson said was 'the most beautiful photograph he had ever seen:~ Joyce is referring to this photograph, I think, in the passage: 'A spitter that can be depended on. Though Wonderlawn's lost us for ever. Ails, alas, she broke the glass! Liddell Lokker through the leafery, ours is mistery of pain' (27o.I9). The first sentence of this extract will be discussed later. 'Wonderlawn' combines the garden of Eden with childhood's age of innocence, and the 'lawn' is probably intended also to provide a key to the photograph by bringing in Tennyson, who was always 'Lawn' Tennyson to Joyce. 'Lokker' combines 'looker' and 'locker'. Alice is looking at us from in front of the leafy wall; it Was Eve who locked us out of Eden. There are two Scandinavian words, lokkr and lokarz~ meaning a lock of hair and an allurer; and Partridge's Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English-which often sheds light on Finnegans Wake though Joyce could not have used it much-gives as a third meaning of 'locker': 'the female pudend'. 'Mistery' is a portmanteau word combining 'mister' and 'mystery'. All human beings, of course, are mysteries, but the main reference here is to the Fall of Man which brought pain into the world. The begetting cause of that Fall, the alluring looks of the long-haired Eve, is condensed by Joyce into the one word 'lokker', and personified in Alice. Further elaborations of the Alice figure were available to Joyce from information contained in Collingwood's Life, in which a bewildering number of Carroll's 'child-friends' are mentioned. Alice Liddell was the first of many little girls to whom Carroll paid attention. Her two sisters, Lorinda Charlotte and Edith, were with her when the Wonderland story was first told, and appear in the story under various disguises; Lorinda was the Lory, and the name Elsie in the 'Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie' of the 1
Collingwood, Life, p. 79. I29 9
THE LITERARY SOURCES dormouse's tale comes from her initials, L.C. The third sister, Edith, was the Eaglet, and 'Tillie' was her family nickname. 'Lacie' is an anagram of Alice. All th..ree, 'Elsie' (587.26), 'Lacey' (238.23), and 'Tilly' (385.33), are named in the Wake, although these names have other meanings there beside the Alice one-the 'sister reflection in a mirror' (220.9). The looking-glass motif is frequently repeated, and always involves Alice, usually with some of the other girls, as in: 'Vesta Tully, making faces at her bachspilled likeness in the brook . . . with saUces . . • the playactrix . . • Nircississies are as the doaters of inversion. Secilas through their laughing classes •. .' (526.35). 'Salices' combines Sally with Alice; 'Secilas' combines their mirror-images. The passage continues: '-It seems to same with Isacappellas?' which brings in Iseult and another child-friend of Carroll: Isa Bowman. A page-long speech by the Iseult character follows which includes a version of the Litany of Loretto: '.l\Ilirror do justice, taper of ivory, heart of the conavent, hoops of gold' (527.22), parodying 'lVlirror of Justice, Tower ofIvory, Arc of the Covenant, House of Gold,' titles of the Virgin Mary in the Litany, and probably meant to connect Joyce's girl with Our Lady. A speech on the following page takes us back again to Alice: 'Alicious, twinstreams twinestraines, through alluring glass or alas in jumboland?' (528.17). Joyce is carefully weaving all the ingredients of his girl character into one. 'Alesse, the lagos of girly days! ..• Wasut? Izod?' (203.8) shows the intertwining continuing. Eventually all his female characters become the same one. Even A.L.P. is 'the liddel oud oddity' (2°7.26), and there are many other such 'loose carolleries' (294.7). Mer Alice Liddell the most important of Carroll's child-friends was 1sa Bowman, the young actress who played the name part in the stage production of Alice t-a Wonderland. Hugh Kenner says that 'Joyce transferred Dodgson's ambivalent relations with Isa to the Wake almost unaltered, as HeR's incestuous infatuation with his daughter Iseult. It was, k fact, a relationship of symbolic incest: Dodgson saw in Isa an incarnation of Alice, and Alice waS his creation.'l She had many meetings with Carroll, whom she called 'Uncle',2 and told about them in a book which she had the temerity to entitle, My Life-By the Real Alice in Wonderland. It is unlikely that Joyce ever read it, but he would know about it from Collingwood's book and pu~ his own interpretation on the situation. Hugh Kenner, Dublin's Joyce, p. 288. • Collingwood, Life, p. 402.
1
LEWIS CARROLL: THE UNFORESEEN PRECURSOR It must have astonished Joyce, the avtmt-garde innovator, proud of his Irish nationality, contemptuous of the Church of England, and confident of his own originality, to find that he had been forestalled in so many of his discoveries by a mid-Victorian Englishman in minor Anglican orders. Luckily for him there was another side to the situation: he had discovered a mine of new material. Not only was Alice perfectly suited to his purpose, but the split personality of Dodgson/ Carroll, as he saw it-an old man with a stammer and not just one but innumerable 'child-friends'-was exactly what he wanted to add to Swift and King Mark as the main factors of his father-figure.· Once again the facts of history had played into his hands, so he set to work busily to make the most of Carroll. 'And there many have paused before that exposure of him by old Tom Quad, a flashback in which he sits sated, gowndabout, in c1ericalease habit, watching bland sol slithe dodgsome1y into the nethermore, a globule of maugdleness about to cornlgitate his mild dewed cheek and the tata of a tiny victorienne, Alys, pressed by his limper looser' (57.23). The words 'slithe', 'dodgsomely' and 'Alys' prove that Joyce is referring mainly to Carroll who lived for many years in Tom Quad, Christ Church, diagonally opposite the residence of the Liddells. 'Tata' may be a child's word for a hand shaken in farewell. It is also the Spanish for a female stutterer, and connects the passage with the 'Stuttering Hand' (4.18) leit-motiv of 'hesitency' and guilt. The word 'exposure' has several meanings. One is suggested by Carroll's fondness for photography, which is referred to also in 'bland sol' and 'flashback'. Two other meanings could be supplied by anyone familiar with the crime reports of certain Sunday papers. These are the meanings Joyce intended when he used the word next: 'So he was pelted out of the coram populo was he? Be the powers that be he was. The prince in principel should not expose his person?' (89-4). The last sentence is a quotation from Machiavelli's 11 Principe twisted to suggest that one of the original sins that Joyce imputes to his creator-figure has once again been committed. Another attack comes in a passage where the inclusion of a distortion of the name Isa Bowman pins down the reference to Carroll. 'Onzel grootvatter Lodevl'ijk is onangonaDled ... and his twy Isas Boldmans is met the blueybells near Dandeliond. We think its a gorsedd shaDle, these godoms' (361.21). Grootvatter is nearly the Dutch for Great Father or grandfather; Lodeuijk is Dutch for Lewis. Onaange:naam is Dutch for 'disagreeable, offensive'. But in English (onan-named) and still more in Dutch (onan-genaamd) there is the suggestion that the nature of the 13 1
THE LITERARY SOURCES unpleasantness is known. Joyce is using the Dutch lauguage to hit at Carroll with his own weapon of the portmanteau-word. Gorsedd means 'cursed', and is the Welsh for 'seat, mound, hill, or congress of bards before the Eisteddfod'. It is the mound which is important here. Godom is another portmanteau word, combining Englishman ('God-dam') with Sodom. The charge is made clearly enough, but in Finnegans Wake Joyce holds no bitterness against anyone, and the passage ends: 'Yet had they laughtered, one on other, undo the end and enjoyed their laughings merry was the times when so grant it High Hilarion us may too l' (361.29). But the obsession with secret guilt remains, underlying all the oddities. and the scholarship, the wit and the poetry, and the lyric beauty of the Wake. It is connected with the theme of Lewis Carroll in various strange ways. One of the connections seems to be derived from that new belfry of Christ Church of which Carroll wrote: 'The word "Belfry" is derived from the French bel, "beautiful, becoming, meet", and from the German frei, "free, unfettered, safe". Thus the word is strictly equivalent to "meat safe" to which the new Belfry bears a resemblance so perfect as almost to amount to coincidence: This passage is included in Collingwood's Life,l and the blend of fake etymology, mock-logic, and puns would appeal to Joyce, so it is not surprising that he borrowed it. Perhaps it is because of their connection with Carroll that the nfu-nes of the Oxford colleges form one of the innumerable lists that Joyce included in the Wake. Carroll's Christ Church shares its name with one of Dublin's Protestant cathedrals and with the universal Church. Joyce juggles with a11 three meanings when 'Christ's Church versus BallioI' becomes, by a bedevilling of the latter college, 'Christ's Church varses Bellial!' (301.9). Even that transformation is not so surprising as the use to which Joyce puts Carroll's meat safe. He turns it into all Ancient Egyptian god to parody the negative confession of The Book of the Dead: 'I have not mislaid the key of Efas-Taem' (3II.I2). The frequency with which references to Ancient Egypt are interwoven with references to Carroll is not likely to be accidental. Joyce controlled his material too carefully for unintentional coincidences to occur often. What is happening is that Carroll is being equated as a creator-and therefore, from Joyce's axiom, a type of god-with the Ancient Egyptian primeval god Atem. The references to The Book of the Dead will be discussed iater.2 It is enough to state here that, according 1
2
p. I64. See below, pp,
191-200,
LEWIS CARROLL: THE UNFORESEEN PRECURSOR to an ancient Egyptian myth, the world was peopled by the god Atem spitting upon the primordial mud heap at Heliopolis, and thataccording to another version of the myth-the world was peopled by Atem's self abuse upon this mound. This seems to be what is behind the word-ladder 'Item ... Utem ... Otem ... Atem •.. Ahem!' which has already been mentioned; Joyce is using another of Carroll's inventions to hit at Carroll. 'A spitter that can be depended on. Though Wonderla',vn's lost us for ever' is another passage which suddenly acquires a meaning if my suggestion about Joyce's use of Atem is accepted. 'Gorsedd', as a mound, also becomes a little less puzzling. It seems probable that Carroll's 'Doublets' or 'Word-ladder' was the only trick with words that Joyce had not rediscovered for himself before he found it in Carroll's books. I have not been able to find any examples of its use in the manuscripts of the earliest versions of the Wake, andas I have already pointed out-Joyce uses it only in passages connected with Carroll. When a construction such as 'I'll tall tale tell' (366.27) occurs such scraps from Carroll as 'oddrabbit' (366.18) and 'mitsch for matsch' (366.13) can be found in the same passage. 'Tal the tern of the tumulum' (56.34) introduces the first long reference to Carroll in the Wake, that 'exposure of him by old Tom Quad' which has already been discussed. 'Tern' is another name for Atem, and the tumulum is the mud-heap once more. One reference coupling Isa Bowman and Isolde includes a sort of word-ladder: 'Poor Isa sits a glooming so gleaming in the gloa.-ning ... Woefear gleam she so glooming, this pooripathete I soIde? Her beauman's gone of a cool' (226.4). The looking-glass girl is linked with left-handedness, and Atem, in another passage: 'So long as beauty life is body love and so bright as Mutua of your mirror holds her candle to your caudle lone lefthand likeless, sombring Autum of your Spring, reck you not one spirt of anyseed ...' (271.9). This follows the paragraph containing the mention of 'A spitter that can be depended on', and certainly contains a reference to Atem, for all that is known with certainty of the primeval god's name is that it contains the consonants T and M-which, incidentally, gives another link with T. M. Healy. The name might even be 'Tom or Tim' like the waiter Stephen's father spoke to in A Portrait. Joyce, as could be expected, makes use of this fact: 'I am yam, as Me and Tam Tower used to jagger pemmer it, over at the house of Eddy's Christy, meaning Docigfather, Dodgson and Coo' (481.35). The first three words of this parody Exodus 3:14. 'Jagger pemmer' and 'the house' are Oxford slang names for Jesus, Pembroke, and Christ Church colleges, brought in to accompany 'Tam Tower' which seems to represent Atem and his 133
THE LITERARY SOURCES mud pile and leads to Carroll tnmsformed into a triune god like Joyce's version of Swift. Unless Joyce was working out some pre-arranged scheme such as the one I have suggested I can see no possible explanation for this. But he had discovered that Carroll had two natutes: Dodgson and Carroll; he assumed that he was a sinner, knew that he was a creator-he therefore is represented with three persons. And who but Joyce would put the Holy Ghost as 'Coo'? Another version of the word-ladder combines Swift with Carroll and Finn as gods: 'denary, dar.ery, donncry' (261.16) gives us the Dean and the Dane and the don; 'rumulous', we are told, 'under his chthonic exterior ••• a manyfeas! munificent more mob than man: The chapter continues with 'Ainsoph, this upright one, with that noughty besighed him zeroine: The reference here is to the Cabbalist symbol of the number IO for God, but Joyce is including his father-figures as a part of it. The paragraph includes the words, 'maker mates with made (0 my!)' which supports Kenner's remark about symbolic incest, and has other references besides the one to Carroll. Carroll and his work are used in many other ways. Most of the characters in the Alice books are named at least once. The White Knight is mentioned as 'Whitest night ever mortal saw' (501.31), where his behaviour is such as to" cause one of Joyce's old men to exclaim 'Lewd's carol!' 'Hatter's hares' (83.1) come in, and 'Muckstails turtles' (393.n), t.'fJ.e 'Stew of the evening, booksyful stew' (268.I4), and in fact almost everything 'from tweedledeedumms down to twiddledeedees' (258.24). Joyce's genius for finding connecting links between unconnected or creating tliem where none exist, may have employed itself to provide a link between Alice and the Parnell divorce case. It was Captain O'Shea's cook, a Caroline Pethers, who gave evidence that Parnell escaped·from Mrs. O'Shea's bedroom by means of a fire escape. The incident was prominent in Dublin gossip for a long time afterwards, in fact it is not forgotten even now. But in St. John Ervine's Parnell we are told that someone mentioned to O'Shea that 'The fireescape killed Parnell', to which O'Shea answered, 'Yes, and the fun of it is there was no fire-escape!'l Joyce had read this book and recommended it to Miss Weaver.2 The reader may remember the passage in
Alice in Wonderland: , "Give your evidence," said the king. "Shan't!" said the cook.' St. John Ervine, Parnell, p. 27I. • See Letters, p. 24I. Joyce spelled the name Irvine, and it is so indexed.
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LEWIS CARROLL: THE UNFORESEEN PRECURSOR It seems quite possible that the passage in the Wake about 'the evidencegivers by legpoll too untrustworthily irrepedble' (57.17), which introduces the first mention of Carroll, may refer to both of these cooks in court as well as to the witnesses at the Parnell Inquiry. The cook's Christian name, Caroline, suggests Carroll and may help to explain the passage: 'Let me just your caroline for you. I really must so late. Sweet pig, he'll be furious.' There are echoes here of the white rabbit hastening to the Duchess's tea-party, and of the baby that became a pig. One of Carroll's complaints about the illustrations to his book concerns crinolines: 'Don't give Alice so much crinoline,' he once wrote. 1 And the passage in which these sentences occur contains several allusions to Carroll and his works; while Juan, in replying to it, is said to be 'imitating himself capitally with his bubbleblown in his patapet' C46I.34)-which I think includes in its many meanings a reference to Carroll's caterpillar smoking a 'hubble-bubble' or hookah. Finally-to return to our cooks-the page beginning with 'Old Dadgerson's dodges' contains the phrase 'the whispering peeler after cooks wearing an illformation' (274.26). This probably refers to Caroline Pethers for, as has already been pointed out, Joyce arranged his material around focal points, and the probability of such scraps being connected with Carroll is increased by their nearness to a major reference to him. Sylvie cmd Bruno, the book which probably formed Joyce's introduction to Carroll, has never been considered a great success. In a recent book about Carroll, by F. B. Lennon, it is pointed out that the most interesting thing about Sylvie and Bruno is the light it casts on its author. 'To the reader" she says, 'it presents a labyrinth of neuroses, whereas to Carroll it may well have represented a health exercise in which he reknitted his disintegrating elements.'2 Joyce must have seen at once a similarity between his own situation, when writing the Wake,. and Carroll's when writing Sylvie and Bruno; and what may seem to be his attacks on Carroll must also be considered as attacks upon Joyce by himself. It may even be true to say that from the Viconian standpoint Joyce regarded Carroll as another incarnation of himself. Certainly his remarks about Carroll are tinged with humorous sympathy. He probably found the Introduction to Sylvie and Bruno the most interesting part of the book, for it is in this that, as I have already pointed out, Carroll describes how he has made use of material which came to him in dreams. But he also takes care to weave some of the details from the body of the , Collingwood, Life, p. r30. • F. B. Lennon, Le"JJis CarToll. London: Cassell, I947, p. published in America with the title The White Knight.
135
220.
This book is
THE LITERARY SOURCES book into his own text. Th.e boy character in the book has a name, Bruno, which is already being used to signify Giordano Bruno, but just as Joyce is prepared to split up Giordano into 'Browne and Nolan' (38.26, etc.), so he is prepared to make Bruno share his name with that of Carroll's small boy. This would especially please Joyce because the small boy sharing a name with the heretic was a particularly good little boy. For Carroll, like Joyce, has a pair of boys in his book. The first one, Bruno, is everything that i.s good; the other, Ugg Ugg, is everything that is horrid. The horrid boy is named in the Wake when the children are playing games: 'All sing. - I rose up one maypole mowing and saw in my glass how nobody loves me but you. Ugh. Ugh. All point in the shem direction as if to shun . . . the boy that was left in the larch. Ogh! Ogh!' (249.27). The girl, Sylvie, is named several times: 'Golded silvy' (148.7), 'Sylvia' (337.17), and 'Silve me solve' (619.30)-which forms a tiny 'Doublet' to show the connection with Carroll. Joyce may have read a great deal about Carroll. in the years when he was finishing the Wa.ke. For the centenary of Carroll's birth was celebrated in January I932; and Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves (who had been little Alice Liddell) died in November I934. Consequently there were an unusually large number of ar'"..icles about Carroll appearing in magazines-of which Joyce was a great reader-about this time. A long list of these articles, inc1udillg many by Carroll's former 'child-friends', is given as an appendix to F. B. Lennon's Lewis Carroll. But, as far as I know, all the facts Joyce uses could have been taken from Collingwood's Life. But the character of Carroll. had to fit into Joyce's scheme; and-after all-the Wake is a carnic book; and it probably amused Joyce immensely to turn Carroll, along with Gladstone, l and various other highly respectable figures, into aspects ofms H.C.E. He certainly seems to have made use of everything he could find in Collingwood. Carroll's handwriting, which is described as 'boyish-looking',2 is brought in as 'a trancedone boyscript with tittivits by. Ahem' (374.3). His stammer, which is described as a 'hesitancy' of speech, was just what Joyce needed to link him with his H.C.E. and Vico's God of the thundering sky. But I think it is just as a joke that Joyce made one of his characters cry: 'Lewd's carol!' (501.34). 1 2
See Appendix, p. 289, Wright, Peter E. Collingwood, Life, p. !94.
ClLI\.PTER 6
The Fathers 'postmantuam glasseries from the lapins and the grigs' (II3.Z)
N
either in the various lives of Joyce which have appeared nor in his published letters is there any indication that Joyce ever read the works of the Fathers of the Church. 'It seems,' writes Patricia Hutchins, 'that Joyce did not know a great deal of Latin, and less Greek.'l On the other hand, both Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are full of references to the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, which Stephen Dedalus claims to read in the original in Stephen Hero, 2 although in A Portrait this has dwindled to a Synopsis. 3 Stuart Gilbert published a paper on 'The Latin Background of James Joyce's Art' in Horizon (September 1944) claiming that Joyce had based his theory of aesthetics on a personal study of the Summa. But in a reprint of this article which appeared in Two Decades of Joyce Criticism4 Gilbert withdrew this claim saying, 'In this connection I am indebted to l\Ar. J. P. M. Stern (of St. John's College, Cambridge) for some comments of much value ... He wrote to me pointing out that Joyce's quotation from St. Thomas is an abridgement ... lvlr. Stern contests with good authority the validity of Joyce's claim to have drawn his theory of the static nature of art directly from St. Thomas of Aquinas.' The evidence seems to suggest that Joyce had the very human of wishing to seem rather more learned than he was. But there can be no doubt that the works of the Fathers of the Church are used to a quite considerable extent in Finnegans Wake. Whether Joyce read them in the original or in translation is not certain, but he could, I think, have read the Latin Fathers in the original if he had wished. Indeed, his use of Latin in the Wake seems to prove that he James Joyce's World, p. r68. James Joyce, Stephen Hero, pp. 91-7. 3 James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. London: Jonathan Cape, 1948, p. 200. • Two Decades, p. 469. 1
2
137
THE LITERARY SOURCES was very familiar with the language. Professor J. Mitchell Morse in papers entitled 'Jacob and Esau in Finnegans Wake>l and 'Cain, Abel and Joyce'2 seems to assume that Joyce had a professional theologian's knowledge of the Patrologia Latina. Joyce was certainly interested in theology, but I think that Professor Morse is overestimating the extent ofJoyce's of the Fat.~ers and underestimating the knowledge of Christian Doctrine likely to be possessed by a graduate of a Jesuit school and I am, however, in complete agreement with Professor Morse's conclusion in his second paper, 'There can be no doubt that in Finnegans Wake Joyce is on the side of the devils. His use of the materials of orthodoxy should not be misconstrued. He uses the..-n in much the same way that Marx uses Hegel and the devil quotes ture."3 But even if Joyce did make use of the works of the Fathers it seems to me that it was their biographical and literary work, rather than their theology, which interested him, and I doubt the importance of their work as providing any part of the essential intellectual structure of the Wake. That comes, I think, from less orthodox sources, and the Fathers are used-in just the same way as Joyce used Poverty or MacDonald's Diary of the Parnell Commission-to add variety and colour to his narrative.
ST.
THOMAS AQUINAS
St. Thomas Aquinas and his works, for example, seem to me to be merely named in the Wake. There are occasional remarks such as, "Such a rawdownhams tanyouhide as would turn the latten stomach even of a tumass equinous" (93.8). "Latten", according to Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary, is "the brass, or bronze, used for crosses"; for its meaning in the Wake one must add Latin; but the main allusion is to St. Thomas's well-known corpulence. He was known in his youth as "the dumb ox", which perhaps gives Joyce an excuse for turning his surname into something horsey or "equinous", while his Christian name is made to suggest massive and the Mass. The next reference to AquiJ:>-3s is to a feature of his life which Joyce must have been told about at school. Having codified, in a form which has been accepted as final, the Catholic position in philosophy, the saint was reduced to silence by a vision which he saw while celebrating Mass and remained 1 J. Mitchell Morse, 'Jacob and Esau in Finnegans Wake', Modern Philology, Vol. III, No.2, November 1954, p. 123. 2 J. Mitchell Morse, 'Cain, Abel, and Joyce', B.L.H., Vol. XXII, No. I, March 1955, p. 48. 3 Ibid., p. 60.
THE FATHERS silent for the rest of his life. "But low, boys low, he rises shivering .. . Ephthah! ... Examen of conscience •.• With his tumesquinance .. . No more singing all the dags in his sengaggeng ... Trinitatis kink had mudded his dome ..." (240.5). The theme is as usual, intertwined with another. But as far as it concerns St. Thomas it can be paraphrased as: 'Behold he rises, shivering, having had his sins forgiven (been shriven); his eyes are opened (Mark 7:34); like St. Thomas Aquinas he will sing no more, having been stunned to silence by a vision of the Trinity. The 'singing' refers to St. Thomas's importance as a composer of the words of hymns. He comes again, this time with his Summa, when the Gracehoper 'makes the aquinatance of the Ondt ... these mouschica1 unsummables' (4I7.8). There is here a distinction being made between Aquinas the poet and Aquinas the theologian; but the Mookse claims to know the Summa for he says: 'I bet you this dozen odd, Quas primas-but 'tis bitter to compote my knowledge's fruetos of. Tomes' (I55.20). The dozen odd describes reasonably the number of volumes (tomes) of the Summa which the Mookse is deciding not to use. 'Tomes' also includes the name Thomas. Quas primas is the beginning of an argument from the Summa. The Mookse goes no further-and 1 think that the reason he goes no further is that Joyce wished to suggest the entire Aquinan view of life rather than any specific statement. But it is, I think, true to say that this is the only place where the Summa is mentioned in the Wake. This is surprising when one remembers the display that Joyce's Stephen made of his knowledge of the Summa in A Portrait. But the conclusion to be drawn from a recent hook entitled Joyce and Aquinas, by William T. Noon, S.J.,l is that this might be expected. For Father Noon's conclusions may be summarized briefly as follows: Joyce never had any formal instruction on the works of Aquinas; but his entire education was given in an atmosphere suffused with the ideas of Aquinas; so that, in his early years, Aquinas was for him the most important philosopher-to whom lip-service must be paid-yet, throughout his life, he had little. real knowledge of Aquinas's works, although he always referred to him with familiarity. And his works are based upon-or revolting from-the philosophy of Aquinas simply because this is the basic philosophy of the Catholic religion in which Joyce was nurtured. Those who are interested in Joyce's use of Aquinas must certainly read Father Noon's book. There is nothing of any importance that I can add to it. 1
William T. Noon, S.J., Joyce and Aquz'nas. New Haven: Yale University
Press, I957.
139
THE LITERARY SOURCES
ST. AUGUSTINE
St. Augustine's Confessions is the most readable book written by any of the Fathers of the Church, and so it is to be expected that it will be made use of in the Wake. He is named as 'Ecclectiastes of Hippo' (38.29), and probably as 'Angustissimost' (104.6), and perhaps as 'Augustanus' (S32.II). His Confessions are used in several passages. 'He askit of the hoothed fireshield hut it was untergone into the matthued heaven. He soughed it from the luft but that bore ne mark ne message. He luked upon the bloomingrund where ongly his corns were growning. At last he listed bach to beckline how she pranked alone so johntily' (223.39). The four Evangelists in the order Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have been superimposed ana passage from the Confessions, 'Iterrogavi terram, et dixit: "non sum"; et quaecumque in eadem sunt, idem cop..fessa sunt. Interrogavi mare et abyss os et reptilia animarum vivarum, et responderunt "non sumus deus tuus; quaere super nos". Interrogavi auras flabiles, et inquit universus aer cum incolis suis: "fallitur Anaximenes; non sum deus". Interrogavi caelum, solem,lunam, stellas .. .' eX, vi). 'I asked the earth, and it answered: "I am not"; and the things in it said the same. I asked the sea and the deeps and creeping things, and they answered: "We are not your God; seek above us." I asked t.."e winds and the whole air with its inhabitants answered me: "Anaximenes was deceived; j[ am not God." I asked the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars . . ." From the same passage comes Joyce's '1 will describe you in a word. Thou. (I beg your pardon.) Homo!' (422. IO). St. Augustine wrote, , "Tn quis est?" et respondit: homo." "Who art thou?" And I answered, "A man." , Joyce is amused-I think-by the reflection that to address anyone by the second person singular pronoun whether tu or thou would in many places and periods be considered an insult almost as great as to address anyone nowadays with the word homo. Another brief allusion to the Confessions comes in: 'Was he vector victored of victim vexed?' (490.1) which is followed by a mention of Mr. Gottgab (who is probably St. Augustine's son, Dodatus) and is based on ' ...• pro nobis victor et victima, et ideo victor, quia victima •. .' (X, 43). There may also be some allusions to the eleventh book of the Confessions, in which the nature of time is considered, during Joyce's fable of the Ondt and the Gracehoper (pp. 414-19) but I am not sure of this. There are two quotations from the works of St. Augustine that have
140
THE FATHERS been frequently pointed out. But I doubt if Joyce took either of them from its original source. One is '0 felix culpa', the famous oxymoron on the fall of Adam, which he must have been taught in school. The other is'Securus iudicat orbis terrarum', which he probably took from Cardinal Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua, where it occupies a commanding place-for it is quoted in the paragraph describing the crucial point of Newman's conversion: 'Who can account for the impressions that are made on him? For a mere sentence, the words of St. Augustine, struck me with a power which I had never felt from any words before. To take a familiar instance, they were like "Turn again, Whittington" of the chime; or to take a more serious one, they were like t..he "Tolle, lege; tolle, lege" of the child which converted St. Augustine himself. "Securus iudicat orbis terrarum". By these great words of the ancient Father, interpreting and summing up the long and varied course of ecclesiastical history, the theory of the Via Media was immediately pulverized.' It is certain that Joyce had read this for he admired Newman and once wrote to Miss Weaver1 'that nobody has ever written English prose that can be compared with that of a tiresome footling little Anglican parson who afterwards became a prince of the only true church'. Having read it he probably looked up the quotation in one of his dictionaries of quotations, and then went on to read St. Augustine's Contra Litteras Parme-aiani, to which the reference books would direct him. But the context to which the sentence belonged in Joyce's mind was still the paragraph in Newman's Apologia. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations gives the meaning of the sentence 'Securus iudicat orbis terrarum' as 'The verdict of the world is secure'. Professor W. Y. Tindall, who in James Joyce, His Way of Interpreting the Modern Word, notes the quotation but not its connection with Newman, points out that in its context-in St. Augustine's workswhich is about exiles, it could be translated 'The calm judgment of the world is that those men cannot be good who in any part of the world cut themselves off from the rest of the world.' This notion that the majority is always right cannot have met with Joyce's approval. As an Ibsenite he believed that the majority is always wrong, as a Berkeleian he believed that truth is subjective, and as an exile he went his own way. It is not surprising then that he gave careful attention to the sentence responsible for the conversion of his favourite prose writer and the Father-Founder of his university. As a 'Seeker of the nest of evil in the 1
Letters, p. 366. Letter dated 'I May, I935'. 14 I
THE 1.ITERARY SOURCES
bosom of a good word' (189.28) Joyce set to work to pulverize it and, having quoted it correctly once, proceeds to garble it four times. 'Sigarius (sic!) vindicat urbes terrorum (sicker!)' (76.7). Securus, according to the Latin dictionaries, has two meanings: it can be translated as confident and certain, or it can be taken to mean negligent and lacking in care. In Joyce's parody the meaning is harder to find. Someone seems to have won a cigar which has made him sick; or is it the security which has sickened him? (German, sicker; Scottish, sicker). Or is the mutation towards sicarius, an assassin? Another parody, 'Securius indicat umbris tellurem' (513.I), shows with what familiarity joyce could handle Latin so as to deprive it of its prized precision. The most obvious meaning is 'He points out more securely the earth to the shades'. Or it could mean 'He points out the world by means of shadows'. Echoes of this sentence recur, some of them so distorted as to be almost unrecognizable, 'sickumed of homnis terrars' (3I4.34), and 'I call our univalse to witness, as sicker .. .' (54.23). When Joyce provides his own translation it is 'Securely judges orb terrestrial' (263.27), with the comment 'Haud certo ergo' following it to say that it is by no means certain, while the initials indicate that it is H.C.E. who is speaking. Issy adds a footnote that seems to apply to Newman as a former Protestant and to St. Augustine as a sometime gay Lothario: 'And he was a gay Lutharius anyway' (263, note 4). The text goes on, 'But 0 felicitous culpability, sweet bad cess to you for an archetypt!' This brings Joyce's other favourite quotation from St. Augustine, 0 felix culpa, which-according to a list made by Niall Montgomeryl-comes twenty times in the Wake. It is, therefore, an important theme but I am not able to agree entirely with any of the explanations which have been given of it. The authors of A Skeleton Key write of'O felix culpa, St. Augustine's celebration of the fall which brought the redemption through God's love. "0 Phoenix Culprit!" is its usual form in Finnegans Wake'. 2 But Joyce was an eager practitioner of what Mallarme deprecated as 'the enthusiastic personal direction of the phrase'. His distortions of words are meaningful. Why then should Original Sin be equated with the crime in Phoenix Park? The answer seems to me to shed considerable light on Joyce's home-made theology. Original Sin in orthodox Catholic theology means the fall of Adam by which man forfeited t1:e privileges originally given to him and which 1 Niall Montgomery, 'Tne Pervigilium Phoenicis', New lvfexico Quarterly, Vol. XXIII, NO.4, Winter, 1953, p. 470-1. 2 A Skeleton Key, p. 50.
I42
THE FATHERS explains the seeming paradox of an all-perfect, all-loving, and omnipotent God creating a world in which sorrow and pain exist. Joyce, whose besetting sin was pride, refused to accept this explanation and placed the responsibility for original sin upon God. He saw God as a figure very like his own father: erring, irascible, lovable; and in Finnegans Wake he amuses himself by creating a mock theology in which his father is enthroned as God. As Gibbon put his footnotes into 'the decent obscurity of a learned language' so Joyce, who accused himself, under the pseudonym of Slingsby,l of 'making literature safe for obscenity', could develop his theme in safety in the language that only he had learned. That God should have sinned was necessary for his cyclic theories too; everything happens over and over again. H.C.E:s sin is darkly spoken of but, as all the exegists of the Wake are agreed, it includes indecent exposure, The relevant texts in the Old Testament are Genesis 16:13 and Exodus 33:23. It is, as Joyce says several times, a 'supreme piece of cheeks' (564.I3), 'meaning complet manly parts during alleged act of our chief mergey margey magistrates' (495.28). Joyce claims in fact 'to uncover the nakedness of an unknown body in the fields of blue' (96.30). Other aspects of the continually repeated fall will be dealt with in a later chapter on the Sacred Books.
ST. JEROME
As I have already pointed out, one of the major difficulties in dealing with Finnel?ans Wake is that it is impossible to keep strictly to any particular theme as all the themes are so carefully interwoven. In discussing the use Joyce made of the Fathers of the Church it is impossible to follow any structural or logical order. But perhaps the next most important is St. Jerome. He was bound, I suppose, to come into the Wake since he is the author of the Vulgate from which Joyce quotes frequently. He appears, somewhat surprisingly, as a Shaun-type figure; and I suspect that in Joyce's working diagram he formed one of a with St. Augustine as the Shem-type figure; for the quotations from St. Augustine come in Shem passages whereas it is Shaun who quotes St. Jerome. The quotations I have found are all from St. Jerome's letters, and it seems possible that Joyce used the Loeb Classical Library's edition of Select Letters of St. Jerome, with a translation by E. A. Wright. This was not published until 1933 so Joyce must have 1 An Exagmination, p. 19I. The name may refer to the line 'Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt' in T. S. Eliot's 'Aunt Helen'.
I43
THE LITERARY SOURCES used some other edition nhe used St. Jerome's letters before that date. E. A. Wright's name may perhaps be included in the words 'the wring ''\!rong way to wright woma.."l.' (466.I5). All the letters from which Joyce quotes are in Wright's selection. One sentence in the Wake may be based on a sentence in Wright's Introduction: this is 'anxious to pleace aveburies and ... unctUO:.:lS to polise nopebobbies' (II3.34), which may have been suggested by 'Cicero wished to please everybody, Jerome wished to please no one' (p. xiii). From Wright's list of St. Jerome's female friends Joyce has Marcella (II2.28), Albina (137.7), Lea (466.6.), Paula (639.25), and possibly 'Esellus' (478.2), and 'Felicia' (572.24) a:e partly based on Asella and Felicita. St. jerome's own name is used once without any mutation (252.n) and also in a Joycean distor..ion in 'Small need after that, old Jeromesolem, old Huffsnuff, old Andycox, old Ole casandrum, for quizzing your weekenders' (124.35). The meaning, and the suggesting oft.."he word Jerusalem, perr..aps are intended to echo letter XLV, To Asell.a: 'Gratias ago Deo meo, quod dignus Slli"n quem mundus oderit. Ora autem, ut de Babylone Hierosolyma regrediar.'-'I thank my God that I am held worthy for the world to hate. Pray however that I may return from Babylon to Jerusalem.' It is in Jaun's sermon, especially pp. 432-454, that the echoes from St. Jerome's letters are most noticeable. The insistence on heroic efforts being made to ensure the virginity of the women to whom Jerome wrote and that of their young female relations has a somewhat odd flavour to a modem reader. 'Flee the society of young men,' wrote St. Jerome to Furia (Letter LIV). 'Let your house never see long haired lascivious dandies. Drive a singer away like the plague.' This is, I think, one source of 'ta..1ting you to the playguehouse to see the Smirching of Venus' (435.2), but u1.e whole tone of this section of the Wake recalls St. Jerome's letters, and Jerome was, so he says, 'often surrounded by a throng ofvirg'llls' (Letter XLV) just like Jaun. The contents and tone of page 435 in the Wake are similar to those of Letter CXVII, paragraph 6, and Joyce's passage contains references to 'the exceeding nice letters' (431.29) and 'onanymous letters' (435.31) which probably include St. Jerome's letters with their ot.1ter meaning. Most of these evidences of use have been rather slight although the cumulative effect is strong; but I do not think there can be any doubt that Joyce's phrase 'Love through the usual channels cisternbrotheUy' (436.I4) is based on St. Jerome's 'Seek in brothels those cisterns of vice' (Letter CXXVII). There is also a reference to St. Jerome ilearning Hebrew in the desert in 'Hermits of the desert barking their infernal shins over her triliteral roots' (505.S). 1#
THE FATHERS
OTHER PATRISTIC WORKS
There is little evidence of the works of any of the other Fathers having been consulted for Finnegans Wake. Minucius Felix seems to be named in 'Minucius Mandrake' (486.I3) but I do not understand the allusion; his works hardly seem to be used. Origen is named in 'the dogmarks of origen on spurious' (r61.8) but there is no other trace of him in the Wake. St. Patrick's Confessio is a book which Joyce is certain to have read. There are several half-quotations from it and Joyce had also read most, perhaps all, of the biographies, including the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick! but whether he took his information from this or from one of the modern lives that includes material from it cannot be decided from internal evidence. St. Patrick had four names: 'Now he had four names upon him: "Sucat", his name from his parents; "Cothraige", when he was serving the four; "Magonius" from Saint Germanus; "Patricius", that is, pater civium from Pope Caelestine'. 2 Joyce uses all these names; and 'an. adze of a skull' (I69.II) included in 'Shem's bodily getup' is derived from 'This is what they used to prophesy: Adzehead "will come over a furious sea" ';3 to which t.he note is added: 'This refers to Patrick who was so called from the shape of his tonsure.' St. Kevin's 'portable altare cum balneo' (605.8) may be borrowed from St. Patrick for the Tripartite Life speaks of 'the portable altar which he used every day ...' and which 'swam round about the boat until it arrived in Ireland'.4 There is one quotation from a Father of the Church which does not seem to be acknowledged. The remark 'Is an excrescence to civilised humanity and but a wart on Europe' (I38.6) was first made by St. C1lIll.1Ilianus in his Epistola de controversia paschali,5 where the saint described the British, and particularly the Irish, as 'mentagrae orbis terrarum'-which Joyce's translation fits perfectly, but for which he does not give his usual acknowledgement. Many of Joyce's allusions to the Paschal controversy raise problems which I have not been able to solve. For some reason, perhaps because he is continually resurrecting, Finn MacCool or H.C.E. is described as Easter in the sentence 'He can get on as early as the twentysecond of Mars but occasionally he The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, ed. Whitley Stokes, Rolls Series, 1877. Ibid., p. 17, and p. 44I. 3 Ibid., p. 35. • Ibid., p. 447. 5 Migne, Pat. Lat., Vol. 87, c.972. 1
2
I45 IO
THE LITERARY SOURCES doesn't come off before Virgintiquinque Germinal' (134.12). In other words, the earliest date of Easter is March 22nd, and the latest April 25th. The problem of the calendar is being discussed when the misquotation from St. Augustine, Securius indicat umbris tellurem is made, and the context suggests a different meaning from that which was suggested earlier in this chapter. 'I\re you solarly salemly sure, beyond the shatter of the canicular year? Nascitur ordo seculi numfit' (512.35) asks one of the four old men. The reply is 'Siriusly and selenely sure behind the shutter. Securius iudicat umbris tellurem.' Three kinds of calendar are named here: the solar, the lunar ('selenely'), and the 'canicular year'-begun on the heliacal rising of Sirius ('Smusly'). The first scrap of Latin begins with a quotation from Virgil (Eclogue IV) which is aclmowlecged on the next page in 'A take back to the virgin page, darm it!' (5I3.27). The quotation is 'Magnus ab integra saeclorum nascitur ordo', the great order of ages is born (as) from the beginning (again); to which is added the word 'numfit': does it happen? (expecting the answer 'No'). This suggests that the second piece of Latin is also about the calendar, and on examination it could be taken to mean, 'More certainly he indicates the earth in the shadows', that is to say, in an eclipse, immersed in shadows. And this translation is supported by the next sentence wrJich is about immersion. Perhaps the basic theme of the literal argument is the impossibility of obtaining accurate information about dates when the very calendar we measure them by is as full of holes as a colander (513.12). The passage is part of an inquest over the body of Yawn by the four old men who are also holding a kind of spiritualistic seance during which every answer involves as much of history and mythology as Joyce can cram into remarks which are ostensibly about popular entertainments, and seem designed to mislead the questioners in their search for the right date. To take one example, 'Fluteful as his orkan. Ex ugola lenonem.' This combines Phil the Fluter, from Percy French's song, with Ormon, the second sultan of Turkey who organized the Janissary system and had a large number of sons (was fruitful), and the Orkhon inscriptions which are the oldest important surviving specimens of the Turkish language. An organ is also implied, but, since the flute is always a phallic symbol in the Wake, two kinds of organ are to be understood. The Latin proberb Ex ungue leanem that forms the basis of the second sentence reminds us that, as a lion can be deduced from its claw, the Wake can be deduced from any of the sentences it contains. It presents one of the clearest examples of the effect of the application of the axiom that I have suggested Joyce took from Bruno's theory of monads. It 146
THE FATHERS would be impossible to give a complete explanation of any phrase in the Wake without giving an explanation of the entire book. The spelling of the Latin proverb that Joyce quotes is distorted to provide allusions to Ugolino from Dante's Inferno (Canto XXXIII), and to Dan Leno from the Victorian Music-hall, as well as to the Latin for a bawdyhousekeeper. And there are probably other meanings that I have not discovered. The date that is being asked about in this passage turns out to be the nth of November, Armistice Day: 'The uneven day of the unleventh month of the unevented year, at mart in mass' (517.33); and the feast of St. Martin or Martinmas Day which used to be celebrated in Naples as the feast of cuckolds.1 But 'They did not know the war was over and were only berebel1ing or bereppelling one another by chance or necessity with sham bottles' (518.I9); and what year is being indicated I do not know. Joyce, as an Irishman, seems to be taking the Celtic side in the Paschal controversy and wants to reverse the decision of the Synod of Whitby. In fact he wants to found a church of his own, a church -as he suggests-founded not upon the rock but on the shamrock. This joke is repeated frequently in the Wake, beginning on the first page with 'Thuartpeatrick' which combines the Tu es Petrus with 'Thou art Patrick', and sounds like 'Thou art Pete trick'. Many Church controversies art: revived in the Wake. The fable about 'The Mookse and the Gripes' (152.15) combines an argument about the 'Old Catholic' controversy of 1870 with one about Pope Adrian IV's bull, 'Laudabiliter' (154.22), which gave Henry II temporal rights over Ireland. The names of many popes are mentioned in this passage, and many of them are also Doctors of the Church (Leo and Clement, for example) but if there are any quotations from their works I have not been able to :find them. St. Ambrose's name comes once-'with Ambrosian Eucharistic joy of heart' (605.29)-which may be meant as a reference to his Prayer before Mass.
THE HERETICS
The great heretics are mentioned as well as their opponents, the Fathers. Pelagius, Ireland's only heresiarch, is named in 'Pelagiarist', which is one ofthe few words of its kind used twice (182.3 and 525.7) without alteration. Arius is probably meant by 'Ariuz' (75.2) in a passage that has a lot to say about heretics: 'Blackfaced connemaras not 1
See Basile, Pentamerone, trans. Croce, ed. Penzer, 1932, I, p.
147
2I7,
note 2.
THE LITERARY SOURCES of the fold' (76.I). The reference is to the Biblical division between the sheep and the goats. Connemaras are a breed of sheep, but Joyce's joke i.s about their black faces which make them more suited to the company of the heretics. It is from these, Joyce is saying, that he gets 'his most besetting of ideas' (76.2). The heretic from whom Joyce took most i.deas is Giordano Bruno whose influence on the Wake has already been discussed. Another heretic, Marcion, who taught that there were two Gods, is mentioned as 'that hereticalist Marcon' (192.1) to provide an example of the fate that awaits such people. Jansen, who though not a heretic opposed the Jesuits and gave rise to a heresy, is mentioned once: 'Jansens' (173.2). But I do not think that any of these need be discussed here as they are in no way literary sources. There is one other writer who might be classed among the Fathers, although some would include him with the heretics. This is John Scotus Erigena who is named several times in the Wake beginning with 'erigenating' (4.36). 'The most powerful and original mind in the early middle ages'l according to Hastings's Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, he declared in his chief work, de Divisione Naturae, that God necessarily manifests himself in the world, and proposed some interesting ideas about unity and duality,2 particularly with regard to the sexes, which Joyce may have made some use of, although I have not been able to find any precise quotation. Perhaps there is no quotation. His name was bound to appear in the Wake because he was born in Ireland, indeed Erigena means Irish-born and probably carries this into the Wake as its main significance.
Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. IX, p. • M..igne, Pat. Lat., CXXH, c.8n, 835-7.
1
I48
2I4.
CHAPTER 7
'The World's a Stage'
O
ne of Joyce's favourite images for the world, or the Wake, is as a stage-although the famous quotation is never made. Perhaps it \\'"as too obvious for Joyce. He once describes the cast of the Wake as 'the whole stock company of the house' (5IO.17), and this fits in perfectly with his theories for a stock company was a troupe of actors presenting a nightly change of bill and each specializing in a particular kind of part. All the heroes, heroines, heavy fathers, and so on, were each presented by the same actors, and were-as in Joyce's theory of history-simply the same characters under new names. Even when the human actors die the show must go on as 'like the new casters in their old plyable' (388.7) new casts take over the old plays each performing the part allotted to him by 'the producer (Mr John Baptister Vickar)' (255.27) in the play 'the compositor of the farce of dustiny' (162.2) has designed. And as these 'new garrickson's' Cs5.35)-new sons of Garrick-renew the garrison, it is sometimes difficult for the spectators to decide where one play begins and another stops. At least Joyce's old men, who are the eternal spectators, find it difficult to keep the threads separate. 'The new casters' were giving 'their old plyable of A Royerme Devours' which must have been A Royal Divorce. But the old man who is speaking of it goes on to say 'Jazzaphoney and Mirillovis and Nippy she nets best'. Josephine and Marie Louise and Napoleon are vaguely combined with Paddy-the-Next-Best-Thing, while the next old man goes on to speak of Arrah-na-Pogue and The Collegians, two more almost forgotten plays from the stock companies' repertory. Joyce presses the comparison with his usual diligence. Shem and Shaun are described in
THE LITERARY SOURCES thought of it as a dramatic or stage world which he was creating. This trope of the literary creation of a world is best seen in Joyce's treatment of films, a topic which has been surprisingly ignored in spite of such hints as 'roll away the reel world, the reel world, the reel world' (64.25). It is as certain as anything can be in the Wake that the passage beginning 'A cry off' (558.32), which Edmund Wilson described as the only waking moment, without which we would never have begun to understand the book, is in fact the. beginning of a part of H.C.E.'s dream in which he takes his wife to the cinema. They see, of course, themselves and their family-or at least an identical family named Porter. The indications of a film-show are numerous. 'Scene' and property plot' (558.35), followed by half a page of scenario description. 'Ooseup. Leads' (559.I9). I know of no non-photographic meaning of 'Closeup'; and 'Leads' is normal movie jargon for leading players. 'Footage' (559.3I) instructs the cameramen to proceed. 'His move. Blackout. Circus. Corridor. Shifting scene: All this is directing the tracking camera. The next page or so of text is in the manner of the commentators to the 'Travelogues' popular between the wars. Odd phrases such as 'their shadowsteaIers' (560.23) reinforce the film-world atmosphere. 'Adieu, soft adieu' (563.36) supplies the 'And so we say goodbye .. .' with which the typical 'Travelogue' ended; but the camera goes on (564.1) to survey H.C.E.'s hindquarters, which the commentator describes as if they were the Phoenix Park. Then 'Our moving pictures' (565.6) continue, while-as might be expected-H.C.E. puts his hand on someone's knee and has to apologize: '1 am to place my hand of our true friendshape upon 6ee knee' (565.7). The 'Sole shadow shows' (565.13) are accompanied by 'Slew musies'. Many puzzling phrases become dearer once it is seen that we are at a film show, to which the keys continue in sentences such as 'Vouchsafe me more soundpicture!' (57o.I4). There is even-for joyce rarely misses a chance for low comedy-someone wanting to go to the toilet: 'Do you not must want to go somewhere on the present? Yes, 0 pity 1 At earliest moment I that prickly heat feeling!' (570.26). "'...fter the 'Travelogue' survey of the Earwickers playing the Porters-or possibly the Porters presenting the Earwickers-we see the same cast again in a historical picture with the same old plot (566.7) and characters. 'The reel world'-even if we are in 'A phanton city phaked of pbilim pholk' (264.15)-will only repeat the patterns laid down by Joyce after Vieo and the rest. The theme of drama, being one of the major elements of the Wake, is dealt with in a number of 'Ways. References to it are diffused fairly evenly throughout the book: names of theatres, actors, titles of plays, and
150
'THE WORLD'S A STAGE' scraps of stage slang may be introduced at any point. Dublin theatres and Irish actors are prominent. 'From Abbeygate to Crowalley Through a Lift in the Lude' (105.26) ends with a word based on the root of ludius, a stage player, Judo, I play, and ludus, aplay. The Abbey and the Gate are modern Dublin theatres, and several rifts in the lute there have been reported in recent years. The Crow Street Theatre was opened by Spranger Barry (I34.II, etc.) to rival 'Smock Alley' (147.32), the famous theatre in which Peg Woffington (210.25), Thomas Elrington (55.36) and many other famous actors appeared. But the theatre Joyce mentions oftenest is the Dublin Gaiety Theatre in South King Street. This is the 'king's treat house' (32.26), and one of its former managers, Mr. Michael GUlln, is used by Joyce as the father-figure, the God, of the stage-world. He becomes 'Mr Makeall Gone' (220.24), and 'Gunn, the farther' (481.19). Joyce preserved among his books a copy of the 'Souvenir of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Opening of the Gaiety Theatre 27th. November, 1871, with Michael Gunn's Compts. 2]th. Novr. 1896'1 and probably made use of the pamphlet for the Wake. Michael Gunn's vIIife, Bessy Sudlow (434.8), and several other Dublin actors and actresses are mentioned, the two Val Vousdens, for example (50.15; 439.17). Nearly all of them are now dead, and many of them were not very well known outside Ireland when they were alive. But they were part of the set-up that 'made the world and how they used to be at that time in the vulgar ear ... in the good old bygone days of Dion Boucicault, the elder ... in the otherworld' (384.36). And Joyce recreates his 'other world' of the 'vulgarera' without any thought of making things easy for his readers to understand. In fact he seems to have decided that readers who were not prepared to study the situation in the Dublin of his youth did not deserve to understand his book. Yet at the same time he feels himself at liberty to bring in-for history is still repeating itself-the tides of theatrical performances popular when he was writing the Wake, such as Lady Precious Stream (332.22), White Horse Inn (510.30), as well as bringing in the names ofapparendy-all the heroines of all the operas. But the plays he makes more than a passing mention of are not very numerous. All the plays of Shakespeare are quoted at some point or orner, nearly all Ibsen's plays are named; but, leaving Shakespeare on one side for the moment, it can be said with some assurance that the plays important in the Wake are Ibsen's Masterbuilder, and-to a very much less extent-Lave's Comedy and Peer Gym, Dion Boucicault's Arrah-na-Pogue and W. G. Wills's A Royal Divorce. It has been 1
See Connolly, p. 34.
THE LITERARY SOURCES suggested that Joyce made use of a play called Jim the Penman, about a forger who had to leave England and ended his days in Paris, but I can find no indication that anything of this play was used except the title; as this was the sobriquet of a real Victorian forgerl there is no evidence that J oyee used the play. IBSEN
When Joyce first began to nurse ambitions of becoming an author Ibsen was the writer whom he chose as a model; and his criticism of an Ibsen play, When We Dead Awaken,2 published in the Fortnightly Review shortly after Joyce's eighteenth birthday, ,vas the first literary work for which he. received paymeut and prestige. The impact of this upon J oyee, and almost everyone who knew him, can hardly be overestimated: it made Joyce conspicuous as a literary figure amongst his immediate circle in Dublin, and gave his claims to be considered as a writer a justification they would otherwise have lacked. So Ibsen, the subject of his adolescent tribute, temainedforever important in Joyce's eyes. Indeed he would probably have remained important to him even if the review had not been published, since for J oyee-as for most of us-the authors he admired most when he was young still commanded his affection, if not entirely his respect, as he grew older. It is important to remember that, for the young Joyce, Ibsen was the most modem of the modems. In a letter written when he was nineteen he told Ibsen that: 'What ]I could discern dimly of your life was my pride to see, how your battles inspired me-not the obvious material battles but those that were fought and won behind your forehead, how your wilful resolution to wrest the secret from life gave me heart and how in your absolute indiffereuce to public canons of art, friends and shibboleths you walked in the light of yOll" inward heroism.'3 Joyce repeated his tribute to Ibsen's independence of tllought in the final passage of his last book: 'Just to see would we hear how Jove and the peers talk. Amid the soleness. Tilltop, bigmaster! Scale the summit! You're not so giddy any more' (624.IO). The allusions here to Ibsen's plays will be discussed later; the tribute to Ibsen is in the words: 'Amid the soleness.' The name of one of Ibsen's characters is used, by a Joycean mutation of spelling, to indicate the loneliness of the great, the See Appendix, p. 245, Dilnot, George. s'Ibsen's New Drama', Fortnightly Review, N.S. LXVII, April I, 1900, PP·575-90. 1
• Letters, p. 51. Letter dated 'March 190r'. 152
'THE WORLD'S A STAGE' solitariness of the true innovators. For Joyce saw Ibsen as an explorer of new paths, both in the search for the basic truths about man and his destiny, and in a lesser way as an inventor of new modes of expression, and a practitioner of new literary techniques. Both aspects of Ibsen's originality appealed to Joyce, who wished to go his OVVil way and distrusted the paths of thought to which his instructors had directed him, and who, as a writer whose entire body of work bears witness to his desire to create for himself his own ways of writing, admired all inventors of original literary Indeed, Joyce's mature work could be considered as an attempt to win back for literature that pre-eminence in exploring the frontiers of expression which in our generation has been attained by the pictorial and plastic arts. And there is no doubt but that inFinnegans Wake he makes considerable use ofIbsen's plays. But it is well k...,own that Joyce studied Ibsen in the original Norwegian, after teaching himself Norwegian in order to do SO; and it is certain that there are a large number of puns of~orwegian words and phrases which my ignorance of that language makes it impossible for me to decipher, apart from a few words such as 'synnbildising' (332.28) which puns on sin, building, and the Norwegian for 'symbol' SJ-nnbilled. An account by a Norwegian scholar of Joyce's use of Ibsen is very much needed. In its absence all that I can do is suggest what seem to be the main references to his plays, and make a few guesses at the use to which Joyce is putting them. For example, the most obvious mention of Ibsen's name: 'Ibsenest nanscence! Noksagt!' (535.19) comes towards the end of a passage which contains the sentence, 'Man sicker at I ere bluffet konservative?' (535.16). I am told that this is a Joycean spelling of a Norwegian sentence: i\1an sier at dere er konservative bluffers, which means, 'It is said that you are conservative bluffers'. This may be H.C.E.'s remark to the four old men. 'Noksagt' (literally 'Enough saidl')l is-1 am told-often used as a derogatory term for an idler or ne'er-dowell. But there seem to be many voices speaking, and I cannot explain the passage. The whole conversation at this point seems to circle around a remark about tea: 'I protest there is luttrelly not one teaspoonspill of evidence at bottomlie of me babad, as you shall see, as this is, Keemun Lapsang ofmst pickings' (534.9). The business about tea in the Wake may be, as I have suggested, partly intended to parallel Swift's mysterious hints about coffee. But it would be typical of Joyce's way of working ifit also has a meaning from the s:ymbolism that Ibsen seems, perhaps un1 Joyce used the word Noksagt in a letter to Constantine P. Curran in 1904. See Letters, p. 55, and Stuart Gilbert's footnote.
153
THE LITERARY SOURCES consciously, to attach to tea. For it appears to him to have been a symbol for a life without love. Mrs. Solness, for example, invites people to tea; and in Love's Comedy tea is frequently mentioned, and seems to signify an empty social intercourse. But a consideration of the care with which Joyce chooses and constructs his language-always meaningfully, as far as one can follow him-suggests another possible implication in 'Literally not one teaspoonspill'. The mutation to 'Luttrelly' must come from Henry Luttrel, whose letters betrayed Limerick. A further meaning depends upon the statement made in many medical books that the amount of the male ejaculation is precisely one teaspoonful; and it is this, I think, to which H.C.E. is referring. The reference to Ibsen would then be made to accompany the other meaning of tea, as in 'Gibsen's teatime' (I7o.26), so as to give the symbol its ,complete elaboration. It appears again in 'The specks on his lapspan are his foul deed thoughts ...' (25I.16)-with a pun on Lapsang tea. Another leit-motiv which Joyce connects with Ibsen is the Dublin motto: 'The obedience of the citizens is the felicity of the town.' Ibsen believed in the exact opposite of this; but nearly quotes it in An Enemy of the People when the mayor of the town, Peter Stockman, says to his brother, 'The individual ought undoubtedly to acquiesce in the subordinating himself to the community-or, to speak more accurately-to the authorities who have the care of the community's welfare.' The rest of the play is given up to a rebuttal of the statement. Joyce gives one of his travesties of the Dublin motto at the end of the passage containing the principal concentration ofIbsen's titles in the Wake. 'For peers and gints, quaysirs and galieyliers, fresk letties from the say and stale headygabblers, gaingangers and dudder wagoners, pullars off societies and pushers on rotbmexe's homes. Obeyance from the townsmen spills felixity by the toun' (540.22). The plays named here are Peer Gynt, Caesar and Galilean, The Lady from the Sea, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts (Gengangere), When We Dead Awaken (Naar vi dade vaagner), Pillars of Society, and Rosmersholm. Two pages later An Enemy of the People, and its Norwegian title, En Folkefiende, is named in 'folksfiendship, eumy pupuls' (S2.p8). Joyce is saying that all these plays refute Dublin's motto. Rosmersholm is being mentioned in a passage in the Anna Livia chapter: 'before ever she dreamt she'd lave Kilbride and go foaming under Horsepass bridge . . . to wend her ways byandby robecca or worse .. .' (203.I). 'Robecca or worse' is Rebecca West, the heroine of Rosmersholm, as well as the critic with this nom-de-plume who annoyed Joyce with her book The Strange Necessity. At the end of the play she
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,
'THE WORLD'S A STAGE' and Rosmer throw themselves together off a bridge into the river. 'Kilbride', as well as being a place along the river Lilley, whose course is being followed in this passage, also refers to Rosmer who is accused of having driven his first wife to suicide by jumping from the same bridge, and has just declared that Rebecca West is his wife when he persuades her to join with him in following his first wife's example. 'Horsepass' refers to the mythical white horse that is believed to bring destruction to the dwellers in Rosmersholm; it conveniently ties up, for Joyce, with the white horses of William III and W. W. Kelly-not forgetting Wellington's Copenhagen and Napoleon's Marengo, both white horses in the Wake. There are probably references of one sort and another to all of Ibsen's plays, in addition to the undoubted fact that all their titles are named. The Wild Duck is named 'Weibduck' (138.34), as 'Wily (233.12), and in the Anna Livia chapter with 'For mine ether duck I thee drake. And by my wildgaze I thee gander' (197.13). Its Norwegian title, Vildanden, may be concealed in the words 'vild need' (263.19), while 'cagehaused duckyhcim' (533.18) combines The Wild Duck with The Doll's House which is Et Dukkehjem in Norwegian. The plot of The Wild Duck seems to be parodied in one of Issy's notes to the 'Night Lessons' chapter: 'Braham Baruch he married his cook to· Massach McKraw her uncle-in-law who wedded his widow to Hjalmar Kjare who adopted his daughter to Braham the Bear ...' (284, note 4). The jingle is, at least in part, referring to Hjalmar Ekdal's discovery that old Werle has married him to his cast-off mistress. The play that seems to be used most is The Masterbuilder, which is called in Norwegian Bygmester Solness. H.C.E. is described as 'Bygmester Finnegan' (4.18) in his first incarnation; and is still 'soleness •.. bigmaster' (624. II) at the end. In between he varies between the 'masterbilker' (III.2I), the 'monsterbilker' (296.7), and perhaps a dozen other mutations. He shows in the most easily recognizable way Joyce's concept of the Creator euhemeristically developed 'by neuhumorisation of our kristianiasation' (331.31); a phrase which is obviously intended to point out the connection between his own ideas of men becoming gods and his youthful idolizing of Ibsen, which is now somewhat tempered by his mature realization of the somewhat humourless nature of his former idol. The reference to Ibsen comes in the word 'kristianiasation', combining Kristiania, a city with which Ibsen had many connections before he died there in 1906, with Ibsen's somewhat individual version of Christianity. Every element in The Masterbuilder has its counterpart in the Wake.
155
THE LITERARY SOURCES The play is, like the Wake, almost parochial in its setting, partly autobiographical in its plot, and yet presents a vast and timeless s)'lUbol of the condition of humanity in the world at large. The master-builder, Somess, is afraid that he is going to be supplanted by the younger generation-a fate to which, according to Joyce's theory, even the Gods are subject. He declares that 'presently the younger generation will come knocking at my door'. Joyee quotes this as 'When the youngdammers ,vill be soon heartpoclting on their betters' doorknoggers' (572.2). But Solness himself has succeeded in symbolically supplanting his own Creator, and says: 'hear me now, thou Mighty One! From this day forward I will be a free builder-I, too, in my sphere-just as thou in thine. I will never more build churches for thee-only homes for human beings.' But he is a builder of great towers. It is this for which the young woman, Hilda Wangel, has loved and admired him since the time when she was a little girl and saw him climb a tower he had built to place a wreath upon its summit. She does not know that he no longer dares to climb high because he gets giddy and fears that he will fall. 'I could not have believed', she tells 'there was a builder in the whole world that could build such a tremendously high tower. And then, that you yourself should stand at the very top of it as large as life.' The Freudian symbolism is obvious, and is emphasized by her telling him that she heard him stand upright at the top and sing-to which he replies that he never sang a note in his life. When, at the end ofthe play, she has persuaded him to try again to climb a tower he has erected, she hears once more a song in the air. 'It must be the 'Wind in the tree-tops; she is told; we hear the song and the reply in the Wake as: 'Loab at cod then herrin or wind thin mong them treen' (587.2). It is a German hymn, Lobet Gatt den Herm, or wind in those trees. He falls to his death, but Hilda says, 'He mounted to the top. And I heard harps in the air.' This has many echoes in the Wake:
'THE WORLD'S A STAGE' If he falls it is only to rise again. Joyce was, for all his obscurity, an optimist who believed he had found an answer to the riddle of creation; Ibsen was a pessimist searching for new ways of posing questions which he believed to be unanswerable. The difference can be seen in all the ramifications of what each considers a typical situation. Solness, like H.C.E., has twin sons. But the Earwicker twins battie boisterously together to decide which shall supplant their father-a task at which, according to the Joycean paradigm-both must inevitably succeed: Solness's sons are burned to death as babies in a way which is vaguely understood to be their father's fault. Soiness's wife, who has no other children, nev.er recovers from the blow but says she misses most her dolls which were lost in the same fire. She is described as 'speaking somewhat slowly and in a plaintive voice'. Nothing could be more unlike the 'giddgaddy, grannyma, gossipaceous Auna Livia' (195.3) who is H.C.E.'s wife. But to fit the pattern of the Wake the two opposites should coalesce at one point. This seems to occur when 'the voice of Alina gladdens the cocklyhearted dreamerish' (608.18). M...rs. Solness is Alh"le; 'Alina' here is a hen-perhaps Gallina is implied-and ties up withA.L.P. Another feature of the family situation in the Wal~e, the old man who loves two young girls, is paralleled in The Masterbuilder by Solness's interest in his niece Kaia, who loves him, and Hilda Wange1, who urges him to nndertake the climb that causes his death. But the Ibsen characters form a very small part of the complex structure of Joyce's looking-glass girls, who neither love hopelessly nor drive anyone to destruction. Perhaps the root difference is in the attitude the two writers adopted to the family. Ibsen seems to have seen the married man, and woman, as weighted down by intolerable restraints. For Joyce the married man with a family was a type of divinity. The fathers would be sinners, of course-that is what Joyce expected fathers to be. But in spite of-or perhaps even because of-their sms, they were as 'gods, human, erring and condonable' (58.18), like H.C.E. himsel£ There seem to be many references to other plays by Ibsen, particularly Peer Gym, but as I have no useful comments to make on these, and suspect that most of them are based on details of the Norwegian text, I have placed them in the appendix.
DION BOUCICAULT
The Boucicault play which is most used m the Wake is Arrah-na-
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THE LITERARY SOURCES Pogue. A brief extract from this play will explain most of Joyce's allusions to it:
Fanny: Arrah-na-Pogue; that means Arrah of the kiss. O'Grady: Don't you know why she is called so? Tell her, Arrah. Arrah: Sure I'd be ashamed, sir. Sean the Post: Ah what for? It is proud I am of the kiss you gave even though it wasn't myself that got the profit of it. Fanny: Indeed, and who was the favoured one? Sean: Beamish MacCoul, Miss, her comdhalta-I mean her fosterbrot.i.er, that is. It was four years ago. He was lyin' in Wicldow Gaol, the day before he was to be hung with the rest of us, in regard to the
riSin). Fanny: I remember, he escaped from prison the day before his execution. Sean: True for you, Miss. He couldn't very well escape the day after. The boys had planned the means of it, but couldn't give him the office, because no one was let in to see the master, barrin' they were searched, and then they could only see his face in a peep hole in the door of his cell. Fanny: Did Arrah succeed in conveying to him the necessary intelligence? Sean: She did. Being only a dawny little creature that time, they didn't suspect the cunning that was in her; so she gave him the paper in spite of them and under the gaoler'S nose. Fanny: How so? You say they searched her? Did they not find it? Sean: No Miss, you see they didn't search in the right place. She had rowled it up and put it in her mouth, and when she saw her fosterbrother she gave it to him in a kiss. Arrah: And that's why they call me Arrah-na-Pogue. This is the scene to which Joyce's four old men are referring when they speak of 'the good old days of Dian Boucicault, the elder, in Arrah-na-Pogue, in the otherworld of the passing of the key of Twotongue Common' (385.2). The last words of the Wake: 'Lps. The keys to. Given!' derive much of their meaning from the same source. A meaning which can be expressed quite simply as that it is Love which is the basis of our existence. The symbol taken from Boudcault-the passing on of a message from a woman to a man by a kiss-was used by Joyce in Ulysses. It is significant that it was seed-cake that Molly put into Bloom's mouth from her own. Boucicault's Sean uses the same image in his first scene with Arrah: 'There's a griddle in the middle of your own face> Arrah> that has a cake on it always warm and ready to stop a boy's mouth:
ISS
'THE WORLD'S A STAGE' But it is the character of Sean the Post which is Joyce's main borrowing from Boucicault. I would almost describe it as being his main borrowing from any single source. In the play Sean is an Irish postman of the year 1798 and drives the post car. When he appears on the stage he carries a whip-an obvious symbol for Freudians-but for Joyce, who saw life differently, simply a 'hand prop' (4°4.16); although the main reference to the play in the Wake, that discussion by the four old men which has already been mentioned, begins 'one was whips for one was two and two was lips for one was three, and dissimulating themself, with his poghue like Arrah-na-poghue' (384.32). The reference here is probably to the numerical value of the characters, and it will be noticed that Joyce spells pogue (kiss) here, and usually in the Wake, as 'poghue', which gives it the same sound as poke-a verb which Eric Partridge explains in his Dictionary of Sla:ng. 'Poghuing her scandalous' (388.23) is obviously using this meaning. Perhaps the whip, which was held as a sign of power by the Pharaohs, is the connection between Shaun and 'Twotongue Common', on the next page, which puns on Tutankhamen. The actor who takes the part of Sean the Post is expected to be able to sing competently. The tenor Maas once played the part. He begins with a short solo: 'Open the dure softly, Somebody wants ye, dear: Arrah pretends to mistake his voice for that of a pig or 'the auld ccw'. This is echoed in the Wake by 'as the town cow cries behind the times ... Open the Door Softly' (427.3), and Sean comments: 'Have I been singin' to the auld mare till I've got a quadruped voice?' which has a variety of echoes in the Wake although these may not be intended by Joyce. Later on in the play, at the wedding of Sean and Arrah which is attended with all the traditional stage-Irish jollifications and attended by what Joyce describes as 'all the gallowsbirds in Arrah-na-Poghue, so silvestrious, neer the Queen's Colleges' (388.25), Arrah commands Sean to sing. Joyce recounts this as: 'Arrah-na-poghue, when she murmurously, after she let a cough, gave her firm order, ifhe wouldn't mind for a sings to one hope a dozen of the best favourite lyrical blooms in Luvillicit' (385.22). In the play Sean asks the crowd to choose a song and they ask for 'The Wearing of the Green'which we hear in the Wake as 'How is your napper, Handy, and hownow does shestand?' (4°8.30). The allusions to famous tenors cluster thickest in the Wake about this phrase. It is surprising how much of the character of Sean the Post goes over 159
THE LITERARY SOURCES into the Shaun ofFinnegans Wake. Sean calls in the guests at his wedding in a speech that sets the tone for an entire chapter of the Wake (pp. 429473). He even has a barrel, like Joyce's Shaun, although he stands on his whereas Joyce's ShatU! is sometimes inside his barrel and sometimes represented by it. The speech deserves quoting in full: 'Sean: There's lashin's of mate inside, and good liquor galore, and him that spares that's there I look upon as my enemy. (Jumps on barrel. Exeunt all into inner room. Arrah fil·St. As they go z"n.) Pat Ryan, leave that girl alone till the Grace is said. In with ye, ye are welcome as the flowers in May. Norah Kavanagh, don't be provokin' that boy before he's able for yeo Ah, Tim Connolly is it colloguin' with two girls at a time ye are? I'm lookin' at yeo Walk in my darlin's and cead mile failte. (Leaps downfrom his barrel and follows them in.)' 'Leave that girl alone till the Grace is said', and 'don't be provokin' that boy before he's able for ye' are pure Shaun, and Joyce acknowledges the playwright who has been useful enough to 'show him what the Shaun way is like' (442.22) by frequently mentioning the play. 'Open the door softly, somebody wants you, dear. You'll hear him calling you' (442.31) is telling us again that Shaun comes from the stage character. Even his dress is based on Sean the Post, and it is interesting to compare Joyce's description of it with one of the old photographs of Val Vousden (439.17), or one of the other Irit.h actors who played the part. Seamus de Bourea describes t..\e costume in his edition of Arrahna-Pogue (still published by P. J. Bourke of Dublin), as 'First dress: long caped coat, caubeen, shirt and woollen stockings, whip. 2nd dress: cutaway frieze coat.' He also carries a lamp which he fastens onto his belt when he is not using it. Joyce's description is much .fuller and must be based on memories of actual performances: 'And as I was jogging along in a dream as dozing as I was dawdling, arrah, methought broadtone was heard ..• echoating: Shaun! Shaun! Post the Post! ... in very similitude, bless me, 'twas his belted lamp! ... hand prop to hand, prompt side to the pros, dressed like an earl in just the correct wear, in a classy mac Frieze o'coat of far Buparior ruggedness, indigo braw, tracked and tramped, and an Irish ferrier collar [Ferrier= terrier farrier; Sean wears shackles in one scene. J • • • and the d.amasker's overshirt he sported inside ... with his motto •.• R.M.D. [Royal Mail, Dublin] . . . and may his hundred thousand welcome stewed letters, relayed wand postchased, multiply . • • Shaun himself' (404.3). The 'hundred thousand welcome' phrase translates the 'cead mile failte' at the end of Sean's speech which Joyce may be remembering
+
I60
'THE WORLD'S A STAGE' although the phrase is-happily-the commonest of all Gaelic tags. The shackles are mentioned again in 'his tide shackled wrists' (426.20) and 'his ballbearing extremities' (426.29) in a passage describing the scene in which he climbs in spite of his fetters to freedom up the ivy-clad wall of the gaol to the top of the tower on which Arrah sits singing. It will be seen that this is the same symbol as the ascent of the tower in The Masterbuilder but leads to precisely the opposite conclusion. The woman charms the hero to climb, and Joyce combines both climbs but he places the emphasis on Sean the Post's with its triumphant ending. His progress up the tower is reflected in the Wake in the words 'looking up up upfrom his tideshackled wrists . . . with his highly curious mode of slipashod motion, surefoot, sorefoot, slickfoot, slackfoot .•. \\-1.th corks staves and treeleaves .. .' (426.19). In the play he is given up for dead but appears at the top beside Arrah, and all the peasants of the chorus rush in shouting: 'Sean! Sean!' as Joyce shows them doing (404.7). And when they see him they all shout the words which Joyce quoted: 'Sean himself!' These words, coming at the climax of the play, were almost certainly remembered by Joyce from a stage performance he witnessed in Dublin. The mention of 'the Queen's' in two of the passages referring to Arrahna-Pogue suggests that it was at the Queen's Theatre, where the play was frequently performed in the years round 1900. There are no other exact quotations except from the songs, so it seems unlikely that Joyce ever read the play.
A ROYAL DWORCE It is unlikely that Joyce ever read W. G. Wills's once popular play A Royal Divorce. Indeed it is almost certain he didn't for no printed copy seems to exist, and when-having noticed that the title of the play is quoted ten times in the Wake-I decided that I must find a copy I only succeeded because the authorities of the Cohen Library at Liverpool University were kind enough to have photostats made for me from the manuscript copy deposited, for copyright purposes, in the Lord Chamberlain's Office. But I have had the pleasure of speaking to several people who saw the play which seems to have been presented all over the British Isles, and frequently in Dublin until just after the end of the First World War. The company concerned was owned by W. W. Kelly who played the leading part of Napoleon to his wife's Josephine, and is named twice in the Wake (32.29; 383.33). 161 II
THE LITERARY SOURCES The play is about Napoleon's divorce from J osephiue and marriage to Marie Louise. But it follows Napoleon's career to its end and concludes with a long monologue by the dying J osephiue in which the audience is given to understand that Napoleon also is dying at the same moment, and that the two are reunited in death and 'begin again'. The final monologue of Finnegans Wake owes something to Josephine's speech with its visionary journey across the white-topped waves to join her husband, and the rhythms of the two speeches have much in common. As far as Joyce ",-as concerned it would be this last speech that was most useful. But Joyce's prose completely transforms the somewhat depressing monologue. Probably it was a good thing that he never read the play but based his final passages on his memories of a stage performance to which glamour was given by the glitter of the footlights and the beauty of the actress. There are two things only,however, which the reader of the Wake needs to know about A Royal Divorce. The first of these is that when Joyee quotes the title it has little to do with the play. It seems rather to be a leit-motiv representing the eternal dichotomies: good and evil, life and death, and so forth; and to symbolize that splitting up which, in the Wake, is the prelude to reuniting; and it derives this meaning from the plot of Wills's play. The other thing which Jo.yce remembered and used was a scene without words. A backcloth showing the scene of Waterloo was pierced of with holes which were intermittently lit up to represent the cannon. In front of this models of cavalrymen were wound forward on glass runners while 'Pepper ghosts' (214.16; 460,6) of cuirassiers produced by a sort of magic lantern, fell dramatically to their death in the clouds of white smoke that £lied the stage. In the foreground on a big white horse, rode Napoleon, or sometimes-apparently when Mr. Kelly wanted arest-Wellington. It made nO' difference to the play who was on the horse as nothing was said, but Joyce makes great play with this interchangeability of the opposed generals. There are a great many references to the scene .in Finnegans Wake> from the 'museyroom' (8.9) onwards, but I think that any reader can follow these allusions from the information I have given.
SHAKESPEARE
Joyce saw himself as Shakespeare's his greatest rival. in saying that he felt that hi" :,::;:,ain deficiency in the I think I am 162
'THE WORLD'S A STAGE' contest was his inability to find an audience able to appreciate his work. This is the most plausible meaning of:
THE LITERARY SOURCES Baconian cipher. Joyce has lots of fun weaving Bacon's name into Shakespearian extracts in this way, just as the Baconians themselves do. But there is probably a reason for this, as will be suggested later. It seems probable that Joyce is claiming Shakespearian authority for his literary method as M. J. C. Hodgart says in his article on 'Shakespeare and Finnegans Wake'. ~ This article, which is the fullest treatment of the theme yet published, draws attention to the passage about 'the gipsy mating of a grand gravedigging with secondbest buns' (121.3 I) which is describing Finnegans Wake itself. Mr. Hodgart points out that Shakespeare was attacked by the neo-classical critics for mixing his styles and inserting comic scenes into tragedy. He goes on to suggest that: 'He is claiming Shakespeare's punning as a precedent. For each, a quibble was the fatal Cleopatra for which. he was content to lose the world.' Mr. Hodgart's article and its appendix lists about three hundred 'unit' allusions to Shakespeare and his plays. Like all the other lists of Joycean allusions-including those in this volume-it is probably far from complete, although. it supplies about one for every two pages of the Wake. But many of the more frequently recurring allusions are to such well-known tags as 'To be or not to be', and it is reasonable to expect anyone capable of reading Finnegans Wake to :find these for himself. On the other ha..,.d there are many problems arising from Joyce's treatment of Shakespeare to which I can suggest no solution. WhY. for example, should the first reference to the Plays be to Macbeth? It seems certain that Hamlet is more important in the Wake and is quoted more often. Perhaps there is an allusion to the gravedigger scene in 'the first was he to bare arms' (S.S)-which would connect Finn with Adam, but this comes after the reference to Macbeth, and may not refer to Hamlet at all. But, to quote M. J. C. Hodgart again, 'Although the references to Macbeth are on the whole easier to pick out than those to Hamlet, it is harder to see their significance.' He goes on to suggest that Macbeth, being 'a play about murder, night, darkness, witchcraft, prophecies, and above all conscience' is a reservoir for these themes in
Finnegans Wake.'2 This idea of a reservoir could, perhaps, be extended to apply to all Shakespeare's plays. They are, after the Bible, the largest collection of well-known quotations and so invaluable to Joyce who used quotations meaningfully distorted as one of his methods of saying two things at once. Quotations from Shakespeare could be made to convey not only their original meaning, beneath Joyce's mutation, but also something 1 The
Cambridge Journal, VI,
• Ibid., p. 743.
IZ,
Sept. 1953, pp. 735-52.
'THE WORLD'S A STAGE' of the atmosphere of their original context. For example, 'Lack breath must leap no more' (250.17) and 'Toborrow and toburrow and tobarrow!' (455.12) both give to the passages in which they occur an added intensity from the tragic speeches of Macbeth. Shakespeare himself is taken as being the perfect instance of the artist as creator. Joyce twice quotes Coleridge's phrase about 'myriadminded Shakespeare'l and must have known the other phrase applied to him in the same chapter of Biographia Literaria, 'the great ever living dead man', which would enable him to fit Shakespeare perfectly into his pattern. But according to Joyce's pattern the divinity must err. To accord with the myriad-mindedness a variety of sins are imputed-none of them very seriously, the Wake, I must repeat, is a work of comedybut nevertheless Shakespeare has to fit in wiL1 the laws of Joyce's creation. This is the reason, I think, for the presence of Bacon, even though he is often disguised as 'shakespill and eggs' (16I.3I) and the like. Shakespeare, like Joyce himself, is being accused of being a forger. Various other imputations such as 'secondbest buns' (I21.32) following 'gipsy mating' which seems to refer to Shakespeare's treatment of Ann HathaVlray occur at various portions of the text. And it is noticeable that very often Joyce himself seems to be being referred to in the same passages. Shakespeare, in fact, is yet another of what Kenner has called 'the Anti-selves'.
1
See Appendix, p. 242, Coleridge.
r65
Part III
THE SACRED BOOK.S
CHAPTER 8
The Old Testament 'Old dustamount' (359.II)
I
have already suggested that the basic axiom underlying Finnega:ns Wake is that the artist is the God of his creation.1 Joyce seems to have gone a step further than that and considered that the work on which he was engaged was itself a new sacred book. 'I go', he wrote in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 'to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.'2 Finnega:ns Wake was to be the fulfilment of this promise. It was to contain within itself all the sacred books which had ever been written. The method which Joyce adopted to make his book subsume all others was his customary one of selecting fragments from all he could find and distributing the fragments in his own pages. Its success depended on the skill with which the fragments were selected, transformed, and redistributed; and Joyce wrote, 'I am quite content to go down to posterity as a scissors and paste man for that seems to me a harsh but not unjust description.'s He was, in fact, aware of his own defects and chose his methods with deliberation. But it is impossible to say whether or not Joyce really set out to include references to all the world's sacred books in the Wake. Since he usually aimed at completeness the probability seems to be that he tried to fit them all in. But the number of books which have at one time and place or another been considered sacred is so large, and the obscurity of many of these books so great, that it would require an enormous amount of research to say with any precision what proportion of the whole is mentioned in Finnegans Wake. There are, for example, the forty-nine volumes edited by Max Milller with the general title The Sacred Books of the East, and the hundred and thirty-six volumes of the Theravada Canon which have been published by the Pall Text Society in English translation: and in both cases the editors point out that the 1 See above: 'The Structural Books', p. 27. • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Travellers' Library ed., p. 238. 3 Letters, p. 297. Letter to George Antheil, dated '3 January 1931'.
169
THE SACRED BOOKS books translated are not the entire body of works that could have been included but a selection. It therefore appears that Joyce's 'ideal reader' must possess not only a..!l 'ideal insomnia' but an ideal library. Furthermore he must be able to read the books for Joyce sometimes quotes from them in t.~e original language, as will be seen later in this chapter. He is known to have asked for words in eastern languagespresumably so as to include them in bis book. He wrote to Miss Weaver that 'A Cbinese student sent me some letterwords I had asked for. The last oneis W. It means "mountain" and is called "Cbin", the common people's way of pronouncing HiD or Fin.'l The sign used here is the one which Joyce employed for H.C.E., but only another Cbinese student could say what Joyce did with the information he received. The word 'mountain' is used rather frequently in the Wake in phrases such as 'a man that means a mountain' (309.4) or 'mightmountain Penn' (19.32) and 'mountynotty man' (21.7). It seems probable that the word 'mountain' in the Wake is meant to include H.C.E. in its group of implications. Probably Joyce wished to include in the Wake at least one of every language he could find. His readers can console themselves with the reflection that the book is still written chiefly in English, with occasional additional meanings from French, German and other European languages, while the proportion of incomprehensible foreign words that may have been extracted from obscure sacred books is very small. On the other hand there are some quotations disguised as English phrases and almost unrecognizable. 'Seek it Ratup! . . . Suckit Hotup!' (415.34) is from the Middle Egyptian Sekhet Hetepu, 'the fields of heaven'; and several similar examples will be pointed out later. There are undoubtedly many more which I have not been able to spot; and-as usual-the reader can never be certain that he has understood everything. Joyce's distortions of spelling make this inevitable. Is, for example, 'Ansighosa' (246.10) intended to suggest the Asvaghosa-one of the lives of Buddha? From the context it seems probable, but'one can never be sure. Another difficulty arises from the broadmindedness of Joyce's definitionof a sacred book. Just as he includes novels by Rhoda Broughton and 'L. T.' Meade among works of literature, and often mentions 'Allysloper' (248.10), an almost forgotten comic paper which was written to please the very lowest cultura11evels of the l'opulation, so he includes among his sacred books works that most people neither know nor wi!i§ to know. An example of this kind of book is The Kloran, which is 'the sacred book of the Ku Klux. Klan', and is mentioned twice in the 1 Letters,
p.
2;0.
THE OLD TESTAMENT Wake as 'Peter Cloran' (40.16 and 212.3). I would not have known that this book existed if I had not read of it in A Census of Finnegans Wake, l and there must be many more such books to which my attention has not been drawn. They are not, however, likely to be very important in the Wake, for although many sacred books are made use of only a few are important. The book which is used most is, of course, the Bible. It is unlikely that there is a single page in the Wake without at least one reference to the Bible; most pages contain several, and some pages contain dozens. Just as the basic language of the Wake is English so the basic religion is Christianity, but Joyce's variants are, in both cases, so far from the normal that doubts as to their nature are to be expected. Next to the Bible comes the Koran, but for every reference to it there are ten or twenty to the Bible. The Book of the Dead and the 'Eddas' seem to be next in importance, and to be used about equally. A good many references to Buddhism and Confucianism are also made-probably far more than I have recognized-but Joyce probably found that the lack of a personal God in both systems made them inherently unsuitable for his purpose. For what Joyce is trying to do is to equate the accounts of creation given, or implied, in all the sacred books with the story of his own life. He loved and admired his father, but knew that his father was the cause of most of the misfortunes which the family he had begotten were forced to suffer. And he chose to consider this the typical situation that all humanity endures, interpreting the various sacred books he read as a series of accounts-varying only in minor details-of the activities of this family group. His book is a series of (often superimposed) accounts of the sins of the fathers, the battles of the sons and the wiles of the daughters. Behind this unending series of identical groups rests the figure of the mother, the real embodiment of fertility. There were many ancient religions based on the worship of the mother-goddess, and many of them are alluded to in the Wake, although the clearest treatment of the theme is in the passage where Joyce compares his book to J. H. Speke's Journal of the Discovery of the Sources of the Nile. 2 For the Nile rises in the Victoria Nyanza, and Joyce uses the feminine name as a symbol of the eternal female as the source of life. But it is the father-figure that Joyce finds exemplars of in the sacred books; and it is astonishing how many exemplars he manages to find. 1 2
A Census, p. 26. See Appendix, p. 28I, Speke.
171
THE SACRED BOOKS I. THE BIBLE
'our tour of bibel' (523.32)
The number of references made to the Bible in Finnegans Wake is, as has already been pointed out, very large. A long and closely written book would be required to list and explain all the quotations; all that can be done in a general outline such as the present is to point out what seem to be the most important facts. Indeed, little purpose would be served by listing all the quo-::ations Joyce makes, as any reader can find them for himself with the aid of a concordance. Joyce seems to have used eruden's, at least that is my conclusion from the word 'concrude' (358.6) which he uses. The translation of the Bible which he used was the Authorized Version-this appears from the wording of the bulk of his quotations, but he often quotes in Latin from the Vulgate, usually extracts which are used in the Liturgy. It is difficult to decide whether some of Joyce's quotations are from the Bible or the Liturgy. I will, however, discuss them here under three heads: The Old Testament, The New Testament, and The Liturgy.
THE OLD TESTAMENT
As I have already pointed out Joyce had the strange idea that he could absorb or subsume other books into his own simply by quoting their titles. Perhaps, as I have suggested earlier,! he believed that he was taking them over in the same way that the primitive people described by Levy-Bruhl believed that a writer could carry off their buffaloes by including them in a book. Joyce carefully included in his book the titles of all the books of the Old Testament.1! He did the same thing with the titles of all the suras of the Koran, and M. J. C. Hodgart has discovered that he includes in the Wake not only the titles but also the airs and first lines of all Moore's Melodies. s The citation of the titles of Biblical books begins very early in the Wake immediately after the first three paragraphs that serve as a sort of overture. It is 'Bygmester Finnegan, of the Stuttering Hand' (4.18), the eponymous hero of the See above: 'The Structural. Books'. • See the Appendix to this chapter. • Mr. Hodgart has written a book on The Songs in Finnegans Wake, in collaboration Vl1th Mrs. l\1abe1 Worthington, which is awaiting publication. I72 1
THE OLD TESTAMENT Wake who introduces them, for he 'lived in the broadest way immargin-
able in his rushlit toofarback for messuages before jo~huan judges had given us numbers or He1viticus committed deuteronomy (one yeastyday he sternely struxk his tete in a tub for to watsch the future of his fates but ere he swiftly stook it out again, by the might of moses, the very water was eviparated and all the guenneses had met their exodus so that ought to show you what a pentschanjeuchy chap he was!' (4.19). The passage includes the names of the first seven books of the Bible, the name of Moses, and a distortion of the word 'pentateuch', as well as references to Swift and Switzerland that do not concern us here. It will be noticed that the word Genesis has been mutated to suggest Guinness's. This trope is repeated two pages later in, 'With a bockalips of finisky fore his feet. And a barrowload of guenesis hoer his head' (6.26). After this the two themes divide and go their separate ways. But when Finnegan is laid out the corpse begins-has its head-under Genesis with the barrow representing a funeral barrow. It ends-has its feet, or has 'finisky'l-after the Apocalypse. This symbolizes the way in which the Bible is used in the Wake. Every aspect of the life, death, and resurrection of Joyce's hero is linked in some way with the Bible. I do not think that there is a single incident in Genesis which does not have an echo in the Wake. Indeed, the events of the book of Genesis can be taken as some of the first cycles of the history of the world according to Joyce's ever-returning cyclic version of history. The Fall in Genesis is the type of all falls, and-as has been pointed out2the Fall in the Wake is the cause of creation. I have used the singular for Fall because according to Joyce's peculiar philosophy all the falls are the same one. He quoted a sentence from De Quincey's The English Mail-Coach to Frank Budgen which supports this idea: 'Even so in dreams, perhaps, under some secret conflict of the midnight sleeper, lighted up to the consciousness at the time, but darkened as soon as all is finished, each several child of our mysterious race completes for himself the treason of the aboriginal fall.'3 But Budgen, who must have had the quotation from Joyce, omits the words v.hich I have italicized: the treason of. These would not fit in with Joyce's theory according to which 1 'Finisky' is a typical word in the Wake. In its context it suggest whiskey. Examined more closely it is finis, end, with the Russian suffix for 'son of'. It says 'Finn is sky'. It is 'Phoenix' or Fionn Uisge-the self-resurrecting bird or a clear spring of water, but in either sense Dublin's great park. Finally it could mean, 'The sky is ended'. • See above: 'The Structural Books'. 3 Frank Budgen, James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses. London: Grayson & Grayson, 1934, p. 294.
173
THE SACRED BOOKS the first Original Sin was committed by God. He writes, 'you would be thinking in your thoughts how the deepings did it all begin and how you would be scrimmaging through your scruples to collar a hold of an imperfection being committled' (428-4). The nature of the imperfecJon varies in each cycle. Satan fell through pride and battled with Michael. 'As they warred in their big innings ease now we never shall know' (271.22) writes Joyce, parodying the Doxology to suggest again that the whole thing is a continuous process. We begin with unity, but according to Joyce it is imperfect because it is not satisfied to be alone. This is 'the imperfection' which has just been mentioned. So God produces His creation and sets up conflict. 'Let there be fight!' (90.12) is Joyce's version of the words of creation. The building of the tower of Babel is an example, for Joyce, of sin driving men to creation. It is personified in Balbus, the builder and stutterer, and the passage in the Bible describing the building of the tower (Gen. II:4) has echoes in the passage in the Wake which is richest in Biblical allusions and extracts. This is: 'Go to, let us extol Azrael with our harks, by our brews, on our jambses, in his gaits. To Mezouzalem with the Dephilim, didits dinkun's dud? Yip! Yup! Yarrah! And let Nek Nekulon extol Mak Makal and let him say unto him: Immi ammi Semmi. And shall not Babel be with Lebab? And he war. And he shall open his mouth and answer: I hear, o Ismael, how they laud is only as my loud is one. If Nekulon shall be havonfalled surely Makal haven hevens. Go to, let us extell Makal, yea, let us exceedingly extell. Though you have lien amung your tosspots my excellency is over Ismael. Great is him whom is over Ismael and he shall mekanek of Mak Nakulon. And he deed' (258.7). Perhaps the centre point of this set of variations on a Biblical theme is the prayer from the Jewish liturgy known as the Sh'ma from the first word in Hebrew of 'Hear, 0 Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord' (Deut. 6:4). This prayer has to he recited every morning and evening. In the Wake it is being said in the evening, 'hear, 0 Ismael, how they laud is only as my loud is one.' 'Loud' is Joyce's usual name for God, a Litany: 'Loud, hear us! Loud, graciously hear us!' (258.25) comes later in the same page. 'To Mezouzalem with the Dephiliin' refers to the Tephilin or phylacteries which devout Jews place on their Mezouzah (door-jambs) or, in the Wake,'on our jambses, in his gaits'. They are also worn on the forehead, 'by our brews' says the Wake. The odd word 'lien' shows up another quotation, this time from the Psalms: 'Though you have lien among the pots' CPs. 68:13) which Joyce turns into tosspots. This provides a key to the entire passage for it is from Psalm 68 174
THE OLD TESTAMENT which begins, 'Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered' and shows the God of the Old Testament at His most terrible. On the literal level, however, all that has happened is that the father of the family has slammed a door with a noise which has frightened the children and put an end to their play. 'Dephllim' in this passage is probably a combination of Devil and Nephilim, the 'giants' of Genesis 6:4, in addition to the meaning which has already been suggested. The sons are thus mocking the father. Michael is being set up in his place: 'Go to, let us extell Makal.' The repeated 'Go to' and the word Babel suggest Genesis I I :4, 'Go to, let us build a city.' Another phrase, 'yea, let us exceedingly' comes from Psalm 68:3, 'yea, let them exceedingly rejoice'. 'Immi ammi Semmi' means both 'I am Shem' and-from Semmi, which is Magyar for 'nothing'-'He is nothing'. The creation of Eve is described in the Wake in words that parallel Genesis 2:21, 'And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs .. .' Joyce has, 'For the producer (Mr. John Baptister Vickar) caused a deep abuliousness to descend upon the Father of Truants and, at a side issue, pluterpromptly brought on the scene the cutletsized consort .. .' (255.27). Eve is mentioned by name very often in the Wake, indeed her name is-very fittingly-the first to be mentioned, 'riverrun, past Eve and Adam's .. .' is the beginning of the book. Perhaps the last mention of her name is on the last page, 'Avelaval' (628.6), or perhaps it is a little earlier with 'While you're adamant evar' (626.3). Cain and Abel as the first warring brothers (even though in their case the war was all on one side) are the first incarnations of Shem and Shaun. Abel's name provides Joyce with material for a number of puns, 'I cain but are you able?' (287.II) is a typical example. The identity of a pair of warring brothers with Cain and Abel is often suggested by a quotation. For example, 'And Phelps was flayful with his peeler. But his phizz fell' (67.26). This is a version of 'And Cain was very wroth and his countenance fell' (Gen. 4:5). Another version is 'And each was wrought with his other. And his continence fell' (252.14). There is also 'And Kev was wreathed with his pother •.. And his countinghands rose' (3°3.15 ... 304.1). In each case the identification is made very neatly by the quotation, but if the quotation is not recognized the point is lost. Noah is named at least twelve times in the Wake and often mentioned without being explicitly named. He is important as a patriarch who repopulated the earth after the Flood. As a father-figure he fits in with the axioms that I have suggested Joyce assumed for such figures, and he falls by getting drunk and exposing himself. There are many allusions 175
THE SACRED BOOKS to this story in the Wake, for example 'patriarch •.• vinery .•• free boose for the man from the nark •.. I'm sorry to say I saw' (581.5). And many scattered allusions are made to other incidents in the story of the Flood. 'He sent out Christy Columb and he came back with a jailbird's unbespokables in his beak and then he sent out Le Caron Crow and the peacies are still looking for him' (496.3°). I do not understand all the allusions in this sentence but it is obviously based on the dove and raven Noah sent out from the Ark (Gen. 8 :7-II). There is also a reference to T. M. Beach, a secret service agent who used the name of Henri Le Carron and gave evidence before the Parnell Commission; while 'Christy Columb' includes Christopher Columbus being cheered by the sight of a land-bird carrying twigs in its beak. Noah's flood seems to be used by Joyce as one way of marking the end of a cycle and has some connection with the number I 132 which is the length of a cycle in the Wake. At one point we seem to be told that the Flood took place at II.32 a.m. in II32-altb.ough there is no certainty about the era. It is one of the old men-the Munsterman, I think-who says, 'Marcus. And after that, not forgetting, there was the Flemish armada, all scattered, and all officially drowned, there and then, on a lovely morning, after the universal flood, at about aleven thirtytwo was it? ••. and then there was the Frankish floot of Noahsdobahs from Hedalgoland, round about the freebutter year of Notre Dame II32 P.P.O. or so .... (388.1 ..• 18). But the old men's memories are as unreliable as the memories of Swift's Sttuldbrugs on which they are partly based. Many more Biblical characters are made use of. Other examples are Abraham and his wife Sarah who are used as a type of an old married couple, and are concealed in the last monologue in the words: 'But sarra one of me cares a brambling ram' (624.14). David and Jonathan are used as the Joycean type of loving friends-friends who are rarely helpful to each other. This is seen in, 'cabled ••. to his Jonathan for a brother: Here tokay, gone tomory, we're spluched, do something, Fireless. And had answer: Inconvenient, David' (I72.24). Here one brother has cabled to the other for help because he was stranded and received the reply that it would not be convenient to help him. Shem is a main character in the Wake and naturally brings Ham and Japhet into it as well. They usually arrive in odd disguises. 'Sam, him, and Moffat' (87.IO) may include the name of a great modern translator of the Bible. 'Homp~ shtemp and jumphet' (63.36) shows them doing a somewhat ill-tempered hop, step and jump. Much more frequent than the allusions to the Biblical characters are the Biblical quotations. An example of a passage in the Wake containing I76
THE OLD TESTAMENT such quotations has already been discussed. I will now attempt to follow a quotation through its various appearances in the Wake. The first verse of Genesis provides an excellent example of a repeated quotation, 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.' Joyce has: 'from his Inn the Byggning' (1].22). 'We are told how in the beginning it came to pass' (30.I2). 'Not olderwise Inn the days of the Bygning would our Traveller' (56.20). 'as it gall in the biguinnengs so wound up in a battle of Boss' (129.IO). 'To start with in the beginning, we need hirtly remark' (222.3). 'As they warred in their big innings ease now we never shall know' (27 1.22). 'In the buginning is the woid' (378.29). 'In the beginning was the gest' (468.5). 'In the becoming was the weared' (487.20). 'In whose words were the beginnings' (597.IO). The first five could be allusions to either the first words of the book of Genesis or the first words of St. John's Gospel. The sixth is an echo of the Doxology. The last four refer in the first place to St. John's Gospel: 'In the beginning was the Word'. The word 'gest' in the seventh example is based on the word 'gesture', for the passage is about Marcel Jousse's theory of the formation of language from gesture,l but it is inflected by the German geist-'spirit'-which is the word used in some German translations for logos. It will be noticed that the emphasis in the quotations from the early part of the Wake is on the Old Testament while those from the end of the Wake refer to the New Testament. On the other hand there is no demonstrable correlation between the position of a phrase or word in the Wake and the extent to which it is distorted; and this applies to all words and phrases. Joyce sometimes quotes from the Vulgate. The passage in Latin on page 185 includes the wordperizomatis from Genesis 3:7, 'et fecerunt sibi perizomata' which the Authorized Version renders 'and made themselves aprons', while the Geneva Bible gained its alternative name of 'Breeches Bible' from its version, 'and they made themselves breeches'. The same paragraph in the Wake contains an acknowledged quotation from the Vulgate Psalm 44 (A.V. Ps. 45:I): 'My tongue is the pen of a ready writer' • Joyce quotes the Latin wi.thout any alteration, 'Lingua mea calamus scribae velociter scr:'.bentis' (r85.22). Usually Joyce distorts his Latin quotations as much as he does English ones. An example of this can be seen in his treatment of a passage from the 1
See David Hayman, Joyce et Mallanne, Vol. I, pp. r60-1.
I77 I!l
THE SACRED BOOKS Vulgate Psalm II3 (A.V. Ps. II5:5-7): 'OS habent, et non loquenter: oculos habent, et non videbunt. Aures habent, et non audient: nares habent, et non odorabunt. Manus habent, et non palpabum.' 'They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not .. ' etc. This is quoted in the Wake as 'Habes aures et num videbis? Habes oculos ac mannepalpabuat?' (U3.29). 'You have ears and shall you not see .. ?' etc. It is also the basis of 'audiurient, he would eavesdrip ... Impalpabunt, he abhears' (23.21). Another quotation is from 'Buccinate in Neomema tuba, ininsigni die solemnitatis vestrae' (Vulgate, Ps. 80:4). The Authorized VersIon translates this as 'Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day' cPs. 8r:3). Joyce travesties it as, 'Buccinate in Emenia tuba insigni volumnitatis tuae' (412.8). 'Blow your noKe trumpet in the dark' is what seems to be said to Shaun here. In the middle of the story of 'Burrus and Caseous' (I6I.Iz) a Messianic prophecy from Isaiah 7:I5 is quoted, 'Butyrum et mel comedat ut soat reprobate malum et eligere bonum' (163.3). The translation given in the AUL~orized Version is 'Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good: Joyce's version alters just one letter: 'comedat' for 'comedet'-'he may eat' for 'he shall eat'. All Biblical commentators are agreed that this refers to the coming Redeemer. Joyce includes it in a story about a contest between Butter (or Brutus) and Cheese (or Cassius) for the hand of Margareena, and gives the name of the Redeemer as 'Cheesughl' (163.10). Often a quotation is so distorted as to suggest a completely different meaning from the original. This is one of Joyce's ways of saying two things at once, for the reader is expected to take in both the. original and the superimposed meaning. An example of this is, 'the wetter is pest, the renns are overt and come and the voax of the turfur is hurled on our lande' (39.14), which is based on a beautiful passage in the S<:lng of Solomon (2:U-IZ): 'For,lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birru. is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.' Joyce's parody of this tells us also that the wet weather is a pest for the rain is noticeable here-and reins can also be seen, for the flat-racing season has commenced, and the voice of the race-goer (turfer) is heard in Ireland. There are quotations from every book of the Old Testament, and the title of every book is quoted-except, perhaps, Haggai and Joel. Indeed, there are so many quotations that it would require a separate book to
178
THE OLD TESTAMENT deal with them all; so I have given here what I think is a representative selection, but have not included quotations from the Bible in the appendix containing literary allusions. Another appendix gives the places where the titles of the books of the Bible are named in the Wake. It will be seen that these are fairly evenly distributed. Tbis shows, I think, that Joyce was intending to contain the Bible in his book by this method. At least I can see no other reason for it. In a way Joyce is replacing the Old Testament by Finnegans Wake, and substituting his theology for the religion of the Bible. As has already been suggested this theology of Jqyce's makes Creation the Fall. Whether he intended this seriously or not I cannot decide. It is not an original idea. Henry James, senior, the father of the novelist and of William James, has put forward the same suggestionl in modern times and it is the basis of some ancient religions. But Joyce's treatment of it is farcical. It is, I think, one of his axioms that Original Sin was committed by God. There is a constant series of hints made in the Wake about H.C.E.'s sins. In A Skeleton Key the following account is given of the sin: 'It was in Phoenix Park (that Garden of Eden), near his tavern, that he committed an indecorous impropriety which now dogs him to the end of his life-nightmare. Briefly, he was caught peeping at or exhibiting himself to a couple of girls in Phoenix Park. The indiscretion was witnessed by three drunken soldiers, who could never be quite certain of what they had seen ... Unquestionably his predicament is of the nature of Original Sin: he shares the shadowy guilt that Adam experiences after eating the apple.'2 But the real reason for the way in which the nature of the sin seems to vary is that H.C.E. is the father-figure in all eras and commits a different sin in each era. The sin Joyce accuses him of in the Old Testament is indecent exposure. He showed his hinder parts to Moses (Ex. 33:23): 'And I will take away mine hand and thou shalt see my back parts; but my face shall not be seen.' The Vulgate version of Genesis I6:I3 could be given a similar interpretation-which I have no doubt Joyce gleefully noticed. It runs: Profeeto hie vidi posteriora me, which the translators of the Douay version render as: 'Verily I have seen the hinder parts of him that seeth me.' There are many passages in the Wake where this is referred to. Examples include 'uncover the nakedness of an unknown body in the fields of blue' (96.28), 'hoar father 1 See A. C. Bouquet, Sacred Books of the World. London: Penguin Books, 1954, p. 328. 2 A Skeleton Key, p. r6.
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THE SACRED BOOKS Nakedbucker' (139.6), and 'How cullous an epiphany!' (s08.II) which would appear to refer to the unveiling of a cuI. All the business about 'maggy seen all' (7.32), which recurs frequently throughout the book refers to the same thlng. It is connected with the reference to Noa.lt's exposure by the words 'happyass cloudious' (581.22), and that Noah is simply another of the perpetual resurrections ofH.C.E. is shown by the initials in the phrase on the next page about the 'huskiest coaxing experimenter that ever gave his best hand into chancerisk' (582.3), and this follows 'Yet he begottom' (582.1) which reminds us that this is the father.figure.
APPENDIX The Books of the Bible according to the Authorized Version with the pages on which each is !l.lmled in Fmnegans Wake. Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy Joshua Judges Ruth Samuel Kings Chronicles Ezra Nehemiah Esther Job Psalms Proverbs Ecclesiastes Song of Solomon Isaiah Jeremiah Lamentations
4, 6, 30 , 30 9, 350 • 4,222. 4· 4,86,290. 4,478· 4, 33, 53, 550 • 4,242, 26 3. 192, 257, 596. 93,222. 26,87,242. 240,254. II6. 32 • 69, 32 7, 4 1 3. 3°7,563. 163,391. 242,39 0 • 38 ,5 I 4· 344· With Issy? 229, 572, 537. 100.
Ezekiel 27,3°7. Daniel 468,541 . Hosea 553· (?) 460. Joel Amos 550 • Obadiah 53 1. Jonah 463,537. Micah 153· Nahum 241 . Habakkuk II6. Zephania 492 • Haggai (?) 156. Zechariah 580 . Malachi 4,86,473· Tobias 580. Matthew *223,254, "'476, etc. Mark *253, *256, etc. Luke *290, *325, etc. John *367, *377, *397, etc. Epistles 374· The Acts 222. Apocalypse 6, 242, 364, 455. Apocrypha 242.
,. Each of these pages has a reference to all four evangelists.
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CHAPTER 9
The New Testament
Q
uotations from the New Testament seem to be more numerous than those from any other source, even the Book of Genesis. But they seem to be inserted mainly for decoration, or perhaps simply for the sake of quoting from the Gospels. There are many mutations, like the one that has been described from the Song of Solomon about 'the voice of the turtle', in which Joyce makes use of the quotation to say two things at once. His quotations from the New Testament are spread fairly evenly throughout the Wake, and are taken more or less evenly from every part of the four Gospels, although very little is taken from any other part of the New Testament. For the sake of brevity I will only consider quotations from the first seven chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel. This provides about a normal sample of Joyce's treatment of quotations from the Gospels as a whole. The Vulgate St. Matthew begins 'Liber generationis .. .' Joyce quotes 'leabhour of my generations' (484.29) which suggests that in this case the book is Irish, in fact a Gaelic leabhar, or book. 'Locusts and wild honey' (Matt. 3:4) is echoed in 'locusts and wild beeswax' (184.20). Joyce's 'no hiding your wren under a hushle' (504.3) obviously echoes Matt. 5:15 about a light under a bushel; and 'saviour so the salt' (483.23) comes from Matt. 5:13, 'but if the salt have lost his savour'. 'Love my label like myself' (579.18), which comes in a passage packed with scriptural quotations, is from Matt. 5:43; and 'Let not thy left hand. know what thy right hand doeth' (Matt. 6:3) becomes 'when the ritehand seizes what the lovearm knows' (27.4). The comparison of the lilies of the field to Solomon in all his glory (Matt. 6:28) has several echoes in the Wake. 'Those lililiths undeveiled' (75.5) combines the lilies with Liliths, so does 'the Lilliths oft 1 feIdt' (366.25) in a context about Alice Liddell. 'The lelias of the find' (34°.22) brings in Lilias Walsingham, the heroine of The House by the Churchyard. '1 considered the lilies on the veldt' (543.14) shows us H.C.E. as a traveller on the 181
THE SACRED BOOKS Africro veldt, and as a man who has considered Liliths; while the phrase which follows, 'and unto Balkis did I disdothe my glory' presents H.C.E. as Solomon with the Queen of Sheba. 'The beam that is in thine own eye' (Matt. 7:5), gives Joyce the idea of a beaming smile and he writes of 'coaxing the beam in her eye' (5I2.9). The other part of this verse about the mote in the brother's eye is echoed in the Wake as the 'moat in Ireland's Eye' (I62.32). 'KnOc.~ and it shall be opened unto yon' (Matt. 7:7) becomes 'Knock and. it shall appall unto you' (528.21). 'By their fruits ye shall know them' (Matt. 7:20) becomes 'by their lights shalthow throw hi'll' (341.16). The 'lights' here are 'the scimitar star and the ashen moon' which combines the national flag of Turkey with the statement that it is night. Apart from allusions to the Lord's Prayer, that I shall consider in the section on the Liturgy, the above are all the quotations r have found from the :first seven chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel. There are probably several more that I have missed, and possibly a number of quotations from versions in other languages which I have not recognized. Certainly there are a number of references to specific Greek words which Joyce had pointed out to him by his friends. l A Census of Finnegans Wake explains Joyce's word 'Batty' as referring to 'Batta-a king of Cyrene who stuttered' (98.29; I77.29).2 If this is so Joyce probably connected the name with the Greek word ~C('t''t'o-Aoyi(i), to speak stammeringly, to use 'vain repetitions', as in Matthew 6:7, !J.~ !3c(-C':'OAOy~cr"IJ-Cz.
A typical use of a Greek word from the Gospel can be seen in 'eolithostroton' (73.30). Part of this word comes from the Vulgate version of St. John's Gospel, 19:13, where the Greek for a tessellated or mosaic pavement is sil'nply transliterated as 'lithostrotos'. It was on this pavement that Pilate's judgement seat was placed on Good Friday. The other part of the word comes from the neologism 'eolith' which is the name given by many archaeologists (from eos, dawn, and lithos, stone) to the very oldest surviving works of man, the chipped flints of the earliest Old Stone Age. They are chipped so crudely that some scholars believe them to be mere accidentally broken stones. On the other hand some folk-Iorists say that such stones have often been believed to be thunderbolts. So Joyce's word contains within itself the seeds of history-and is subject to debate and doubt. The use J oyee makes of the characters in the Gospel story has been frequently discussed. 'Our four avunculusts' (367.14). This is one of 1
2
See James Joyce's World, p. 169. A Census, p. I3.
r82
THE NEW TESTAMENT Joyce's names for his four old men who are obviously intended to represent the four evangelists. Their names are constantly used: 'matt ... mark ... luked ... johl' (245.29), 'matthued . : . mark ... luked ... johntily' (223.30), 'symethew, sammarc, sellue and singin' (253.12) are examples of their use separately. Thrice they are combined into a single word: 'Mamalujo' (397.II; 398.4; 476.32). The four evangelical symbols are brought in: 'an angel prophettbis? kingcorrier of beheasts? the calif in his halifskin? that eyriewing one?' (367.32) gives us the angel of St. Matthew, the lion of St. Mark, the calf of St. Luke and the Eagle of St: John. These are the symbols from the 'four living creatures' (Rev. 4:7). A very full account of his treatment of the evangelists is given by Adaline Glasheen in A Census.l. The character of Christ is divided between Shem and Shaun. But Shaun has the major part, his sermon to the twenty-nine girls (pp. 429-473) represents Christ speaking to the women of J erusalem. Joyce "'Tote to Miss Weaver that it was 'written in the form of a via crucis of 14 stations'.2 The Crucifixion is referred to obliquely in a passage on the tree motif, for amGngst the trees which are mentioned is the one from which the Cross was made. The negro spiritUal 'Was you there when they crucified my Lord?' is twisted by Joyce to give us this information. 'Psalmtimes it grauws on me to ra..'llble, ramble, ramble' (506.13). This suggests the original, 'Sometimes it grows on me to tremble, tremble, tremble'. 'Were you there when they lagged urn through the coombe?' (506.II) repeats the line 'Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?' from the same spiritual. Resurrection is one of the main themes of the Wake. H.C.E. is a personification of resurrection: he is l1imse1f Easter for as has been pointed out, 'he can get on as early as the twentysecond of Mars bnt occasionally he doesn't come off before Virgintiquinque Germinal' (I34.12). Joyce uses all the material he can find to embroider his treatment of the theme. 'Array! Surrection' (593.2). These words announce the coming of a new day at the end of ilie night of the Wake. Perhaps it is because of this connection between resurrection and dawn in the Wake that the theme of resurrection is more often combined with allusions to The Book of the Dead than with the Gospels. Another important theme which is shared between the Christian Gospels and other sacred books, particularly The Book of the Dead, is that of the sacramental eating of the Body of God. But tItis concerns ritual railier than Scripture and will be considered in the next sections. 1 Ibid., pp. 42-4, 49, 77, 78-9, I27. • Letters, p. 2I4. Letter dated '24 May I924'.
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CHAPTER
10
The Liturgy
B
y Liturgy here is meant the Christian Liturgy which in the Wake is represented almost entirely by the Mass and other Roman
Catholic services and prayers. joyce's 'working library' contained -rather oddly-a copy of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in a French translation,1 as well as a copy of the English version but there is no evidence of the French translation being used in the Wake. The only prayer books Joyce names are The Garden of the Soul, in 'a jacu1a!ion from the garden of the soul' (I45.25), and the missal in 'Eat a missallesf (456.18) which also conceals the sentence Ite, missa est that ends the Mass. The Mass in Pinnegans Wake has been considered at some length by Hugh Kenner in Dublin's Joyce. 2 He claims that 'The parts of the first section of the Mass-Introit, Confiteor, Gloria, Epistle, Sermon, Gospel,-appear in the Wake in order, with remarkable exactness of correspondence.'3 But in fact the correspondence is visible only if a very loose approximation to the various parts of the Mass is expected. But perhaps Joyce intended this correspondence, for the parallels between the sections of Homer's Odyssey and Joyce's Ulysses are also occasionally laboured and doubtful although we have Joyce's authority for their existence. On the other hand the sermon can hardly be called a part of the Mass, and even if it is included it should come after the Gospel, not before it. If the reversal of the usual order is necessary the correspondence cannot be as exact as Kenner claims. Kenner also says that 'With the third part of the Wake (the four watches of Shaun the Post) the correspondences become those of the Mass for Good Friday, the one day in the year when no Host is consecrated.'4 This seems to be See Connolly, pp. 9 and 24. a Hugh Kenner, Dublin's Joyce, pp. 346-53.
1
3 Ibid., p. 35:£. • Ibid., p. 351.
THE LITURGY true, indeed the authors of A Skeleton Key had previously pointed out Joyce's use of a part of the Mass of the Pre-Sauctified.1 This is the 'Improperia' or 'Reproaches'. Shaun says, 'Impropedal! I saved you fore of the Hekkites aud you loosed me hind bland Harry to the burghmote of Aud Dub .•. I brought you from the loups of Lazary aud you have remembered my lapsus laugways' (484.20). The 'Improperia' that are being parodied begin, 'Because I brought thee out of the land of Egypt, thou hast prepared a cross for thy Saviour.' There are thirteen similar reproaches each followed by the repetition, first in Greek, then in Latin, of the Trishagion: 'Agios 0 Theos. Agios ischyros. Agios athauatos.
Sauctus Deus. Sauctus fortis. Sauctus immortalis.'
Neither Kenner nor the authors of A Skeleton Key seem to have noticed that Joyce makes a travesty of this as, 'Haggis good, strong, haggis never say die' (456.9). This is, of course, one of the mauy quotations that would have to be ignored by auyone claiming to pr()ve that Joyce was a devout Catholic treating the Mass with respect. But the Mass that is being quoted in the Wake does seem to be the Mass for Good Friday as Joyce suggests in the sentence, 'You never wet the tea' (585.3 1 ). But there are mauy phrases quoted from the Mass which do not fit with this particular day. For example, 'a laddery dextro' (I96.14) suggests 'a latere dextro' which is a phrase from the autiphon for Paschal time: Vidi Aquam. And I can see no particular progression in the scraps of quotation from parts of the Mass that occur in the Wake. In fact I would say that Joyce simply quotes from the Mass whenever a quotation seems apposite without bothering about any correspondence of the Wake, as a whole, with the Mass. To show the kind of thing that happens I will list here some of the more obvious quotations in the order in which they occur in the Mass. Introibo ad altare Dei Spera in Deo Gloria Patti ... et in saecula saeculorum Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini Gonfiteor 1
A Skeleton Key, p. 243.
'EntereI1bo add all taller Danis' (336.2) 'Spira in Me Domino' (485-19) 'Per omnibus secular seekalarum' (81.7) 'in secular sinkalarum' (178.18) 'Auxilium Meum Solo A Domino' (49 6 .1 3)
'the confisieur' (53I.2) 'confiteor' (322.9)
THE SACRED BOOKS
mea culpa mea maxima culpa Introit Kyrie Gloria Epistle Gospel Munda cor meum Credo
Offertory
'Meac Coolp ... I confesses' (344.3I) 'meas minimas culpads l' (483.35) 'introit' (432.5) 'Crystal elation! Kyrielle elation! Elation immanse!' (528.8) 'the young gloria's gang voices the old doxo!ogers' (454-29) 'on the epizzles of the apossels' (4II.I5) 'farced epistol to the hibruws' (228.33) 'Tell the coldspell's terroth' (343.8) 'Gospolis fomiliours' (345.2) 'a Munda conversazione' (I72.3I) '1 believe. Greedo!' (411.20) 'I believe in Dublin and the Sultan of Turkey' (266, note 1) 'Offertory' (432.I7) 'Trink off this scup and be bladdy orafferteed!' 845.24) (See also under
Consecration) Qui tecum. vivit et regnat 'Quick take um whiffat andrainit' (414.I3) Preface 'the prefacies' (347.21) Sursum corda 'Sussumcordials' (453.26) Gratias agamus 'gratiasagam' (93.15); 'Grassy ass ago'
(252 . 1 3)
Scmctus Consecration
'Sing to us, sing to us, sing to us!' (528.9)
sanctas ac venerabiles ...
'His venerated tongue' (381.31) '!rink off this scup' (with Offertory, see above). 'his chalished drink now well in hand' (461.35) (There is no version of the Latin but the English words are often travestied. See below.) 'Eat a missal lest' (456.18)
Pater Noster
Ite, missa est
The Last Blessing Benedicat vos omnipotens 'Bennydick hotfoots onimpudent stayers' Deus (469.24) 1 think it can be said from this list that if Joyee was really trying to establish a pattern representing the celebration of Mass in the Wake he was making lit much poorer shot at it than anyone who knew the rest
186
THE LITURGY of his work would expect. In fact I consider it certain that he was carefully avoiding setting up any such pattern. And the quotations are of such a flippant nature that it seems unlikely that Joyce is speaking for himself in making them. The temptation to suppose that an author is saying something because he makes one of his characters say it is particularly strong in Finnegans Wake where it is not always clear who is supposed to be speaking. But it is certain that the most irreverent travesties of the words of the Mass are all made by Shaun, whose character they help to define, although they are not very different from the parodies still recited by altar-servers off duty. The parodies of the Lord's Prayer are much more complex, but can be divided into two kinds. Sometimes Joyce does not seem to be concerned with the meaning of the words for which he is substituting his own. For example: 'haloed be her eve, her singtime sung, her rill be run, unhemmed as it is uneven' (1°4.2) is using the original in the way that Joyce often uses the words of songs-simply to give him an interestiug rhythm and a vague suggestion of the tone of the original. 'Bring us this days our maily bag' (603.7) is another parody that seems to have no connection with its source except its rhythm. The other type of parody derives its meaning from Joyce's conception of God as the first committer of original sin. 'Ouhr Former who erred' (530.36) is a clear example of this. 'Oura vatars that arred in Himmal' (599.5) says the same thing less distiuctly. 'Foughtarundser' (78.16) turns the German Vater unser into a warrior God. Always the father-figure seems to include H.C.E. and many other people as in 'the grasping one, the kindler of paschal fire; forbids us our trespasses as we forgate him' (128.33), which also brings in St. Patrick. Joyce is forced to use these distortions by his theories about creation. 'Who trespass against me?' (587.3°) is a question asked by one of the three soldiers to which the answer is 'our grainpopaw, Mister Beardall, an accompliced burgomaster'. It is a part of the accusation against H.C.E. for the crime which had to be committed afresh in each era. Joyce, who described himself as being 'in honour bound to the cross of your own cruelfiction' (I92.18), applied his axioms ruthlessly to every era. For the Christian era the sin he imputes is the same symbolic incest that he accused Lewis Carroll of, and he makes the accusation clearly enough in such statements as 'maker mates with made (0 my!)' (261.8). Joyce also uses the Angelus to advance this theme in such phrases as 'behose our handmades for the lured' (239.10) which is intended to suggest 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord' and to connect this era with that of Ancient Egypt which is discussed later. He goes further than 187
THE SACRED BOOKS this-he brings in himself as a creator, and therefore ex hypothesi a God, by applying the words of the Angelus to his own mother, whose maiden name was Murray. He is also, with extraordinary economy of words, telling the time as well as committing blasphemy. 'The morning moment •.. the of the laws declosed unto Murray' (63.25) is six o'clock, for the Angelus, which begins with the words 'The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary', is said at six in the morning, at noon, and at six in the evening. The Angelus is used to tell the time again in 'It is not even yet the engine of the load with haled morries full of crates, you mattinmummur, for dombell dombs' (604.9). The 'Hail Mary full of grace' is said, in the Angelus, at the same time as the Morris truck: comes with the milk. Perhaps this is the milk cart which Joyce mentions as the 'same super melkkaart' (538.8). The word melkkaart here is the Dutch for milk-cart, and brings in Melkarth-a deity of Tyre. The Litany is abo parodied. In a passage where Joyce is discussing the advantages of exile from Ireland for an Irish writer he says, 'From t-he safe side of distance! Libera, nostalgia!' (228.24). The second part of this includes 'Libera nos Domine' of the Litany, probably it is intended to be pronounced 'nostalgeeay'. The parody continues, 'Beate Laurentie O'Tulle, Euro pra nobis!' The 'Ora pro nobis' sounds rather like 'Europe for us' as Joyce spells it-even though it is St. Laurence O'Toole, the patron saint of Dublin, who Is being invoked. As has been said, it is mainly the Roman Catholic liturgy which is used. But Joyce probably consulted his copy of the Book of Common Prayer for the Marriage Service which is brought in as, 'with all my bawdy did I her whorshlp' (547.28). 'An open and notorious eVnliver' and 'his former naughty life' are two phrases from the Introductory Rubric to the Communion Service which Joyce borrows in 'open and notorious naughty livers are found not on our rolls' (54°.2), which is a claim he makes for Dublin. The source of the quotation makes it possible that one meaning of the phrase is that there are no Protestants there. 'Entwine our arts' (259.7) probably comes from 'Incline our hearts'-a phrase in the 'Response to Commandments' of the Anglican Communion Service. 'Oathword science ofhis visible disgrace' (227.23) i.s from the Catechism. This is mentioned several times, as 'Fanden's catachysm' (282.25), and-with a reference to the Ku Klux Klan-as 'K.K. Katakasm' (533.24). But the quotations are not long enough to be sure which catechism is bl!ing .used. There are undoubtedly other liturgies used in the Wake. Joyce pointed out the use he had made of one to Miss Weaver in a note on what is now pp. 470-1 of the Wake. He said that 'The Maronite 188
THE LITURGY (Roman Catholic) liturgy, the language of which is Syrian is at the back of it. On Good Friday the body of Jesus is unscrewed from the cross, placed in a sheet and carried to the sepulchre while girls dressed in white throw flowers at it and a great deal of incense is used. The Maronite ritual is used on Mount Lebanon. Ab [Shaun] departs like Osiris the body of the young god being pelted and incensed. He is seen as already a Yesterday (Gestern, Guesturning back his glance amid wails of "Today!" from To Morrow (to-maronite's wail etc.). The apostrophe balances the hyphen guesturn's, To-maronites. 'This censing scene is led up to by: licet ut libanos =this may be used as incense (libanos is Greek for incense) the "libanos and the sickamours and the babilonias etc" of Issy's rambling remarks. [In the final version this is now 'the libans and the sickamours, the cyprissis and babilonias, where the frondoak rushes to the ask' (460.22). It is ten pages away from the passage it introduces.] 'The choir of girls splits into two=those who pronounce Oahsis and those who pronounce Oeyesis (cf. Our Father who/which art etc). The Latin is "Quasi cedrus exaltata sum in Lebanon etc" see A.P.O.T.A.A.A.Y.M. Belvedere College chapter. There are in all 29 words in the threnody 6X4=24 and the final 5=29 (Tu autell, Domine, misere nobis!)'l I have quoted these lengthy extracts from Joyce's letter because it shows, more clearly than any of Joyce's other explanations, the extraordinary lengths that he went to in complicating the text of his book, and the extraordinary demands he makes on his readers' memories. It also shows that Joyce always provided his readers with the necessary key. The words 'to-maronite's wail' (470.14) point out the connection with the Maronite ritual, and should send those of Joyce's readers who are prepared to play Joyce's game to study the Maronites in their reference books. The idea may appal some people-but there it is. Finnegans Wake was written for people who find books interesting, and are prepared to search around in libraries for particular pieces of information. I do not, however, suppose that Joyce expected anybody to notice the numerical structure of the passage he annotates. It is an extra grace-note to please the author, and anyone who happened to notice, which he disclosed to his patron. There are many such embellishments in the Wake. For example Book II, Chapter 3, begins with a phrase: 'It may not or maybe a no concern of the Guinesses but' (3°9.1). 1
Letters, p. 263. Letter dated '8 August 1928'.
189
THE SACRED BOOKS The first seven words of this are an acrostic reading: 'I'm noman', which refers the reader back to Ulysses. Indeed there are a great many such extra decorations, enough to keep several more generations of Joyceans intrigued. In the single passage being discussed there are numerous allusions to all kinds of religions as well as the Maronite rite of Catholic Christianity-and the worship of Osiris which Joyce declares to be present. Shaun is Mohammed riding his winged horse 'from Jehusalem's wall, clickclack, me courser's clear' (469.29). He is also Macbeth, 'Lead on, Macadam' (469.20). As priest and victim he gives a Shaunian version of the last blessing of the Mass. He is Rousseau, 'the ieenjakes' (463.9), and Alfred Jarry, the French dramatist, 'a jarry queer fish' (463.12). In fact he is almost as many people as his father who is 'Here Comes Everybody', yet Joyce simply expects that. his readers will be able to pick out some of the enormous number of clues that he provides. We are not accustomed to this kind of book and expect to have everything comprehensible at the first glance. The Wake presents its meaning in depth, and will still be an object of interest when the people who fitst scoffed at it are dead. But Joyce does not expect his readers to know everything, although he does assume that they will be familiar with at least one variety of the Christian liturgy.
190
CHAPTER II
The Book of the Dead
F
rank Budgen was the first to point out that Joyce had made use of The Book of the Dead. This was in an article entitled 'Joyce's Chapters of Going Forth By Day',! a title which quotes the 'common name for the Book of the Dead in the Theban period . . • coming forth from the day.'2 He wrote that, 'Many philosophies flit mothlike with characteristic words across the pages of Firmegans Wake, and ancient ritual books and compilations, particularly the Norse Edda and the Egyptian Book of the Dead, are constantly recurring themes.'3 But he does not tell us much about the use Joyce makes of The Book of the Dead. Harry Levin, who is usually the most informative of the Joycean exegetes, appears to suggest a parallel in the words, 'Joyce's book of the dead calls upon the O'Learys and the Finnegans and all good Irishmen to awake and come forth by day. "Irise, Osirises!" '4 But this is the only reference to The Book of the Dead in Levin's tightly packed guide to Joyce's sources and intentions. The authors of A Skeleton Key are much more helpful in this respect and point out five places in the Wake in which there are references to, or quotations from, The Book of the Dead. s Joyce himself seems to have decided that there was a seriolls omission in the list of authorities and source-books compiled by Beckett and the rest in An Exagmination, for he wrote to Miss Weaver, 'To succeed 0 [His symbol for An Exagmination] I am planning X, that is a book of only four long essays by 4 contributors (as yet I have found only one-Crosby-who has a huge illustrated Horizon, September 1941. Reprinted Givens, Two Decades, pp. 345-89. E. A. Wallis Budge (Editor), The Book of the Dead, The Papyrus of Ani, the Egyptian text with Interlinear Translation. The British Museum, I895, 1
2
p.=.
• Givens, Two Decades, p. 364. • Harry Levin, James Joyce, a critical introduction, p. 142. S A Skeleton Key: pp. 67; I65; 170; I75; 248. Finnegans Wake: pp. 62;3II; 318; 328; 493. I9 1
THE SACRED BOOKS edition of the Book of the Dead, bequeathed to him by his uncle)the subjects to be the treatment of night (ofB of D, S. John of the Cross Dark Night of the sour;, the mechanics and chemistry, the humour, and I have not yet fixed on the fourth subject. This for 1930, when I shall also, I hope, send out another fragment .• .'1 But the book of 'four long essays' never appeared. Either Joyce could not find the writers he wanted or, more probably, he abandoned the scheme through lack of time or because of the failure of An Exagmination, which critics ignored and his publishers found difficult to sell.2 But it is apparent from this letter that Joyce considered that some knowledge of The Book of the Dead was necessary if Finnegans Wake was to be understood. It is unfortunate that he never explained why this was necessary. There are many versions of The Book of the Dead. It provides a dead person with the information about procedure and words of power which ensure his immortality. A copy was provided for all Egyptians who could afford it, sometimes carved or painted on the rock of the tomb, someti.TIles written on the coffin or on a roll of papyrus. In his introductions to his editions of the Papyrus of Ani-in facsimile, and in translation-and in other authoritative works on the subject, 3 the late Professor Sir E. A. Wallis Budge describes many versions. It appears that Joyce used the Theban recension, for he writes of 'Theban recensors who sniff there's something behind the Bug of the Deaf' (134.35). This, incidentally, provides another example of the way in which all the manuscripts mentioned in the Wake are tainted in some way by doubt or suspicion. The word 'Bug' is probably used in its American sense of 'insect' for not only does The Book of the Dead
contain pictures of Kephera, a god in the form of a beetie, but one of its chapters, XXXb, is described by Budge as having been 'inscribed on numberless scarabs'.4 Joyce quotes this chapter in the Wake, as I will show shortly. It seems likely that Joyce used the Papyrus of Ani, which is the best and fullest copy of The Book of the Dead in the British Museum. A large folio facsimile of this, edited by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, was published by the British Museum in 1890. It was probably 1 2
Letters, p. 281. Letter dated '28 May 1929'. See Letters, p. 283: 'not a single criticism has appeared'; and Slocum
and Cahoon, A Bibliography of James Joyce, p. 77, where it appears that nine years after publication Shakespeare & Co. disposed of unsold copies to Faber and Faber and New Directions. • See E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris & the Egyptian Resurrection. London: The Medici Society, 1891, Vol. I, p. 283, etc. 4 The Book of the Dead, Facsimile of the Papyrus of Ani in the British Museum. London: British Museum, r890, plate XV. I92
THE BOOK OF THE DEAD this book that was 'bequeathed' to Crosby. It contains an introduction and descriptions of the plates but does not provide a complete translation. This is given in another large volume by Budge, published by the Museum in 1895. Joyce includes the name Ani in the longest and most noticeable series of quotations from The Book of the Dead. It is the one to which Harry Levin drew his readers' attention. 'Irise, Osirisesl Be thy mouth given unto thee 1 • • • On the vignetto is a ragingoos. The overseer of the house of the oversire of the seas, Nu-Men, triumphant, sayeth: Fly as the hawk, cry as the comcrake, Ani Latch of the postern is thy name; shoutl-My heart, my mother! My heart, my coming forth of darkness!' (493.28). The last line is verbatim from the Chapter XXXb which has been mentioned as being often inscribed on scarabs-the scarabs were then hung round the dead person's neck as a . charm to induce immortality. The word 'triumphant' is the translation Budge prefers for an Egyptian word sometimes rendered as 'justified' which means that the person so described has overcome the power of death as the sun rises again at the end of the Wake: 'Pu Nuseht, lord of risings . . . toph triumphant' (593.23). To do so, according to Egyptian belief, it was necessary to know the names of the various doors, pillars and posterns through which the dead person would have to pass. 'Ani Latch of the postern is thy name' is modelled on the responses given in the Papyrus of Ani. The theme is repeated in the Wake in 'I know the Twentynine Names of Attraente' (I05.24). 'Be thy mouth given to thee' is a reference to the 'Chapters of Opening the Mouth', and 'Irise, Osirises!' refers to Isis and Osiris. In The Book of the Dead the deceased person is 'identified with Osiris? and so Ani, for example, is called in the Papyrus of Ani, 'Osiris-Ani Triumphant'; and Hunefer, in the Papyrus of Hunefer, is called 'Osiris-Hunefer Triumphant'. In the 182nd Chapter of The Book of the Dead Osiris is called 'He who giveth birth to men and women a second time'. He is 'the ruler of Amenti, i.e., the Other World'. 2 In addition to the works of Budge Joyce probably used Frazer's The Golden Bough, and seems, like his friend T. S. Eliot, to 'have used especially the two volumes Atthis, Adonis, Osiris'.I; The Golden Bough is certainly being used in 'As hollyday in his house so was he priest and king ••. They have waved his green boughs o'er him as they have tom him limb from lamb' (58.5). The word 'boughs' gives a key to the title of Frazer's work, from which the words 'priest and king' are a Budge, The Papyrus of Ani • •. Interlinear Translation, p. li. Budge, Osiris & the Egyptian Resurrection, Vol. I, p. 4. a See T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, notes.
1 i
I93 13
THE SACRED BOOKS quotation. There are several instances where the distinctive wording of a passage proves conclusively that Joyce had based it on Budge's versions of The Book of the Dead. For example Budge normally used the phrase 'words of power' for the frequently occurring Egyptian locution for a magic spell; Joyce writes of 'words of silent power' (345. 1 9). A number of passages in Finnegans Wake suddenly acquire a meaning when The Book of the Dead is studied, for there are many allusions to Ancient Egyptian things that are mentioned there. The first of these in the Wake is 'Mastabatoom, mastabadtomm' (6.10), referring to a mastaba tomb. 'Tilling a tee1 of a tum' (7.5) is the first mention of Atum, a theme which will be dealt with later. An ithyphallic god Min is mentioned several times, the first being 'young min' (12.3), and 'He would just a min' (68.24) means much more when the nature of the god being named is known. The first mention of the title of The Book of the Dead is in 'the leaves of the living in the bake of the deeds' (13.30). The 'good Mr. Finn.imore' who is asked to 'be rusy' and take his lei£,ure and not to be 'walking abroad' (24.17), is being addressed as the Egyptians addressed their dead. He is told that he has everything he needs, 'pouch, gloves, flask, bricket, kerchief, ring and amberulla, the whole treasure of the pyre, in the land of souls' (24.32). Apart from the pyre, which is from a completely different burial service, this suggests an Egyptian burial. The suggestion is confirmed by the mention of . 'shabby little imagettes' (25.2). These are Shabti images which were buried with mummified Egyptians. Budge explains that, 'The Shabti or Shauabti is a figure made of stone, alabaster, wood, faience, etc., and is found in tombs from the VIth Dynasty to the Roman period .•• it bears a text which is identical with the VIth Chapter of the Book of the Dead . • . The text which is cut or written on figures from the XUth dynasty onwards explains quite clearly the purpose the figures were intended to serve, for in it the figure is called upon, in the name of the deceased person written upon it, to perform whatever labours he might be adjudged to do in the other world.'l The si:l.-th chapter is mentioned later in 'We seem to us (the real us!) to be reading our Amenti in the sixth sealed chapter of the going forth by black' (62.26). One meaning of this is that we are being sentenced to an eternity of punishment or labour as Shabti figures. 'Amenti' is an Egyptian word meaning both the World of the Dead and the West. Perhaps 'the sixth sealed' is also an allusion to the six seals which were found on the tomb of Tutankhamen, to which much publicity was given between 1922 and 1
Budge, Osiris & the Egyptian Resurrection, Vol. I, p . .216.
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THE BOOK OF THE DEAD
1927.1 Joyce uses the phrase 'Us, t.'he real Us' twice (62.26 and 446.36); it translates nuk per nuk, '1, even 1', in the royal plural as it was used by the Pharaohs in their inscriptions. An important part of The Book of the Dead is known as 'The Negative Confession'. There were two forms of this and Joyce gives short quotations from each. The first version is introduced by the prayer, 'I know thee, I know thy name. I know the names of the two-and-forty gods who live with thee in this Hall of Maati, who keep ward over those who have done evil ... 1 have brought Truth to thee. 1 have destroyed wickedness for thee.'2 This is followed by about thirty-eight statements beginning, '1 have not .. .' The thirty-third statement is '1 have not obstructed water where it should run.' Joyce has 'I have not Stopped Water Where it Should Flow' (r05.24). This particular form of words suggests that Joyce consulted Budge's Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection for the rendering Budge gives in his Papyrus of Ani is 'I have not turned back water at its season's which is less like the words in the Wake. The other form of the Negative Confession has the deceased addressing in turn, by their names, each of the forty-two gods who are assessors of the dead. 'He had already told Osiris that he knew their names and proceeded to prove it by saying the following: I. 'Hail, Usekh-nemmet, coming forth from Anu,1 have not done iniquity." This continued until forty-two gods had been addressed, each concerned with a different sin. Joyce has, '0, lord of the barrels, comer form from Anow (I have not mislaid the key of Efas-Taem), 0, Ana, bright lady, comer form from Thenanow (1 have not left temptation in the path of the sweeper of the threshold), O!' (3II.II). 'Anow' is clearly Joyce's mutation of Anu, the Egyptian name of a city which the Greeks called Heliopolis. 1 have already pointed out that this gave Joyee the connection he wanted between Anu and Dublin, the city of Timothy Healy or 'Hea1iopolis'. 'Sure you'd only lose yourself in healiopolis now' (24.I8) Mr. Finnimore is told in the passage which includes the reference to shabti imagt:S. The connection between Dublin and Anu is strengthened by a reference to 'when the fiery bird dis embers' (24.II); this must be the phoenix, the bird of Dublin's park and-as 'Bennu', of the XVIIth 1 Tutankhamen is named at least eleven times in the Wake: 26.18; 29.28; 102.22; 242.18; 291.4; 295.8; 335.25; 367.10; 385.4; 395.23; 512.34. The discovery of his mummy seems to have been counted by Joyce as a resurrection, so he is a type of H.C.E. and scattered evenly through the book. 2 Budge, Osiris, Vol. r, p. 338. a Budge, Papyrus of Ani ••• with Interlinear Translation, p. 196. 'Budge, Osiris, Vol. I, p. 340.
195
THE SACRED BOOKS chapter of The Book of {fte Dead-a symbol of resurrection. Joyce writes, 'The phaynix rose a sun before Erebia sank. his smother! Shoot up on bright Bennu Bird! Vafaotri! Eftsoon so too will our own sphoenix spark spL1"t his spyre and sunward stride' (473.16). The word 'Erebia' combines Arabia and Eire; and there is another reference to the name of the park for which Dubliners have changed 'a well of Artesia into a bird of Arabia' (135.15). Joyce seems to have included a few words of the original language of each of the sacred books he used with his references to them in the Wake. I have mentioned elsewhere his use of Middle Egyptian. 'Bennu' is a word from The Book of the Dead where the deceased proclaims, 'He granted that I might come forth as Bennu', and, 'I am the Bennu who is in Heliopolis Ani triumphant'.l Middle Egyptian is again used in 'Sacred ease there! ..• Seekit headup!' (454.34), and 'Seekit Hatup! ••• Suehlt Hotup!' (415.34). All these are distortions of Sekhet hetep, the Egyptian name for the Elysian fields. The words 'a khul on a khat' (415.32) are probably, khat, body, and khu, 'the imperishable soul', two words which are explained by Budge in his Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection.2 It is probable that Joyce used this work, for there does not seem to be any possible source for his word 'antboaf (418.5) but 'Bring ye the Anm (?) Boat to this Pepi's in Budge's translation of the Pyramid Text of Pepi I, which is given as an appendix. to it. Furthermore this appendix. gives the clearest account of the ancient Egyptian creation myth that ascribes the peopling of the world to the selfpollution of Atem, here called Temu,4 upon the primordial mud-heap at Heliopolis. This is, as has already been pointed out, the sin of the father-figure in this era,5 'the firstold vrogger of himself in the flesh' (79. 2). The name of the original father-god occurs frequently in the Wake. Middle Egyptian, like Hebrew, does not usually indicate the vowels of its words, and all that is known for certain of the name of this god is that its consonants were T and M. Atem, Autom, Atoum, Temu and Tem have all been used by various authorities. By one of those coincidences for which Joyce was always on the look-out and of which he made so much use, the God's name could be just what Joyce's father called the waiter in Cork: 'Here, Tim or Tom or whatever your name is, give us Budge, Papyrus of Ani • •• Interlinear Translation, pp. 31, I91. Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, Vol. II, p. 133. • Ibid., II, p. 327. Budge's query. 4 Ibid., II, p. 330. • See above: 'The Structural Books' and 'Lewis Carroll'. 1
2
196
THE BOOK OF THE DEAD the same again here.'l He is 'the tem of the tumulum' (56.34), 'Tem' (88.35) and 'Item', 'Utem', 'Otem' and 'Atem' (223.35, etc.). Joyce also mentions 'Mtu or Mti' (2°4.21) who are Tom or Tim as well as being an Egyptian god. Then there is 'Atems' (352.29) and 'Tem for Tam' (379.34) and 'temtem tamtam' (608.31). He is most clearly god in 'Thorn Thom the Thonderman' (I76.I) but is more often thought of as 'our old offender' (29.3°) than as the thunderer. Many other Egyptian gods are named in the Wake. Isis and Osiris, and Horus and Set are the four main ones. Osiris was killed by Set and his body cut into pieces which were scattered throughout the country. Isis, the wife of Osiris found all the pieces except one-the male member, and magically put them together again and made a model of the missing part after which she conceived and gave birth to Horus who avenged the death of his father by emasculating Set. 'How to pull a good Horuscoup even when Oldsire is dead to the World' (I05.28) is one of the titles of A.L.P.'s manifesto. These Egyptian gods are mentioned often, but I am not sure of Joyce's source of information about them. Perhaps it was another work by E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians. 2 He undoubtedly knew a great deal about Egyptology, and had more than one source-book. But the details from ancient Egypt are blended with the other material to form a single texture. 'On the night of the making of Horuse to crihump over his enemy' (328.34) shows us Horus using the word 'Hump' for H.C.E. as a battle-cry in his fight with Set. All the stories are the same story, so Joyce insists. Everything happens over and over again. 'Here we shall do a far walk: (0 pity) anygo khaibits till the number one of sairey's place. Is, is' (570.28). What Joyce says here is that it will take a long time (khaibit is Middle Egyptian for shadow),;! and there will be many characters playing the part before we get back to the original Isis. The paragraph in which this comes continues, 'It is Stealer of the Heart!' (570.35) which is quoting Chapter XXVII of The Book of the Dead. 'Tefnute' (570.36) is named, one of the two gods begotten by Atem on the mud-heap. Then the text continues, 'Those brilling waveleaplights! Please say me how sing you them. Seekhem seckhem! They arise from a clear springwell in the near of our park which makes the daft to hear all blend. This place of endearment. How it is clear!' (571. I). 'Brilling' is a portmanteau word recalling 'Jabberwocky' and meaning brilliant and thrilling. 'Seckhem' suggests the Egyptian Elysian fields. The 'clear spring' is the A Portrait, p. I!Y'J. E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians. London: Methuen, 1904. 3 Budge" Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, Vol. II, p. 126.
1 2
I97
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fionn uisge of Phoenix Park once more, and it has now become magic water which makes foolish people hear everything blend into one, or perhaps it makes the deaf hear and become blind. Joyce's statement that it is clear is ironically contrasting its name with the obscurity of its history. The scattering of the parts of the body of Osiris has many echoes in the Wake, beginning on u"'1e first page when Finnegan 'sends an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his rumptytumtoes' (3.20). Later he is told that 'The whole bag of tricks, faIconplumes and jackboots incloted, is where you flung them that time. Your heart is in the system of the Shewolf and your crested head is in the tropic of Copricapron. Your feet are in the cloister of Virgo. Your olaIa is in the region ofsahuls' (26.10). This comes on the page after the address to the 'good Mr. Finnimore' about the 'shabbty little imagettes'. Joyce blends the Egyptian theme with all the other themes. Isis is identified with Izod of Chapelizod in a sentence which follows, 'The headboddylwatcher of the chempel of Isid, Totumcalmum, saith: I know thee, metherjar, I know thee, salvation boat' (26.17). The formula '1 know thee' is from The Book of the Dead, in which it is said to every obstacle on the way to salvation. The body of Osiris was not only divided, it was also eaten. Budge thinks that there is some survival of cannibalism in the ritual of the Ancient Egyptians.:!. But, as he says, the ceremonial eating of the god is also connected with the identification of Osiris with wheat. 'The grain which is put into the ground is the dead Osiris, and the grain which has germinated is Osiris who has once again renewed his Iife.'2 This theme constantly recurs in the Wake, and is-as might be expectedconnected with the Last Supper, the Mass and the Communion Service. It is first mentioned in 'Grampupus is fallen down but grinny sprids the boord. Whase on the joint of a desh? Finfoefom the Fush. Whase be his baken head? A loaf of Singpantry's Kennedy bread ••• But,10, as you would quaffoffhis fraudstuff and sink teeth through that pyth of a flowerwhite badey behold of him as behemoth for he is noewhemoe. Finiche!' (7.8). On that occasion the eating of the fatherfigure seems to be a mere illusion. But in the section of the 'Questions and Answers' Chapter that has 'Answer: Finn MacCool!' (139.14) we are told that he is, 'figure right, he is hoisted by the scurve of his shaggy neck, figure left, he is rationed in isobaric patties among the crew' (133.2). A cannibal is mentioned in 'We rescue thee, 0 Baass, 1 Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, Vol. II, p. • Loc. cit.
292,
note
I.
THE BOOK OF THE DEAD from the damp earth and honour thee. 0 Connibell, with mouth burial!' (3II.18). And this follows immediately after an allusion to The Book of the Dead, which has been mentioned earlier, 'I have not mislaid the key of Efas-Taem'. On the other hand it is probably the Mass, not The Book of the Dead which is being parodied in 'he would give him his .•• thickerthanwater to drink' (70.25). The theme is connected with many other religious, and Joyce is almost certainly using Frazer's The Golden Bough in many places. The theme of 'priest and king' (58.5) is mentioned in the passage quoted, 'As hollyday in his house so was he priest and king to that: ulvy came, envy saw, ivy conquered. Lou! Lou! They have waved his green boughs o'er him as they have torn him limb from lamb.' The bough here is holly instead of mistletoe, and the god is killed as Caesar, but the victim is the sacrificial lamb. And once again we are told that, 'Longtong's breach is fallen down but Graunya's spreed's abroad' (58.10). In a later part of the Wake, 'Isn't it great that he's &waying above us for his good and ours' (377.36) must be an allusion to Frazer's 'Hanged God'. The passage continues, 'We could ate you, par Buccas, and imbabe through you, reassuranced in the wild lac of gotliness. One fledge, one brood till hulm culms evurdyburdy' (378.4). The God is identified by the last three words as H.C.E. 'He's doorknobs dead!' we are told (378.1). Frazer says that Osiris was a personification of the corn, and describes how an effigy of the corn-god was buried with funeral rites in order that he come to life again. Joyce writes of 'their soul of the corn' (34.17). Mistletoe, of which the Golden Bough was made, is mentioned several times in the Wake. The most noticeable reference, which includes a mention of the sickle with which it was cut, is ' 'Tis golden sickle's hour. Holy moon priestess, we'd love our grappes of mistellose' (360.24). It occurs in a typically polysemantic passage crammed with allusions to various themes, amongst which comes 'our groatsupper serves to us Panchomaster' (360.36), repeating once again the story of the ceremonial eating of the God. For just as one word in the Wake merges into another, so one sacred book blends into another, against a vaguer background of the myths and legends of all mankind. The 'holy moon priestess' here is Norma, the Druid priestess, who in the opera Norma, sings an aria to the Moon: Casta Diva-begging the Chaste Goddess to spare the Roman officer who has violated the sacred grove, for she loves the Roman officer, who has seduced her. Later he tries to seduce a sister vestal. To exhaust all the implications of any theme in the Wake would entail explaining every detail about the whole book, for all its parts
199
THE SACRED BOOKS cohere into a homogeneous whole. Indeed the motto for the Wake might well be 'ex ungue Leonem' (I62.29) and the language is so concentrated that explanations could fill volumes. For example a quotation from the Pyramid Text of Pepi II is 'keyed' with the phrase 'Beppy's reign'l (4I5.36). Beppi is the Italian diminutive for Joseph who is brought in to share the name with a Pharaoh he 'knew not'. But it is necessary to stop at some point or other in the discussion of any theme, and-apart from discussing some of the names of Gods which Joyce takes from The Book of the Dead-I shall pursue this particular one no further. The names of the Egyptian Gods are a somewhat noticeable feature of the Wake. They are probably meant to a great extent as ornament, but it happens that many of them have names which resemble common English words or which fit easily into a background of English words. 'Hap' (328.I8), the god of the Nile, is a good example ofrbis. Atem has already been discussed. Thoth, the Egyptian god of letters, who plays a great part in the judgement in The Book of the Dead, is named very often and is probably intended in such phrases as 'thother brother' (224.33), as well as in the obvious references to ancient Egyptian names on page 415 as 'thothfully' (415.28) along with 'Ptuh' (415.26) who is Ptah, the god of speech, and is named at 4II.II and 590.I9. The two snakes on the uraeus, or crown of the Pharaohs, are named in 'Apep and Uachet! Holy snakes' (494.I5). Set, the opponent of Horus, is named on 312.3 and 313.4, in a passage where the Norwegian Captain seems to be the opponent of a tailor named Horace-who is probably Horus. This is discussed in the article on the occurrence of the names 'Horus and Set' in A Census of Finnegans Wake, where most of the other Egyptian gods are also to be found. The rest are in Budge's. works which form-as I think Joyce says-a bunch of keys, or 'budge of klees' (511.30),2 for the Wake.
1 See E. W. Budge, The Book of the Dead, English Translation. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., 1938, p. lxili, note I. 2 With Klee, see above, pp. 52 and 84. 200
CHAPTER
I2
The Koran 'studding cowshots over the noran' (37.23)
J
oyee had, as I shall show, studied the Koran in some detail and was probably talking about himself when he made his Shaun say of his Shem: 'I have his quoram of images all on my retinue, Mohomadhawn Mike' (443.I). On one level of meaning this can be taken as saying that Joyce, who is jokingly calling himself a Mohammedan Irishman-and a homadhaun, which is Irish for a lout-has all the images from the Koran on his retina. This last word is also telling us that the first European translation of the Koran was a Latin version by an Englishman, 'Robert of Retina' -a fact which Joyce may have learned from Hughes's Dictionary oj Islam, where Robert of Chester is so named, and where the Koran is always given its Atabic spelling Q;tr-an. The Koran is divided into a hundred and fourteen chapters called suras, each with its own somewhat quaintly-sounding title, such as Ant, Bee, Cow, and so on, taken from some distinguishing word in one of its verses, often the first word. The word sura is said to mean a row or series of similar objects, such as a row of bricks; but it is never used for anything except the chapters of the Koran. It occurs several times in Finnegans Wake with its usual connotation. 'Surabanded' (492.28) is probably intended to draw the reader's attention to the fact that Joyce is weaving the titles of the suras into his text whenever Islam or the Koran are being mentioned. The English titles seem to have been taken from a table, set out in Hughes's Dictionary, which is reprinted at the end of this section v.ri.th the addition of the numbers of the pages in the Wake on which they are quoted. Joyce occasionally quotes the Atabic titles and refers to a number of them mockingly at one point: 'what though preferring the stranger, the coughs and the itches and the minnies and the ratties' (488.33). 'The coughs' are suras 50, I8, and 46: Qat KahJ, and AhqaJ. 'The itches' are 15 and 70: Hijr and Ma'arij (the letter J in Atabic has a sound like our 201
THE SACRED BOOKS
tch). 'The minnies' are suras 40 and 23: Mu'rmn and MU'minum. 'The xatties' are 13 and 49: Ra'd and Hujurat. The basic meaning of the passage seems to be that a man is foolish to leave his own home and his own country to go seeking after strange gods amongst alien people speaking a foreign tongue. ('The stranger' is still current Irish usage for a man who is not Irish.) Usually the titles are given in English, although two or three are in Latin, and a few others may owe their English form to the fact that Joyce owned a copy ou. C. Mardrus's French translation of the Koran.1 Mardrus's name is mentioned twice in the Wake, 'the Murdrus dueluct' 874.12) and 'the author, in fact, was mardred' (SI7.n). On both occasions there is a strong suggestion that Joyce disapproved of Mardrus's translation-a1though this may refer mainly to his Thousand and One Nights, of which the Encyclopaedia Britannica says that it 'refers to no known original'. Professor Connolly tells us that only the first thirty-two pages of Joyce's copy of the Mardrus translation had been opened, so Joyce cannot have read very much-perhaps he only used the list of chapter-titles. But Joyce certainly read the Koran in some version, and a knowledge of the contents of the sura which is being named is often needed to understand his text. 'The grand ohold spider'2 (352.23) is a reference to sura 29: Spider. This titl.e is taken from the words of verse 4I: 'The parable of those who take guardians beside Allah is as the parable of the spider that makes for itself a house .... Verse 43 of the same sura reads: 'And as for these parables We set them forth for men, and none understand them but the learned.' At about an equal distance down his own page Joyce sticks out his tongue to retort: 'Dom Allaf O'Khorwan, connundurumchuff.' Lokman (367.I) is the Muslim prophet whose name is used as the title of sura 31. He is best known for the admonition he gave to his son on the respect due to parents, in the comse of which he told his son that Allah knew all his acts, even to the weight of a grain of mustard seed sunk deep into the earth. Joyce had little sympathy with such paternal homilies and comments, 'And he grew back into his grossery baseness: and for all his grand remonstrance', which seems to say that Lokman's hortation was fruitless-it certainly turns his buried mustard seed into a grocery business in the basement. The first sura of the Koran, Fatihah, has to be recited every time a Muslim says his prayers. There is a description of this being done at the point where this surf. is named in the Wake. 'They say their salat 1
Connolly, p. 23.
n And quotes Parnell's name for Gladstone. 202
THE KORAN
[salat is Arabic for prayer], the maidens' prayer to the messiager ofRis Nabis (Nabi is Arabic-and Hebrew-for prophet] prostitating their selfs .... Fateha. fold the hands. Be it honoured, bow the head' (235.1). Folding the hands, bowing the head, and prostrating oneself are wellknown attitudes of Mohammedan prayer.
THE SACRED BOOKS means rain; but we are also being told that the wind is unpleasant and the rain infertile. A simpler example of the trope is 'kosenkissing' (436.9) where,kosen is German for caressing but the word as a whole means kissing-cousins. This happens with 'Para's pence' (98.14), where para is Turkish for money. In 'Ansars helpers' (5.25) again, the first word is translated by the second. But there is an additional complication here for, as Hughes explains, the reference of the word ansars is usually to Mohan:.med's amanuenses, the Ansars, who wTote down the words of the Koran from its illiterate author's dictation. Joyce's Shaun approved of this method of composition and planned to use it himself. 'I'd pinsel it with immenuensoes as easy as I'd perorate a chickerow of beans ... the authordux Book of Lief' (425.18). When Joyce's sight failed he used the method himself. Often the Turkish and Arabic words are combined with English words which convey one meaning while a different meaning is found when the foreign 'words are recognized. This is one of the commonest ways in which Joyce used foreign words. Examples are, 'it is to bedowem that thou art passing hence' (427.I8) in which Shaun at first seems to be going to bed but there is a German phrase es ist zu bedauern, 'it is to be regretted', hidden in the words; and 'takestock' (4I8.34) which conceals a German conductor's baton: Takstock. In the Lokman passage there is a sentence: 'Brow, tell nun; eye, feign sad; mouth, sing mim' (366.36). On the literalleve1 this is advice to a young lady to behave modestly. Another meani'1g appears when the words nun, sad, and mim are recognized as the names of the Arabic letters corresponding to our N, S, and M. These are three of the mysterious letters which introduce certain suras. Hughes's Dictionary of Islam has under 'Nun': 'The letter N which occurs at the commencement of the LXVIIIth Surah of the Qur-an. The meaning of which is acknowledged by all commentators to be a mystery.' Sad is the title of sura 38. The whole passage is an example of the Gnostic sense 'which none understand but the learned'. The unlearned are apparently expected to amuse themselves with the pun on the words nun and none, for flippancy-like everything elseis brought into Finnegans Wake. A flippant treatment of another Arabic letter appears in the words 'jims in the jam, sahib' CI2I.IS), wherejim is not only the name by which Joyce was known to his friends but also the Arabic name for the letter J which-according to the childish jokeis always in jam; while jim-jams is a slang word for disorders varying from delirium tremens to plain fidgets. All the suras except the ninth begin with the formula known as the Bismillah: 'In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate'. 204
THE KORAN Joyce parodies this twice. Once he turns it into 'In the name of Annah the Allmaziful, the Everliving .. .' (104.1). Ana is the Turkish for mother, mazi is Turkish for olden times and the past tense. On the next page is a reference to 'the stream of Zemzem'. Zemzem, usually rendered Zamzam, is the sacred well within the precincts of the mosque at Mecca. Joyce may have taken it from Hughes, but the spelling suggests that he consulted the earliest accurate account of it in English in the 'Preliminary Discourse' to George Sale's translation of the Koran where we are told that 'The Mohammedans are persuaded that it is the very spring which gushed out for the relief of Ishmael, when Hagar his mother wandered with him in the desert; and some pretend it was so named from her calling to him, when she spied it, in the Egyptian tongue, Zem, zem, that is, "Stay, stay", though it seems rather to have had the name from the murmuring of its waters.'l The same passage in the Wake contains the phrase 'his Dual of Ayessha' (105.19), which includes the name of Ayesha, the best-loved wife of the Prophet. They were married when she was nine and he was over fifty-a disparity in ages which gives one reason for the inclusion of Mohammed in the Wake in which he forms one incarnation of the figure of the old man with child lovers that dominates the book. The rest of Mohammed's family are also named. 'Abdullah' (34.2) was the Prophet's father, and the question 'Ibdullin what of Himana' (309.13) contains a variant spelling of Abdullah, and an anagram of Aminah, the name of the Prophet's mother. Fatima, Mohammed's daughter, is mentioned twice by name-once as a type of Eve (2°5.31), perhaps because all the 'Posterity of the Prophet' are descended from her; once as an example of the transmitter ofa tradition (389.I5), for many of the 'Sayings of the Prophet' are said to owe their preservation to her marvellous memory. Mohammed is mentioned by name many times. It is significant of the part he plays in the Wake that he is never allowed the exclusive use of his own ~ame. One example is 'So saida to Moyhammlet and marhaba to your MOW'lt!' (4I8.17). Hamlet is combined with Mohammed and seems to combine the Shakespearian character with the words 'my hamlet'. Saida is Arabic for 'Good evening', and marhaba Arabic for 'Good morning'. Saida also means 'said l' and includes the name of Zaid, the prophet's adopted son who divorced his "TIe so that Mohammed could marry her: one said 'Good evening' while the other said 'Good morning!' The MOW'lt combines the mountain, that proverbially l. George Sale (Trans.), The Koran. London: F. Warne & Co. [1891J, p. 9Z. The first edition of this work was published in 1734.
205
THE SACRED BOOKS refused to go to Mohammed, with Mount Hita where Mohammed claimed to have received his :first revelations. These came to hlm in a dream, which adds another aspect to Mohammed's suitability to be one of the constituent persons of the father-figure whose dream is creating the world of the Wake. This figure is reincarnated for ever and ever; he becomes the sons, and he is at the same time their father and their adversary. Joyce uses Mohammed as an example of the father as enemy. This is shown neatly in the line about Moyhammlet quoted above, where the father stealing his son's wife is accompanied by a reference to Hamlet, in which a brother's wife is stolen. The father a') the adversary ofthe son is seen in the one word'Mahamoth' (244.36), where the names of Mahound and Behemoth, devils from Spenser and Milton, combine with Mahound, the ancient figure of evil whom the Crusaders fought, and the mammoth the Stone Age men feared. In one place Mohammed undergoes a surprising change of sex: ' ••• his Cape of Good Howthe and his trippertrice loretta lady, a maomette to his monetone' (312.19). The reference to the Litany of Loretto includes Mohammed as 2 part of the composite figure of the Virgin and Carroll's 'Liddell Alice'. The reason for it is, I suspect, that Joyce is working out his image of the word as a stage, and when a pantomime is played the 'heavy men' of the cast have to dress up as little girls, Ugly Sisters, and so on, while the part of the Principal Boy is played by the chief female star.l So on one occasion Shakespeare becomes 'Missy Cheekspeer, and your panto's off!' (257.20). Here we are being told that the games are over and the little girl who has been playing Shakespeare is going to be spanked. Her cheeks appear because her pants are off. A similar change of sex happens to Napoleon and his two wives when 'la pau' Leonie has the choice of her lives between Josephiuus and Mario-Louis •. : (246.16). But the change of sex only touches Mohammed in the one sentence. His appearance in the Wake may, indeed, be primarily due to Gibbon's footnote 162 to Chapter 50 of The Dedine And Fall, for this quotes 'the exclamation of Ali, who washed his body after death, 0 propheta, ecrte penis suus coelum versus erectus est.' This explains Joyce's choice of the symbol for what he calls 'HCE interred in the landscape'.2 Usually Mohammed represents the father-figure, or the writer-the creator, in fact. It is worth mentioning at this point that H.C.E. is said to be hump-backed, and that Mohammed had some kind of lump on his 1
It may, however, have something to do with Plato's suggestion (Gorgias
9IA) that wicked men are born again as women.
• Letters, p. 254. Letter dated '3I May 1927'. And see below, p. 227.
206
THE KORAN shoulder which is variously described as a wart, a slight deformity, or an organ of prophecy. H.C.E. is himself another incarnation of Finn McCool, the giant. In a section describing Finn we are told that 'the false hood of a spindler web chokes the cavemouth of his unsightliness but the nestlings that liven his leafscrean sing him a lover of arbuties' (131.18). This alludes to the legend that Mohammed hid from his enemies in a cave, where he slept while a spider built its web across the entrance and a bird laid its eggs on the ground before it, so that the Prophet's enemies were certain that no one had approached the cave for days, and did not look inside. When Shaun considers exile he mentions Mohammed's legendary night journey on a winged horse to Jerusalem. 'I'll borrow a path to lend me wings, quickquack, and from Jehusalem's wall, clickclack, me courser's clear ... I'll travel the void world over ... Break ranks! After wage-of-battle bother I am thinking most ... You watch my smoke' (469.8). The 'wage of battle bother' is referring to the division of the spoils after the Battle of Badr which is described in the Koran in sura 8: Spoils. Ranks and Smoke are the titles ofsuras 37 and 4I. There are several aspects of Mohammed's life and character, apart from the sexual prowess which seems to have been his main attraction for Joyce, to suggest his inclusion a~ a type of the writer and creator. He was an exile forced to leave home in order to continue his mission and compose his book. He was a son who found, to his sorrow-like Joyce's Stephen-that his religious convictions forbade him to pray for his dead mother. But it was not so much Mohammed as his book, the Koran, and its sums, 'the sure ads of all quorum' (312.34), which attracted Joyce's attention as being, for millions of people, what he wished his own book to be-The Book. At the same time Joyce's dream-technique 'touring the no placelike no timelike absolent in his sinegar clutchless' (609.1) has to include also all Mohammed's background, even introducing Ad, the legendary founder of the Arab tribes, who is mentioned in the Koran. So the 'sure ads' are not only the suras, whose titles tell us when the Koran is being mentioned in the Wake, but also the twelve tribes of Arabs, confident in their faith. The Koran interested Joyce not only because it is one <..fthe world's major sacred books but also for a technical reason which made it useful for his purpose; it is not only sacred but also extremely difficult to interpret. Perhaps it has been the necessity of making a reputedly infallible book conform with all the changing needs of Islamic civilization in successive centuries that has led to the growth of the intricate science of Koranic exegesis, perhaps it is the intricacy of the Koran 207
THE SACRED BOOKS itself; but no book-not even the Bible-has been studied with such devoted subtlety. Hughes's Dictionary of Islam contains, in the article 'Qur-iin', a subsection purporting to give a brief outline of the ways in which the Koran has been explained. This summary, which Hughes declares to be exiguous and inadequate, contains well over a thousand words. But, since there is a possibility that Joyce read it and used it, I will give here an even more exiguous summary of Hughes's 'brief outline', aiming at exemplifying the intricacy of the system rather than explaining its intricaci~:
(r) The words are of four classes: special, hidden, ambiguous, and complex. (2) Sentences are of two kinds: obvious and hidden. (3) Obvious sentences may be clear, explained, technical, or incontrovertible. (4) Hidden sentences may conceal a second meaning, may have two obvious but incompatible meanings, may display a whole variety of meanings, or may have no meaning that any human intelligence can grasp. (5) There are four levels of meaning. They are literal, figurative, palpable, and metaphorical. But this last point is subject, Hughes tells us, to debate; and he adds that some Islamic scholars maintain that there are more than four levels of meaning. The alternative usually put forward is seven, but other larger numbers have been suggested. This business of finding multiple meanings in a sacred book is an
ancient and reputable occupation for scholars which must have been well known to Joyce. Several years have gone by since Professor Levin first suggested in his pioneer book, James Joyce, A Critical Introduction, that the four levels of meaning which Dante declared to be present in the Divine Comedy were present also in Finnegans Wake. It now seems certain that this is true; but with Joyce's customary 'toomuchness ... fartoomanyness' (122.36), it also seems certain that there are more than four levels, and that one of the purposes, and the results, of the slow process of accretion that produced the Wake was the addition of more and more levels to t.lle literal foundation. This may not have anything to do with the use Joyce made of the Koran. But, on the other hand, if Joyce heard of anything that could be done with words he was likely to try doing it himself. Carroll's Doublets are a good example of this. And if Joyce read the article about Koranic exegesis in Hughes he would be certain to make use of it. 208
THE KORAN Perhaps it is just by accident that the various types of words described by Hughes appear in the Wake, but it is not impossible that the intricacy of the levels in Joyce's book owes something to Hughes's article. In other, less important ways Joyce certainly used the Koran a good deal. It may well be that the Koran (and perhaps also the Book of Mormon) is being discussed when Joyce's washerwomen are 'dodwell disgustered but chickled with chuckles at the tittles is drawn on the tattlepage' (212.33). If so, the 'tittles' in this case are the suratic tides and 'dodwell' includes J. M. Rodwell, a translator of the Koran. E. H. Palmer, another translator, is named in the sentence, 'Like as my palmer's past policy I have had my best master's lessons' (539.8). His name may also be meant in 'Paddy Palmer' (254.10), as well as a reference to St. Patrick. Sale may also be mentioned, as 'saale' (196.15), but his name is a common word in more than one language.1 The Koran appears in several unexpected ways. Most surprisingly it is referred to as if it were a telephone directory, or at least phone numbers given in the Wake only acquire significance if they are taken as being references to a chapter and verse of the Koran. For example, we are told that the reason H.C.E. does not 'reach for the hello gripes and ring up Kimroage Outer 17.67' (72.20) is because 'he thought the rowmish devowrlon known as the howly rowsary might reform him'. The double meanings of the last phrase are fairly obvious, but I can suggest no meaning to 'Kimmage Outer 17.67' except that it is a reference to the Koran, n:67, which is a verse addressed to Satan and used as a protection against the devil: 'Verily my servants, thou hast no authority over them: thy Lord is guardian enough over them.' And the surrounding pages are full of references to the Koran, including the tides of six suras. Another example is: 'that royal pair in their palace of quicken boughs hight The Goat and Compasses ('phone number 17:69, if you want to know) his seaarm strongsround her, her velivole eyne ashipwracked' (275.14). If this' 'phone number' is taken as a reference to the Koran it gives us : 'And when a mishap befalleth you at sea, they whom you invoke beside God are not to be found.' The Goat and Compasses is a name sometimes found on the signboards of English inns which is often said to be a corruption of 'God encompasses US'.2 SO in Joyce's text at this point we have shipwreck and the all-embracing presence of God to justify the quotation of the Koranic verse. I suspect that there is another reference of this kind intended when 1 2
It occurs in the Wake at 444.22; 498.35; 574.6; 606.36. See Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, article 'Goat'. 209 14
THE SACRED BOOKS 'Earwicker ... realising ..• the supreme importance of physical life (the nearest help relay being pingping K.O. Sempatrick's Day) .• .' (35.21). The word 'relay' suggests some electrical device. 'Pingping' is obviously the ring of a bell. 'K.O.' gives what I am suggesting is used as the 'Exchange Number' of the Koran. If I am right, then the passage means that Earwicker felt that his life was in danger, and should have looked up the verse of the Koran corresponding to St. Patrick's Day. But this does not precisely indicate a verse. Are we to take it as 3:17, for March 17th, or as 17:3 for the seventeenth of March? As it happens both verses could be said to fit the occasion. Both say that salvation can be obtained only by means of the Book, but presumably in this case the book is Finnegans Wake not the Koran. That Islam is a theme of some importance may be seen from the position which the first mention of it occupies in the Wake. It comes at the very beginning of the book, almost immediately after the ricorso that connects the last word to the first, and immediately after the paragraphs into which are woven the titles of the ·books of the Pentateuch. 'Our cubehouse still rocks as earwitness to the thunder of his arafatas but we hear also through successive ages that shebby choruysh of unkalified muzzlenimiissilehlms that would blackguardise the whitestone ever hurtleturtled out of heaven. Stay us wherefore in our search for righteousness, 0 Sustainer, what time we rise and when we take up to toothmick and before we lump down upown our leatherbed and in the night and at the fading of the stars!' (5.14). 'The cubehouse' is a literal translation of the Ka'aba, the centre of the Mohammedan world. 'Arafata' is the plain and the hill near Mecca, where all pilgrims spend the hours from noon till sunset on the ninth day of their pilgrimage. 'The whitestone' is the famous Black Stone of the Ka'aba, which is said to have been as white as milk when it came down from Paradise, but to have been blackened by the sins of mankind. The Muslim missiles are the stones thrown in the pilgrimage ceremony of 'pelting the devil'in memory, it is said, of Abraham's having driven the devil away with stones when tempted to disobey God's command,to sacrifice Isaac, and also the Black Stone itself. Several other allusions to Islamic lore follow and are linked up with other religions by the mention of Ka1i and Horus. Then Joyce goes on to list the five set times of obligatory prayers. These should start at noon, but Joyce's list begins with 'what time we rise'. The rest of the list fits perfectly, so presumably Joyce is indicating noon as the time he usually got out of bed. 'When we take up to toothmick' :is when the sun is half-way towards its setting. Mohammed is known to have been very fond of using a toothpick; Ayesha handed him one as he 210
THE KORAN lay dying. 'Before we lump down upown our leatherbed' is the sunset prayer. The ownership of leather beds was one of the subjects of discussion after the Battle of Badr and is mentioned in sura 8: The Spoils. 'In the night' is the prayer when night has closed in; and the last one, 'at the fading of the stars', is the prayer just before dawn. This is to be said at 'the morning moment he could dixtinguish a white thread from a black' (63.25). Even without the interspersed allusions to things Islamic there can be no doubt but that this is meant to be an account of the Islamic prayers; and it is significant that Joyce chose this set of prayers to open Finnegans Wake. It disproves completely, I think, the contention still being made in some places that Joyce remained to the end a Catholic or even a Christian. What he seems to have been attempting was some kind of blend of all religions-whether as equally true or untrue is not so certain, but I incline to the belief that the former was his view. Joyce, like Carlyle, admired Mohammed for the statement he is said to have made that the Koran was his miracle and that no other was required to prove his mission divine. The Koran refers to the accusation that Mohammed had forged the book. 'Or do they say he has forged it? Then bring a chapter like this and ask who you can to write it besides Allah!' (Ko. rO:38). Mohammed repeatedly challenged his detractors to compose even one chapter like those of the Koran. Much is made in the Wake of Shem's 'epical forged cheque' (r8I.r6), and Joyce's interest in the topic of forgery has been discussed in the section on manuscripts. But the important point here is that Joyce, who devoted an entire chapter of Ulysses to proving that he could write like anybody he wished to imitate, was not the man to let a challenge like Mohammed's go unanswered; and in one place in the Wake he seems to be claiming that he has accepted Mohammed's challenge and defeated him. Since I first suggested this, some years ago,1 a book by David Hayman, Joyce et Mallarme, has demonstrated conclusively that in this challenge Joyce also includes Mallarme, whose Un Coup de Des is the Wake's only rival in contemporary obscurity. Mallarme is never quite named; but his name, by another of the innumerable accidents Joyce was so quick to seize, combines easily with that of Mohammed-granted Joyce's liberty of spelling any way he wished. The action at the point we are now concerned with is a cross-talk scene between two comedians Butt and Tw. They are discussing the 1 See 'Islam and the Koran in Finnegans Wake', Comparative Literature, VI, 3, 1954, p. 250.
2II
THE SACRED BOOKS shooting of a Russian general and their patter is full of allusions to Mohammed and the Koran. Following the reference to the spider and 'Dom Allaf O'Korwhan', which has already been mentioned, Taff makes a parody of the Bismillah: 'And the name of the most Marsiful, the Aweghost, the Gragious One!' (353.2). Butt's reply is prefaced with the words 'maomant scoffin', which suggest that he is at that moment scoffing at Mohammed, and which Hayman cites as a concealed naming of Mallarme.1 We are told that he is 'deturbaned' which seems to imply that he is determined and has lost his turban. 'Die and be diademmed', following this, is a summary of the doctrine that those who die in the fight for the advance of Islam go straight to Paradise. It also includes an allusion to Un Coup de Dis. The Italian expression 'Senonnevero' does not seem to fit. Perhaps it is an allusion to Hughes's surprisingly callous use of the phrase to comment on a story he tens in his article on 'Writing' about how a diacritical mark being left off a word in an official letter led to all the male Jews and Christians in a certain province being castrated-instead of being merely counted, as the letter was meant to order. The passage 'then hemale man ... now shedropping his hitches' (58.I8) may have been suggested by the same passage, for it was an aspirate that went wrong. 'Se non i vera son trovatore' (30I.16), followed by '0 jerry! He was soso, harriot all!' also probably refers to the same theme, with Harriet Hall as the sister of the semi-emasculated Samuel Hall of the students' song. And she, of course, has lost an sitch as wen to become 'all'. But I am allowing myself to yield to the ever-present temptation, when writing about the Wake, of following a single thread to its conclusion, and explaining the jokes, instead of ignoring side-issues and getting on with the business in hand. To return to the cross-talk act: Butt says, 'Senonnevero! That he leaves nyet is my grafe. He deared me to it and he dared me done it, and bedattle I didaredomt' (353.9). On the literal level the Russian General has dropped his trousers to relieve himself and Butt has shot him in the exposed part. On the literary level Joyce has accepted the challenge involved in the work of Mohammed and Mallarme and defeated them. In short Joyce has written a chapter like those of the Koran. And if anyone should ask which chapter, the answer is any or all the chapters, but especially the Anna Livia chapter, for Joyce wrote 'you could wright anny pippap passage .•. as foine yerself ••. Christ's Church varses Bellial!' (301.6). The word 'anny' is naming the chapter, and Joyce is setting himse1fup 1
David Hayman,Joyce et Mallanne. Paris: Letttes Modemes, 1956, VoL II,
p.120.
212
THE KORAN as the Christian champion, defeating Mohammed-and at the same time Mallarme and Carroll, whose connection with this passage has already been mentioned. On other levels the exposure theme is repeated and the creative act becomes a defecation. 'I ups with my crozzier. Mirrdo! With my how on armer and hits leg an arrow cockshock rockrogn. Sparro!' This presents us with a picture of Joyce's heresiarchal crozier blasting the Mallarm6m symbols to bits, and reducing his swan of poetry to a realization of its comparative insignificance; Sparrow! THE SURAS OF THE KORAN IN
Finnegans Wake
The first two columns are taken from Hughes's Dictionary of Islam. Some of the titles are common words and no attempt has been made to list all the occurrences of such words as 'night'. Page numbers in ordinary figures refer to the English title; italic numbers refer to the Arabic title.
Arabic Fatihah 2. Baqaeah I.
3. Alu' Imran 4. 5. 6. 7.
Nisa Maidah Amam A'raf
8. Anfal 9. Taubah 10. Yunus II. Hud 12. Yusuf
13. Ra'd
14.
Ibrahim
Mention in F. W.
English Preface Cow
235,347 63. 83, 90, 105, 243, 427, 444,445. etc. The Family ofImran 3I6 (him •.. Ran), 228?, 444 Women 173, 548, 58!, etc. Table 26, 94, 127, 456, 462 Cattle 63,3 16,548 Araf 5 (arafata) Eminences . . his 494 (emanence seventh) Spoils 124 Repentance 231 ? (contrite attrition) Jonah 245. 323, 35 8, 455 Hud 186, 285 Joseph 125,213.262,366, 5 I2 , 607 ('fourth of the twelfth' indicates verse 4 of sura 12, Joseph's dream) Thunder 5, 52, 3 14, 488, 491, etc. Abraham 78, 104, ro6, 307, 346, 570,
etc. IS. Hijr
5, 64, 170, 254, 488
Rock 2I3
THE SACRED BOOKS ][6. Nahl
Bee
23 8, 242, 387, 461 But the word has an extra meaning in FW which I do not understand. The Gaelic beac, 590, commemorates Joyce's day as sub-editor of The Irish
][7. Banu Israel ][8. Kabf
Children of Israel Cave
!9. Maryam.
Mary
20. Ta Ha 21. Ambiya
T.R.
22. Haji
Pilgrimage
23. Mu'minin 24. Nur 25. Furqan
Believers Light Koran
27 16, ][31, 261, 365, 1.88, 586 27, 239, 265, 293, 309, 366, 440 ,49 2 • 443 TocH.=T.H. 29, 33, 50, 68, 240, 305 ('He prophets most who bilks the best'. Verse 5 of this sura says: 'They say it is a medley of dreams; nay he has forged it.'), 307, etc. 51, 62, 3I2, 347, 472, 483, 533,57 I 352 , 4 88, 49 1 2I4,31O
Beekeeper.
Prophets
20, 40, 242, 297, 3I2, 366,
368, 443, 597 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 3I. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.
Shu'ara Naml Qasas 'Ankabut Rum Luqman Sajdah Ahzab Saba Mala'ikah Ya Sin Saffat Sad Zumar
Poets Ants Story Spider Greeks Lokman Prostration Confederates Sheba Angels
482 18, 197, 340, 5I6, 579 12, 28, 35, 63, etc. 108, 131, 244, 352 6, II, I7, 243, 28I, 620 367 235 84,349 68, 198 90, 238, 482, 605 270 (ya, in), 605
y.s.
Ranks S. Troops
4 69
28I, 3 66, 537 273,5 10 214
THE KORAN 301 , 352, 488, 49 1 63,5 24 34 (committee) 183 64, 337, 362, 469, 577, 578 394,612 488 20, 54, 82, 156, 244, 297, 312, 353, 418, 49 1, 499, 623 105, 379, 472, 500 45, 94, lOS, 272 , 455, 456, 488, 548, 585
40. Mu'min 41. Fussilat 42. Shura 43. Zukhruf 44. Dukhan 45. Jasiyay 46. Ahqaf 47. Muhammad
Believer Explanation Council Ornaments Smoke Kneeling Ahqaf Mohammed
48. Fath 49. Hujurat
Victory Chambers
50. Qaf 51. Zariyat 52. Tur
Scattering Winds Mountain
53. 54. 55. 56. 57.
Star Moon Merciful Inevitable Iron
Najm Qamar Rahman Waqihah Hadid
58. Mujadilah 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.
Hasl}.r Mumtahinah Jumnuah Saff Muuafiqun
Q.
488
Disputer Assembly Proved Assembly Alray Hypocrites
161
65. Talaq
Mutual Deceit (Manifestation of Defects) Divorce
66. Tahrim 67. Mulk
Prohibition Kingdom
64. Taghabuu
589 (gales tosmithereens) 19, 21, 32, 90,90, 241, 309, 455, etc. 23, 29, 59, 341, etc. 54, 59, 138, 244, 341, etc. 104, 353, 3 88 no, 441, 599 27, 138, 207, 242, 245, 310, 35 1, 392, 45 6 This does not seem to be named. 97 97 234,593 Not named but here may be an allusion to it in 'My shemblable! My freed' 489 589 (counterbezzled)
589 (Exposition of failures) 441,586 (The word usually refers to the play, A Royal Divorce), 315 (talka). 453 18,
21,)
IU,213
THE SACRED BOOKS 68. Qalam
Pen
69. Haqqah
fuevitable Day
70. Ma'arij 7r. Nuh
Steps Noah
72 • Jinn 73. Muzzamml
Genii Wrapped Up
74- Muzzamml
Enfolded
75. Qiyamah 76. Dahr
Resurrection Time
77. Mursalat
Messengers
78. Naba 79. Nazi'at
News Those Who Drag
80. 81. 82. 83.
He Frowned Folding Up Oeaving Asunder Short Measure
19,252, 301, 303, 483 (Joyce would know that the Arabic title comes from K&AcxlLo~-a reed) 46r? (last day), lIO, 441, 599 68, 488,529,618 47, 64, 125, r78, 244, 307, 335, 383, 3 88, 393, 463, 490 , 513,6II 23, 262 (dinn), 597 (Djin) 20 ethe rapt one'-the same sound as the English title and t'D.e same meaning as the Arabic) 244 (folded), 444 (swaddled), 604 (swathed) 62, 138, 40 9, 593 35, 173, 206, 236, 350 , 356, 453,546, etc. 235,235 (salat .•. messiager),
60 9
'Abasa Takwir Infitar Tatfif
84. Inshiqaq
Rending in Sunder
85. Buruj 86. Tariq
Celestial Signs [of the Zodiac] Night Stall."
87. A'la 88. Ghashiyah
Most High Overwhelming 216
235 (twice) 28, 1940 377 546 (Dragged asunderwith sura 82, q.v.) 301,493 (Rabasund)
576 546 336 (? 'measures', probably not meant as a sura) 170 ('rending of the rocks'with sura IS), 546 (with suras 79, 82-these three seem to form a sort of 'word ladder') 56 ('signs of his zooteac') 34 (with Lewis's Tarr),239, 274,256 2I3, 30 9, 3 II , 355, 60 9 381
THE KORAN 89. Fajr 90. Balad
Daybreak City
9I. Shams
Sun
92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97.
Lail Zuha Inshirah Tin 'Alaq Qadr
Night Sun in his Meridian Expanding Fig Congealed Blood Power
98. Baiyanah 99. Zalzalah 100. 'Adiyat 101. Qari'ah
Evidence Earthquake Swift Horses Striking
102. 103. 104. 105.
Takasum Asr Humazah Fil 106. Qaraish 107. Ma'un lOS. Kausar
Afternoon Slanderer Multiplying Elephant Whale Necessaries Kausar
109. Kafuun IIO. Nasr III. Abu Lahab
Infidels Assistance Abu Lahab
II2. Ikhlas II3. Falaq II4. Nas
Unity Daybreak Men
353 42, etc. (ballad), 127, 205, 364, etc. 170, etc., 90, 473, 481, 494, etc. 40,49, 138, etc. 494 (sun in his emanence) 410, 440, 448 12, 42,322, 583 453 56,303,346,347, etc. (with Frank Power and Power's spirits) 86,3 1 4,534 IS (quaky ••. earth) 15,490 (both 'houybnhnms') 314, 501 (unhindered and odd times 101)
460 34, 199 (calumnia) II9, 281, 405 244, 300, 427, 461, 513, 564 197, 241, 245, 3II 201, 254, 553 (Although the name of a river in Paradise this does not seem to be used) 589, 61 4 381,433 153 (the one one oneth of the propecies) 101, 176, 585 353 62,461, 472, etc., 516, 522, 524, etc. (But Naas is a race-course and Maas was a singer. Nas is the last word in the Koran)
21 7
CHAPTER 13
The Eddas 'eddaying back to thew? (389.21)
F
rank Budgen was the first to write about Joyce's use of the Eddas in an article called 'James joyce's Work in Progress and Old Norse Poetry' which appeared first in transition and aa."terwards in An Exagmination. Joyce must have thought well of this essay for he told Miss Weaver that he hoped to have it translated and published in a Danish or Swedish review. l Budgen says that he can 'see a kinship' between Joyce and 'heathen Scandinavia'2 and suggests that the Mutt and Jute episode (pp. 16-18) presents a kind of parallel to the Voluspo. 'In the Edda', he writes, 'we find the same sense of continuous creation as in Joyce's Work in Progress. The world and the Gods were doomed but phoenix like they were to rise again ..• Thor's hammer fell into the mighty hands of his two sons . • • In Wark in Progress the poet's imagination seems one with racial memory. Human society in its groups, tribes, nations, races, searches the earth and its legends for the story of its beginoing.'3 It is in this sense, as the attempt of the Norse people to describe the creation of the world, that Joyce uses the Eddas. There are also many references to the Sagas, indeed the Wake itself is once described as 'this Eyrawyggla saga' (48.16). This is a good description for it refers to the Eyrbyggja saga, a title which Morris translated as The Ere-landers Saga, and 'Ere' would be near enough to Eire or Erin for Joyce's purposes. The saga itself describes how an increasing number of 'undead' who were causing trouble by their hauntings were finally laid by holding a court over them and passing judgement upon them. Joyce probably had this in mind when he wrote about the trial of Shaun. The Heimskringla is being named in 'a waast wizzard all of whirlworlds' (I7.28) for its title is derived from Kringla heimsins, 'the world's circle', and there are other references to this Letters, p. 28I. Letter dated '28 May 1929'. SAn Exagmination, p. 37. 3 Ibid., p. 40.
1
218
THE EDDAS work.1 Joyce also adds many romantic details. For example in his introduction to the Mutt and Jute episode which Budgen said paralleled the Voluspo we are told that 'it is slaking nuncheon out of some thing's brain pan' (15.33). This reflects 'a conception of the viking which appealed to romantic taste in England, an incredibly heroic viking, completely indifferent to death, eager to enter Valhalla and drink beer from the skulls of his enemies . . . The detail of drinking from skulls made an especial appeal, and for a long time few writers could mention a viking without telling the strange fashion of his drinking ... Horace Walpole and Southey prate of it, Percy has it in the Dying Ode of Ragnar, and Matthew Arnold in Balder Dead. The originator was Olafsson who mistranslated the lines of the Krahumal ... '2 The lines in question contain a kenning for horn cups, 'from curved branches of skulls' which was mistakenly translated as 'the skulls of his victims'. Joyce's account of Mutt and Jute is more than half parody and he includes this discredited detail to add to the fun. It is pretty certain that he would use E. V. Gordon's Introduction to Old Norse, from which I have quoted the account of the orii.n and progress of the mistake, for it is the standard book on the Old Norse language for English readers, and-as Patricia Hutchins says-'Joyce went to infinite trouble over his work. One day Mrs. Joyce arrived in my room .•. "You have Norwegian friends, haven't you? Will you ask them to get this book from Oslo-my husband wants it at any price?" '3 Unfortunately it is not stated what the book is, and Budgen's essay mentions no work in Norse except the Eddas. 'Noirse made easy' (314.27) may refer to Gordon's book, aud 'Gordon' (392.34) to the author. The Eddas are named in the Wake quite often. On one occasion, when they are combined with the Arabian Nights, an explanation of their title is mentioned. This is in 'unthowsent and wonst nice or in eddas and oddes bokes' (597.5). One suggested derivation for the word edda is from the of 'Oddi',4 the name of a settlement in the south-west of Iceland where Snorri Sturlason and Saemund the Wise, the two who are thought to have compiled the Eddas, are traditionally said to have lived. But there is no certainty about the composition of the Eddas. 'How did it but all come eddaying back to them' (389.21) wonders Joyce. 1
See Appendix, p. 283, 'Srurlason, Snorri'.
E. V. Gordon, An Introduction to Old Norse. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1927, p. lxxi. 3 Patricia Hutchins, James Joyce's World, p. 156. 2
• See H. E. Bellows (Trans.), The Poetic Edda. New York: The AmericanScandinavian Foundation, I923, p. xvi.
219
THE SACRED BOOKS Runes are mentioned occasionally. 'He who runes may rede it on all fours' (18.5), and 'But the world, mind, is, was and will be writing its own wrunes for ever' (19.35). Runes were often used for magical purposes. E. V. Gordon says, 'An event might be brought to pass if it were cut in runes which were inlaid with blood while charms were recited.'l Joyce had opinions of his own about the magical power of words, and he mentions both the Nordic runes and the Egyptian 'words of power'. The Norse name for the runic alphabet is used once by Joyce in 'Futhorc' (I8.3), which comes just after Mutt and Jute have abruptly vanished. Joyce is following his usual practice of grouping his chosen scraps of material round a focal point. In this case the focal point is the dialogue between Mutt and Jute, and it may be presumed that the scraps of Norse are intended to warn the reader that the passage is intended to be Nordic. Budgen tells us that the sudden ending of the dialogue is similar to the sinking into the ground of the Valva at the end of the Voluspo: 'And as the unwilling Sybil sinks to the underworld and the old giant forfeits his wagered head and the god departs, so the familiar spirits of this river valley become again silent and immobile.'z One of the scraps of Old Norse is t.1.e name of the runic letter, thorn, mentioned in 'thick is for thorn' (19.6). It is characteristic of the demands that Joyce makes on his readers that he expects them to know the origin of the symbol as a rune and not think it merely an AngloSaxon letter. Another word first used in this passage is Ragnarok, which is the name given in tile Eddas to the day of the downfall of the gods. It is first used in the Wake as 'Right rank ragnarocks' (19.4). Norse and Ragnarok are mentioned again when someone knocks at the door in an attempt to waken H.C.E. The noise becomes 'the norse of guns playing Delandy is cartager on the raglar rock to Dulyn' (64.2). But it is also a carter named Delaney on the rocky road to Dublin. The Ragnaroc motif is, I think, repeated in 'the rending of the rocks' (170.24). At the beginning of the Mime chapter it recurs as 'Rocknarrag' (22I.23) followed by 'Rock rent' (221.32). It is repeated, together with a mention of Snorri Sturlason, in 'Sea1and Snorres. Rendningrocks roguesreckning reigns. Gwds with gurs are gttrdmrng' (257.36). The last word here is a disemvowe1led version of the German equivalent of Ragnarok: GOtterdammerung. The last appearance of the word in the Wake is at the end of the attempt Shaun makes to copy the hundredlettered word of the thunder, and here it becomes 'rackinarockar! E. V. Gordon, Introduction to Old Norse, p. • An Exagmination, p. 45.
1
220
I62.
THE EDDAS Thor's for yo!' (424.22). Ragnarok has no place in the Wake after this for several reasons: we are no longer in a 'Divine' period according to Vico's theories; we are in a Christian, rather than pre-Christian period; the falls have occurred and the main remaining business is to describe the resurrection. Shaun's thunder-word contains the name of Thor's hammer, 'Molnir', and the names of Loki or Surt, and Fenris, the wolf who was the most dangerous of Loki's children, who, together with their father, will attack the gods on the day of their downfall. Midgard, which is the home of mortals, is named as 'mudgaard' in the same hundred-lettered word (257.36). Another passage which contains references to the Norse gods is the letter written by Issy which is appended as a note to the 'Night Lessons' chapter. She writes 'I learned all the runes of the gamest game ever from myoId nourse Asa. A most adventuring trot is her and she vicking well knowed them all heartswise and fourwords ... bolt the thor. Auden' (279, note). 'Asa' is frequently used as the English for the Norse word for gods, lEsir. Incidentally there is another strand in the connection Joyce makes between god and the donkey in the Old Norse word for god-which is Ass. It will be noticed that Issy also mentions the name of Thor who was the most popular god in Norse mythology and who causes the thunder. He is named very frequently in the Wake-thirty times at least. His father Odin is named seven or eight times. But, of course, these names are not necessarily connected with the Eddas. But there are many indications that Joyce did make use of the Eddas. The word 'daysent' (578.14) includes the name of George Webbe Dasem who translated the Prose Edda into English. It is followedabout a-page later-by 'brought Thawland within Har danger' (579.28). 'Thawland' here probably means the land of Thor and 'Har' is the name of the god Odin when he answers the questions in the Prose Edda. It is probably meant in 'a most adventuring trot is har' (279. note I). There is also a pun on Hardanger-the name of a fjord-in the same line. One question and answer has many echoes in the Wake. It is: 'Then said Gangleri: What is the headseat or holiest stead of the Gods? Har answers: That is at Yggdrasil's ash, there must the Gods hold their doom every day ... The Ash is of all trees best and biggest, its boughs are spread over the whole world, and stand above heaven; three roots of the tree hold it up and stand wide apart.'l This is connected in the Wake with all the other important trees, particularly the Tree of 1 (G. W. Dasent), The Prose of Younger Edda commonly ascribed to Snorri Sturlason translated/rom the Old Norse by George Webbe Dasent. Stockholm and London, 1842, pp. I6-17.
221
THE SACRED BOOKS Knowledge and the tree from which the Cross was made. The theme is given its chief expressiol2 .in the chapter in the third book which combines an inquest and a spiritualist seance to find 'Pure Yawn lay low" (474.1). The question is asked: '-There used to be a tree stuck up?' (503.30). We are told that it was 'high and holy' (504.2). It is then asked ' ••. how grand ••• is !his preeminent giant . . • I would like to hear ..• what you know ..• about our sovereign beingstalk: .• : (5°4.16). The tree is also Jack's beanstalk-it reaches up to the sky. We are given !l. full account of it. The word 'eggdrazzles' (504.35) connects it with Yggdrasil. There are 'l1ermits of the desert barking their infernal shins over her triliteral roots' (505.4) which are the three roots of the tree as well as the Hebrew language St. Jerome struggled with. But in the Wake the tree conceals within its branches the tempting snake as 'snakedst-tu-naughsy' (5°5.7), proving that this is the Tree of Knowledge. Its leaves are 'sinsinsimUng since the night of time' (505.9), telling us that it is also the tree whose branches are tapping against the window of the inn at Chapelizod where the publican is asleep. Adam sat at the foot of this tree 'to put his own nickelname on every toad, duck, and herring before the climber c10mb aloft, doing the midhill of their park, flattering his bitter hoolft with her conconundrums' (506.1). This echoes Genesis z:19, 'And Adam gave names to all cattle .. .' and the followi!lg verses about the serpent. Finally the tree becomes the Cross as the questions and answers evoke the negro spiritual, 'Was you there when they lagged urn through the coombe?-Wo wo! Psalmtimes it grauws on me to ramble, ramble, ramble' (so6.n). It is the family tree of all mankind; this is the reason for the references it contains to Darwin and his family and rus books,l but all the time it is Yggdrasil. The authors of A Skeleton Key to Fi:nnegans Wake describe fully the use which Joyce makes of the Ginnunga-gap. which is, as they say, 'the name given in the Icelandic Eddas to the interval of timeless formlessness between world aeons'.2 Joyce has a 'ginnandgo gap between antediluvious and annadominant' (14.16). Many Old Norse words are used, especially in the first book of the Wake. For example, 'fjaell' (261.3) which means 'mountain', and 'lokker' (270..21), which is from a word meaning 'an allurer', Svara, the old Norse for 'to answer' may underlie the unexplained word 'swaradid' (Z2.II, etc.) or 'swaradeed' (312.2) which is used several times in the Wake. Joyce also made use of the typical trope of the Edldas, kenning, and mentions it on one occasion, 1 2
See Appendix, p. 244, Darwin, Charles. A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake, p. 45, note z.
222
THE EDDAS
'keen his kenning' (313-31). This is in the Norwegian Captain passage where H.C.E. is Odin, as is shown by his ravens: 'old cawcaws hug.,crin and mUllin for his strict privatear' (327.36), for these are Huginn (Mind) and Muninn (Memory)-Odin's ravens from the Eddas.
223
CHAPTER 14
Other Sacred Books 'in druidful scatterings' (609.35)
I
shall not attempt to discuss all the sacred books that Joyce used. To do so would require a knowledge of Eastern languages which I do not possess. Joyce did not have it either but, as I have already pointed out, he used all kinds of people to supply him vvith words in the languages he wanted to use. Sometimes he seems to have used books about religions rather than the sacred texts. The best example I know of this way of working is from a book by Heinrich Zimmer, Maya der indische Mytlws, for Joyce's personal copy of this book is now in the Lockwood Memorial Library at Buffalo and is described in Connolly's monograph. Many passages in this volume are marked in pencil in the margin and ther.e are three pages of notes which are, according to Connolly, 'by one of Joyce's readers designed to point out passages of interest to Joyce'.l Connolly not only reproduces these notes but prints all the marked passages both in the original German and in an English translation. In a letter he has infornled me that he intends to publish a book on Joyce's use of Zimmer's work in a year or two's time. So I will not discuss it here except to point out that Zimmer's name is mentioned twice in the Wake. The first i.s in 'Herr Betreffender, out for his zimmer holedigs' (69.32) which seems to have the surface meaning of 'the previously mentioned gentleman looking for rooms for his summer holiday'. T'ne second is 'zimmerminnes' (349.4) in a passage that probably contains many words in Sanskrit-'sanscreed' (215.26)and other Oriental languages. But Joyce could not have used Zimmer's book for all the time when the Wake was being written, for it was only published in 1936 and Joyce only received his copy in 1938. Connolly, pp. 42-7. The book discussed is given as: 'Zimmer, Heinrich, der indische Mythos. Berlin: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt" 1936. Presentatiom: 'James Joyce in Bewanderung 8.IO.3S. H. Zimmer'. 1
M~a
224
OTHER SACRED BOOKS BUDDHISM
Joyce's interest in Eastern religions began long before I936. It started in Dublin when 'Esoteric Buddhism' was a fashionable topic with George Russell and his circle. Joyce is said to have made fun of them, and his treatment of the subject in Ulysses supports this statement. In the Wake he treats Buddhism with no more respect than he accords to any other religion. Buddha becomes-like all the other male gods-a father-figure. He is simply one aspect of H.C.E., and in that aspect he is one of the 'gods, human, erring and condonable' (58.18), with the initials pointing out his name as a complete being. There are many schools of Buddhism and the first attempt to unite them was made by an American, Colonel H. S. Olcott, whose Buddhist Catechism was used by joyce. In this book we are told that 'Sakya Muni, or Gautama Buddha ... is an historical personage and his name was Siddartha Gautama.' 'Sakya Muni taught that ignorance produces desire, unsatisfied desire is the cause of rebirth, and rebirth, the cause of sorrow.'l There is a passage in the first chapter of the Wake which forms a set of variations on the theme of this last sentence. 'In the ignorance that implies impression that knits knowledge that finds the nameform that whets the wits that convey contacts that sweeten sensation that drives desire that adheres to attachment that dogs death that bitches birth that entails the ensuance of existentiality. But with a rush out of his navel reaching the reredos ofRamasbatham' (18.24). Joyce ends by referring to another religion, that of Vishnu of whom Rama is a principal avatar. He liked to fit as many religions as he could into his allusions. Buddha is mentioned frequently, and it is noticeable that the spellings seem to be based on those adopted by H. S. Olcott with-of courseJoycean deviations. An early group of references begins with 'Sid Arthur' (59.7). This is followed by 'Maha's pranjapansies' (59.14) and 'the sisterhood' (59.18). This is about Buddha's stepmother, Mahaprajapati, who was the first woman to be admitted to a Buddhist order. Asita, a holy man who corresponds roughly to Holy Simeon in the Bible, is 'sanit Asitas' (60.16) and speaks of 'Sankya Moondy' (60.19) and 'his mango tricks'. Here Joyce has succeeded-perhaps in recognition of the work of H. S. Olcott-in combining the Buddha with Sankey and Moody, two American revivalists. Rahula, the son of 1 H. S. Olcott, A Buddhist Catechism. London: The Theosophical Society, 1891, Appendix. 225
THE SACRED BOOKS Buddha, is named as 'Rahoulas' (62.5), a spelling which suggests a French source. The name comes between parentheses: '(be mercy, Mara.! A he whence RahoWas !)'. Mara is the tempter of the Buddha, the Evil One of the story. ][ think Joyce is saying that Mara was Rahu1a's father, for this would fit with the sin which Joyce imputes to the Buddha: 'propogandering his nullity suit' (59.22), that is to say. rejecting his wife and deser-Jug his child. 'Gautamed budders deossiphysing our Theas' (277 margin), seems to be making a statement of the same kind. 'Gautamed' includes Gautama and Goddamned as well as tamed: 'Theas' are goddesses, but all I can say about the word 'deossiphysing' is that it suggests Theosophy and is unlikely to have pleasant connotanons-taking the bone out of our Goddesses, perhaps. Another naming of the Buddha puts him in very strange company. It is 'asundurst Sirdarthar Woolwichleagues' (347.9) which combines Siddartha with the Duke of Wellington and sandwiches him between Sandhurst and Woolwich. For Joyce both the Buddha and the Duke of Wellington are destroyers, not builders. He believed that rebir-ill was the recompense for death; not-as in The Buddhist Catechism-the result of ignorance and unsatisfied desire, and the cause of sorrow. It is probably because of their insistence on rebirth that Joyce combines Vlshnuism with Buddhism. In 'they drugged the buddhy' Buddha is being treated as Juggernaut: 'Moviefigure in scenic section' (602.27)· The last time that the Buddha is mentioned it is with a reference to the Jewish New Year, Rosh Ha-Shana,l combined with the 'Rose of Sharon' (Cant. 2:1) and the Russian General, and follows a reference to the lotus which is probably meant to suggest the famous Buddhist prayer known as the 'jewel in the lotus'. The passage is, 'Blooming in the very lotust and second to nill, Budd! When you're in the buckly shuit Rosensharonals near did for you' (620.2). The first mention of the Buddha is 'peace to his great limbs, the buddhoch, with the last league long rest of him, while the millioncandled eye of Tuskar sweeps the Moylean Mainl' (25.25). Here the allusion is to the many incarnations of the Buddha as an e1ephant-'Tuskar', with 'great limbs'-as well as to a lighthouse. The numerous reincarnations of the Buddha bring in the Jatakas, or 'Birth Stories', as when Joyce speaks of 'son soptimost of sire sixtusks, of Mayaqueerues, sign osure, hevuly buddhy time' (234.12). The reference here is to a story in the Jatiikas, when the 1 See Joseph Prescott, 'Notes on :royce's "Ulysses"', M.L.Q., XIII, NO.2, June 1952, p. 161.
226
OTHER SACRED BOOKS Buddha was reborn as an elephant with six tusks.l 'Mayaqueeuies' combines the name of Maya, the Buddha's mother, with a May queen. His birthplace, Kapilavastu, is named in 'Kapelavaster' (24.19); Kantaka, the Buddha's hOIse, is named in 'c1ankatachankata' (24.23). CONFUCIANISM Confucius, or 'Kung fu-Tze'-to use Ezra Pound's favourite spelling of the name, as Joyce often does-is named in the Wake as 'confucianist •.. like a footsey kungoloo around Taishantyland' (131.33). K'ung Ch'iu or Master K'ung seem to be the usually accepted modern names, 2 and Joyce is probably using the second of these, and making the word 'master' serve two purposes in 'folk who may not have had many momentums to master Kung's doctrine of the meang' (lo8.II). The Chinese classic known as The Doctrine of the Mean is here named, and the words immediately before that title are probably intended to be read as 'to master Master Kung's •. .' In this Joyce would be following the normal practice in writing runes, in which double letters are not repeated. s It would please Joyce to apply a strange technique to a name so foreign to the place of that technique's origin. But The Doctrine of the Mean was not wrirten by Confucius although its general theme is said to have been handed down by him. There is considerable 'confucian' (417.15), to repeat Joyce's pun, in the way that the name is used. 'Hell's Confucium and the Elements!' cries one of Joyce's old men, 'Tootoo moohootch!' (485.35). But it would be necessary to have a knowledge of Chinese to deal adequately with this aspect of the Wake. As I have already pointed out Joyce told Miss Weaver that 'a Chinese student sent me some letterwords I asked for. The last one is W. It means "mountain" and is called "Chin", the common people's way of pronouncing Hill or Fin.'4 This character is undoubtedly being used in 'Chin chin! Chin, chin!' (58.13) and the words are intended to suggest 'H.C.E. interred in the landscape'." That is to say they are intended to suggest that the fatherfigure is dead for the moment but will shortly be resurrected. On the 1 H. T. Francis and E. J. Thomas (Editors), Ji1tlika Tales. Cambridge: The University Press, 1916, p. 395. 2 See Liu Wu-Chi, A Short History of Confucian Philosophy. A Pelican Book, 1955, pp. 13-33· • See E. V. Gordon, An Introduction to Old Norse, p. 161. 'Letters, p. 250. Letter dated '2 March 1927'. S Ibid., p. 254. Letter dated '31 May 1927', and British Museum Add. MS. 47489, f.23·
227
THE SACRED BOOKS previous page there is 'Tsin tsin tsm tsin!' (57.3) which is probably meant to suggest something of the same kind. There are many other syllables that look like Chlnese, '.M.ing Tung' and 'Mong Tang' (623.12), for example. But I have no idea what they mean. CONCLUSION
I will make no attempt to consider the use Joyce made of the Upanishads. No doubt he did use them for he quotes the word 'Upanishadem!' (3°3.13) and the Skeleton Key explains a number of Sanskrit words in the Wake, Sandyhas (twilight), Vah (flow), Suvarna (golden), Sur (sun), Agni (fire), Dah (burn), and Svadesia (self-guider) all come on the single page (278) of A Skeleton Key which summarizes pages 593 and 4 of the Wake. Others,1i\e Madas (496.2I) meaning drunk, and katya (40. II), which means widow, are scattered throughout the book; but there is a very noticeable increase in the frequency of the appearance of Sanskrit towards the end of the book. Perhaps we are to think of the Wake as a journey of exploration travelling back into history, and the Sanskrit symbolizes the earliest periods. But I have not been able to :find any particular source book for this period. It seems to me very likely that much of Joyce's material is drawn from Madame Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled, and Joyce certainly used her Mahatma Letters1-if only as an example of forgery. An out-of-date text-book entitled Hindu Mythology, Vedic and Puranic, by W. J. WiLlcins,2 is perhaps being referred to in "wilkinses" (90.n), and 'Holdhard till you'll 'ear him clicking his bull's bones! Some toad klakkin! You're welcome back. Wilkins to red berries in the frost!' (464.I8). There seem to be more echoes of Wilkins's book in the Wake than there are of the Hindu Scriptures, but the reference to 'bull's bones' puts Wilkins into a quite different setting. Joyce is referring to the 'Bull-roarer'-a piece of pierced wood or bone that made a roaring noise when it was swung round on the end of a string. It is now a child's toy, but was used by the Australian aborigines for religious purposes, and is believed to have been used by the Druids to produce the effect of a singing stone when a king stood on a sacred stone such as the famous Lia Fail. It is mentioned again in the Wake: 'have you a bull, a bosbully, with a whistle in his tail to scare other birds?' (490.34). Druids and megalithic religion are combined with the Sanskrit words in the last section 'ath the centre of the great circle of the macroliths .... (594.22). 1 2
See Appendix, Blavatsky, and Hare. London, 1882.
OTHER SACRED BOOKS Enough has, I think, now been said to show that Joyce aimed at fusing all religions and their sacred texts together in his book. From them he constructs his own idiosyncratic religion. It will be remembered that after Stephen had explained his Shakespearian theory in the Library scene in Ulysses he was asked if he believed in his own theory and replied, 'No'. Joyce would probably have made the same reply ifhe had been asked if he believed in his own religion. In Finnegans Wake 'that sword of certainty which would identifide the body never falls' (51.5). When Joyce as 'JUSTIUS (to himother), (187.24), addresses himself as a writer in the person of 'Shem Macadamson' (187.34) it is to say that: 'condemned fool, anarch, egoarch, hiresiarch, you have reared your disunited kingdom on the vacuum of your O\vn most intensely doubtful soul' (188.15). There is no single answer to the puzzle. Explorers in this 'disunited kingdom' must be content to suspend judgement between equal doubts. Joyce's aim, at least, is clear enough. If he had had infinite time he would have reduced his book to one word: the Logos. His creation, like God's creation-which is unutterably complex, yet seems to be ruled with rigid law-was to go to the uttermost extreme in complexity and yet be rigidly integrated. Joyce's creation is intended to present its readers with a mystery just as insoluble as he considered God's creation to be.
229
Part IV
APPENDIX AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES
APPENDIX
Alphabetical List of Literary Allusions 'his borrowing places' (49s.r6) THIs is arranged in alphabetical order of authors' names. When it is not known which book Joyce meant the word Works is put down. The following abbreviations are used:
N T
Author's name
= Tide of book
Q = Quotation ADAMNAN, St.: Life of St. Columba. N-267.18: Adamman. ADy, Endre: Works. N-(?) 472.21: true as adie. AEsop: Fables. NT-29.I3: Eset fibble. N-289.5: esoupcans; 307 margin: Esop. NT-414.17: the grimm gests of Jacko and Esaup, fable one, feeble too; 422.22: anesiop's foible (The Mohammedans ascribe the fables to an Ethiopian named Luqman). AGRIPPA, Henricus Cornelius: Works. (On alchemy.) N-84.16: jugglemonkysh agripment; 94.I3 (?): Agrippa, the propastored. A.1IDERSEN, Hans Christian: Fairy Tales. N-I38.I6: the charms ofH. C. Enderson. &"'IDERSON, Margaret: My Thirty Years' War. N-406.7: Margareter, Margaretar, Magarasncandeatar. T-246.3: Our thirty minutes war's alull. &"ifONYMOUS
Chevy Chase. T-30.14: Chivychas; 245.35: Chavvyout Chacer; 335.10: chivvychace. 'I sing of a Maiden" Q-556.18: how all so still she lay. 'Fair Margaret and Sweet William'. T-387.19: Fair Margrate waited Svede Villem. 'The Nut-brown Maid' T -243.25 ... 26. nutbrown ... Mayde. 233
APPENDIX
Summa Theologiae. N--93.9: tumassequinous. NQ-15S.2I: Thisfoluminous dozen odd. Quas primas-but 'tis bitter to compote my knowledge's fructos of. Tomes. N-248.8: tumescinquinance. NT-417.8: aquinatance ••• umsummables. Reference III.29: macromass of all sorts of horse-
AQUINAS, St. Thomas.
happy values and masses of meltwhile horse.
ARCHER, William (Translator of Ibsen's Plays). N-283.19: a league of archers; 440.3: William Archer. A..'USTOTLE: Works. N-IIO.I7: Harrystotalies; 306 margin: Aristotle; 417.16: aristotaller. Q-IIO.I5: improbable possibles (Poetics VI, 22, etc.). ARISTOPHANES: The Frogs. Q-4.2: Brekkek Kekkek Kekkek! Koax: Koax. Koax:! QT-449.32: crekking jugs at the grenoulls (With several fables by La Fontaine). ARP, Jean: Works. N-so8.33: arpists at cloever spilling (Arp wrote Dadaist poetry with distorted spelling, and publicized the work of Klee. American salesta1k; German Klee=clover). N(?)-494.2: Orp; 497.3: warping. AUGUSTINE, St., Bishop of Hippo: Letters. Confessions. ContraParmeniam
Litteras. N-38.z8: Ecclesiastes of Hippo (See main text: 'The Fathers of the Church'). AUSTEN, Jane: Pride
and Prejudice. T-344: pridejealice.
AVEBURY, John Lubbock, 1st Baron:
The Pleasures of Life.
(Lord Avebury introduced Bank Holidays and August Monday was once known as 'St. Lubbock's Day' (292.S).) NT-II3.34: to pleace averyburies and jully glad when Christmas comes his once ayear; 189.7: lubbock's other fear pleasures of a butler's life (Early versions read: 'Lubbock's other pleasures of life'-see B.M. Add. MS. 47474); 222.28: liubocks of life. AvrCENNA, or IBN SEN: Works. N-488.6: avicendas .•• Ibn Sen. BANIM, Michael: Crowhore of the Bill-hook. The Crappy. N-228.16: (?) ban's for's book. T-229.12: Croppy Crowhore. BARHA.'d, Richard Harris: The Ingoldsby Legends. N-518.28: barbarihams. T-156.3: the Inklespill legends. BARRIE, James Matthew: Quality Street. The Twelve Pound Look. N-I34.Il: Barry; 184.21: blaster of Barry's; 569.3°: Mr Borry will produce. T-83.23: Quantity Street; SII.I3: her twelve pound lach; 210.22: twelve sounds look. 234
LITERARY ALLUSIONS BARRINGTON, Sir Jonah: Recollections oj My Own Times. N-536.32: Zerobubble Barrentone, Jonah Whalley. (These names have other references as well but it is likely that they are intended to refer to this author. Joyce told Gorman that his father had a copy of the book, and it is the likeliest source for the story of 'Borumborad' (49 2.22).) BASILE, Giambattista: It Pentamerone. N-374.3I: Basil; 463.22: Basilius; 335.2: madjestky (Punning on Basileus, 'king', in a passage about folk-stories. Basile's book is one of the main collections of European folk-stories. It also includes long lists of children's games which may have given Joyce the idea of including similar lists in the Wake.) BAUDELAIRE, Charles: Works. N-4.3: Baddelaries partisanes (B. wrote 'Those who like me are condemned-I would even say contemptible if I cared to flatter nice people.'-Fusees); 207.II: she sended her boudeloire maids to his aflluence. Q-89.28: my shemblable! My freer! BECK, Jacob Sigismund: Works. N-415.IO: beck from bulk (In a context full of philosophers' names. Beck summarized Kant's Works). BELAl'-t"EY, George Stansfield, 'Grey Owl': Works. N-7I.31: Grunt Owl's Facktatem (BeIaney claimed to be a Red Indian). BENNETT, Arnold: Grand Babylon Hotel. T-17.33: babylone the greatgrandhotelled. BERANGER, Jean-Pierre de: Works. N-372.II: the snug saloon seanad of our Cafe B6ranger (May include a real cafe but echoes Lanson's criticism of Beranger: 'n a une philosophie et une sensibilite de cafe-concert .• .'-Hist. de la litterature jran;.aise, p. 968), BERKELEY, George, Bishop of Cloyne: Sins. N-260.n: Berkeley; 287.18: Barekely; 312.29: Burklley; 435.10: the phyllisophies of Bussup Bulkeley; 39I.31: the general of the Berke1eyites. Q-130.4: drinks !barr and wodher for his asama; 304, note 4: the cups that peeves; 341.12: tartar warter! (See main text: 'Irish writers'.) BESA....."T, Annie: Works. N-432.32: the lover of liturgy, bekant or besant. BLAKE, William: Works. N-409.23: (?) MacBlakes; 563.13: Blake tribes bleak .•. With pale blake I 'write tintingface. (Alluding to etching?) Q-72.13: miching 235
APPENDIX Daddy; 253.16: Noodynaady; 30.4: enos; 57.7: Zoans; Hear the four of them! (Although a good deal has been written about Joyce's use of Blake in the Wake I can find few of it, and think that Joyee had left Blake and gone on to other mystics, for whom Blake had prepared him. But Joyce may have remembered such lines as: 'Eno, a daughter of Beulah •.. took an atom of space & opened its centre Into Infinitude'; and 'Wondering she saw her woofbegl..l1 to animate, & not/As Garments woven subservient to her hands, but having a will/Of its own perverse and laboured'-Vala, or The Four Zoas.) BLAVATSKY, Helena Petrovna: Isis Unveiled. The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett. N-66.23: Cox's wife, twice Mrs. Hahn; 393.23: her mudhen republican name (Madame Blavatsky's maiden name was Hahn-Hahn. Hahn is German for cock, and this gives Joyce II tie-up with the hen that found the letter. 'Twice' and 'republican' refer also to the bigamous marriage of Madame Blavatsky in America). T-Mahamawetma, pride of the province. QT-242.36 ... 243.1 ... I5 ... 22 ...27: Madame Cooley-Couley .• , hundreads elskerelk's yahrds of anuams call away ••• tschaina ••• the devlins ..• mahatmas (The 'Mahatma Letters' were supposed to be written by Tibetan 'masters' one of them was called 'Morya" 53.30; 316.21); 137.25: his year-letter concocted by masterhands (They were said to be conveyed from Tibet by te1ekenesis or osmosis); 198.21: telekenesis (This follows 'reussischer Honddu jarkon', i.e. Russian Hindu jargon); 585.22: Anunska ••. annastomoses; 615.5: anastomosically assimilated (The recipient, A. P. Sinnett is named); 352.13: the procuratress of the hory synnotts (Another of Madame B.'s friends, Colonel Olcott, had a big white beard which is mentioned); 35I.3I. .. 352.4: my respeaktoble medams culonelle...whitesides do his beard! 357.2I: the loose looves leaflefts jaggled casuallty on the lamatory (This follows the men~ tion of a 'sliding panel', which is probably the one described in Who Wrote the Mahatma Letters ? by H. E. and W. L. HARE, q.v.) Madame Blavatsky seems to be a link between the hen and A.L.P. who wrote 'lettering you erronymously'-6I7.30). BOCCACCIO, Giovanni: Decameron. NT-56I.24: Boccucia's Enameron. T-435.9: dowdycameramen. Q-560.I: Fiamelle la Diva. BOERNE, Karl Ludwig: Works. N-26P9: (?) mine boerne. BOILEAU, Nicolas: L' Art Poitique. N-527.I2: Eulogia, a. perfect apposition ... from Boileau's. 23 6
LITERARY ALLUSIONS BORROW, George:
Romany Rye. Lavengro.
N-S.3S: (?) merlinburrow burrocks. T-60o.30: Wommany Wyes. Q-472.2: Pennyatimer, lampaddyfair, postanulengro, our rommany ehiel!; 332.14: the chal and his chi, their roammerin over; 468.35: there's the witch on the heath, sistra! T(?)-17I.29: Peamengro. BOSVY'ELL, James: The Life of Samuel Johnson. N-40.7: bussybozzy. Q-256.12: Sherrigoldies. BOUClCAULT, Dionysius Lardner ('Dian, the elder'): Works. N-385.3: Dion Boucicault, the elder; 95.8: dyinboosycough; 391.23: Dion Cassius Poosycomb; 555.12: dying boosy cough; 569.35: bouchicaulture. Arrah-na-Pogue. T-68.12: arrah of the lacessive poghue; 203.36: Anna-na-Poghue; 376.19: arrah . • . Poghue! Poghue! Poghue!; 384.34 and 388.25: Arrah-na-poghue; 385.22: Arrah-na-pogue (But this correct spelling may be a misprint); 391.3: Arrahnacuddle; 460.2: Arrah of the passkeys; 482.12: ara poog; 588.29: Arrah Pogue; 600.32: Poghue ... Arrah. The Colleen Bawn. T -384.21: his colleen bawn; 397-4: the girleen ba'l'lD.; 438.33: collion boys to colleen bawns (These also refer to the song in The Lily of Killarney). The Corsican Brothers. T -333.r r: corkedagains; 561.6: The Corsicos. Daddy 0' Dowd. T -439.20: Daddy O'Dowd. The Octoroon. T -468.36: her Orcotron; 2°7.25: Duodecimoroon (with the Decameron). The Shaughraun. T -289.24: Conn the Shaughraun (This is the eponymous character and the phrase is often used as the title of the play. A 'Shaughraun' is a vagabond. Boucicault is an important source. See main text: 'The world's a stage'). BRAnDON, Mary Elizabeth: Lady Audley's Secret. N-59.35: After fullblown Braddon hear this fresky troterella! A railways barmaid's view (they call her Spilltears Rue). (This is a novel about bigamy which was made into a popular melodrama in 1862 and held the boards for forty years.) BRAHE, Tycho: Works. N-260.10: up Tycho Brache Crescent. BRENNAN, Christopher: The Wanderer. NT-81.14: the saddle of the Brennan's •.. versts and versts from true civilisation (Brennan was an Australian Symbolist poet whose 'Wanderer' is a spiritual exile). BRETON, Andre: Works. N-437.6: breretonbiking.
APPENDIX Emily: Wuthering Heights. N-7.22: Brunto; Referen.ce (with Heathcllife); 241.5: with pruriest pollygameous inatentions . . . ailment spectacularly in heather cliff on. gale days because soufi"rant from a plenitude of house torts. BROUGHTON, Rhoda: Red as a Rose is She. NT-569.33: a she be broughton, rhoda's a rosy she (The heroine, who is called 'Essie', gets engaged to two men at once. The style of the book resembles, and may have been one of the models for, the 'Nausicaa' chapter of Ulysses). )BROWNE, W. J.: Botany for Schools (Dublin, 1881). NT-503.34: Browne's Thesaurus Plantarum from Nolan's, the Prittlewell Press. )BROWNING, Robert: 'Pippa Passes'. 'Mr. Sludge the Medium'. 'How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix'. N-35 I. I : brownings. T-55.16: pippa pointing; 439.22: the medium ... sludgehummer; 278 margin: How he broke the good news to Gent. Q-225.3I: All's rice with their whorl! BRUNO, Giordano: Works. (A major source. See 'Structural Books'.) BUNYAN, John: Pilgrim's Progress. Grace Abounding. T-234.20: pilgrim prinlcips; 384.18: pulchrum's proculs; 577.1.6: grace abunda. Q-r8.2: Despond's sung; 273.28: Napolyon (AppolyonjNapoleon). BURNS, Robert: Songs. N-52o.26: Bobby burns (There are many quotations from Burns's songs). BURTON, Sir Richard: (Trans.) The Thousand Nights and a Night. Printed by the Burton Club for private subscribers only. 17 vols. n.d. (This was in Joyce's 'Personal Library'. See Connolly, p. 10.) N-595.I8: Old Bruton; T-5.28: one thousand and one stories; 5I.4: in this scherzarade of one's thousand one nightinesses; 335.27: another doesend end once tale; 357.17: alternate joys of a thousand kirids but one kind; 597.5: unthowsent and wonst nice. Q-4.32: Haroun; 358.28: herouns in that alraschi1; 32.8: Skertsiraizde with Donyahzade; 357.19: shahrrer; 79.6: barmecidal days (with MANGAN, q.v.); 387.21: barmaisigheds (With R. D'A. WILLIAMS, q.v.); 36I.26: till there came the marrer of mirth· (This is one of the common ways of ending a story by putting an end to the time 'they lived happily ever aftet); 577.18: baron and feme ('Baron and femme' is a phrase common in Burton); 580.26: the slave of the ring; 256.25: Sindat ••• saildior. )BRONTE,
LITERARY ALLUSIONS
BT.;RY, John Bagnell: Life of Saint Patrick. N-29I.II: hollyboys, all, burydpe (Joyce seems to have used Bury's book. One meaning of the phrase given could be that the persons just mentioned were holy and worthy to be written about by Bury). BUSCH, Wilhelm: Plisch und Plum. NT-72.35: pursyfurse, I'll splish the splume of them ('Furse' = bush=Busch. Plisch and Plum are two dogs which get their masters, Peter and Paul, into various scrapes). BUSHE, Charles Kendal: Cease Your Funning. NT-256.12: Cease your fumings, kindalled bushies (See CRONE, J. S.). BUTLER, Samuel: Hudibras. N (Shared with other Butlers): I!8.5; 372.7; 385.15; 519.6. T-357.7: hugh de Brassey's Beard; 373.29: his huedobrass beard. BUTLER, Samuel: Erewhon. The Way of All Flesh. N-(See above). T-213.I5: erewone. Q-531.I9: (?) juppettes (perhaps from .MIs. JupP, a disreputable landlady in The Way of All Flesh). BYRON, Lord George Gordon: Poetical Works. N-435.IO: lewd BuyIan; 465.17: like Boyrun to sibster; 563.12: lordbeeron brow. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. T-423.8: making his piUgrimace of Childe Horrid. Q-54I.20: theres were revelries; 385.35: Rolando's deepen darblun Ossian roll (,Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll'). The Corsair. T-323.2: the coarsebair; 343.3: the corsar; 444.27: corsehairs; 577.10; corsair; 600.II: accorsaired. (The title is usually followed by a reference to the subject-matter of the poem. E.g. 323.4... 6: xebec . . . voyaging after maidens; 343.5: armeemonds (Armenians).) The Giaour. T-68.I8: dog of a dgiaour; 1°7.22: giaours; 3°5.3: that salubrated sickenagiaour ofyaours; 355.22: Giaourmany. Maid of Athens (This begins 'Maid of Athens ere we part .... and ends, in Greek, 'Zoe mou, sas agapo' which means 'My life, I love you'). TQ-4I.IO: meed of anthems here we pant; 436.32: Mades of ashens when you flirt. Q-zoz.6: so aimai moe, that's agapo. (The first two are later additions, and were perhaps inserted to draw attention to the quotation in the ALP chapter.) Don Juan. (?) QT-464.29: the oils of greas under turkey in julep. BYRON, Henry James: Our Boys. NT-41.I6: our boys, as our Byron called them. 239
APPENDIX CABELL, James Branch: Jurgen.
N-(?) 234.3: cabaleer; 488.21: Negoist Cabler. T-35.28: Jurgensen's Uurgen is mentioned here in connection with a watch because when he went into Cockaigne, 'Time, they report, came in with Jurgen because was mortal.'-Jurgen, Chap. 22); 621.22: Jorgen Jargonsen. Q-243.!4: Hetman Michael (A character in Jurgen). CAESAR, Julius: Works. N-I6I.36: Caesar (But the reference is to Cesare Borgia's motto: Aut Caesar aut nullus); 306 margin: Julius Caesar; 271.3: Sire Jeallyous Seizer. Q-512.8: He came, he kished, he conquered. CAIRNES, John E.: Leading Principles of Political Economy. N-594.24: cairns; 6046: Read Higgins, Cairns and Egen. CAMPBELL, Thomas: Poems. 'The Exile of Erin'. N-343.3: Campbell. Q-148.33 ... 149.IO: If you met on the binge a poor acheseyeld from Ailing •..; I68.3: if he came to my preach, a proud pursebroken ranger . . . ; 45.29: far away on the pillow (Parodies 'far away on. the billow' from 'The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna'). CARBERRY, Ethna: Works. N-228.18: carberry banishment care of Pencylmania; 318.12: Ethna pret:typlume (E. A. Boyd says that Miss Carberry refused to allow her poems to be published in England. See Ireland's Literary Renaissance, 2nd ed., p. 202). CARLETON, William: Works. T-360.7: pere Golazy; (?) 123.16: paddygoeasy (Both Paddy-GoEasy. For Carleton's other writings see main text: 'Irish writers'). CARLYLE, Thomas: SartlY! Resartus. N-517.22: Carlysle. T-314.17: sartor's risorted; 352.25= shutter reshottus. Q-68.2I: Tawfulsdreck. (109.1-36 is an expansion of a sentence in S.R.: 'For our purpose the simple fact that such a Naked World is possible, nay actually exists (under the Oothed one) will be sufficient.'-Chapter X). CARRoLL, Lewis. (See main text, chapter: 'Lewis Carroll'.) CARTER, J.,andPOLLARD, G.: An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets. N-229.3I: his auditers, Caxton and Pollock •.. sindbook .•. his innersense (This book exposed the forgeries of T. J. Wise, whose name is hidden in the 'Letter' passage, 123.2: the cut and dry aks and wise form of the semifinal .•.).
240
LITERARY ALLUSIONS CERVANTES, Miguel de: Don QJJixote. T-234.4: donkey shot ... Sin Showpanza; 482.14: donkeyschott. Q-234.24: dulsy m.yer (Dulcinea says 'No' as the ass neighs sweetly); 404.rr: sansa pagar. TQ-198.35: queasy quizzers of his ruful continence. CHART, David Alfred: The Story of Dublin. (An important source book. See main text.) CHARTIER, Emile ('Alain'): Works. N-608.17: meassurers soon and soon, but the voice of Alina gladdens the cock1yhearted dreamerish (Joyce seems to be saying that the French critics-Messieurs so-and-so-make their assessmentsmeasurings-too soon, but Alain's timid readers like to have their minds made up for them). CHAUCER, Geoffrey: Works. N-245.35: Chavyout Chacer (With Chevy Chase). Q-265.23: tabard, wine tap and warm tavern; 395.28: Cook of corage; 550.9: knobby lauch and the rich morsel of the marrolebone and shains of garleeks (Prologue: 633-4-'knobbes syttinge on his chekes. WeI loved he garleek, onyons and eek lekes'); 552.22: piggiesknees (From 'The Miller's Tale', line 82: She was a prymerole, a pigges-nye). CHEKHOV, Anton Pavlovich: Chayka (The Seagull). Vishnevy Sad (The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya. T-424.10: Chaka a seagull; 588.17: ivysad; 339.n: varnashed rosdans (With Rosdus). CHuRCIDLL, Charles: The Rosciad. N-587.16: churchal (With Sir Winston Churchill). (?) T-53.9: Humphriad; 339.n: roscians (see above). ('Strange to relate but wonderfully true That even shadows have their shadows too With not a single comic power endu'd The first a mere mere mimic's mimic stood •.. Quill, from afar, lur'd by the scent offame, A stage leviathan put in his claim'.)
Q-28I.17: shadows shadows multiplicating; 486.9: mere man's mime; 305.20: Where is that Quill .•. (This follows a mention of ·Old Keane' so called to distinguish him from his son who played rago to his father's Othello in the famous performance when 'Old Keane' collapsed after the words 'Othello's occupation's gone', was taken home and died). 16
APPENDIX
Works. N-I52.10: etcicero; ][82.9: cinsero. Q-395.6: how long, tandem (Quousque tandem . . .'-In Cat. I, 1). Q-Z93.7: some somnione sciupiones (Somnium Scipionis from De Re Publica, VI, 9-2 9). CLEMENS, Samuel L. ('Mark Twain'): Works. N-425·29: mark twang; 455.29: Mark Time's Finist Joke; Huckleberry Finn. T -.130.14: fanned of heckleberries; 137.12: Hugglebelly's funniral; 297.20: Hurdlebury Fenn. Q-245.25: And if you wend to Livmouth, wenderer, while Jempson's weed decks Jacqueson's Island . . . You took me with the mulligrubs (Jimpson Weed is mentioned in Huckleberry Finn as growing on Jackson's Island. Huck was drifting to the rivermouth); 317.13: he sure had the most sand; 283.29: Give you the fantods. The Prince and the Pauper. T -422.15: his prince of the apauper's pride. Innocents Abroad. T -II5.28: innocent allabroad. Pudd'nhead Wilson. Q-32.16: Chimbers to his cronies; 212.U: Roxana ('Roxana has heard the phrase valet de chambre somewhere, and, as she supposed it was a name, she loaded it on her darling. It soon got shortened to "Chambers" of course.'-Pudd'nhead Wilson, Chap. 2.) Q-335.8: mop's varlet de shambles. Tom Sawyer. T-132.36: sawyer; .173.28: bottom sawyer; 374.34: topsawys. Q-4IO.35: Top, Sid and Hucky (A pun is always intended on the words 'Tom saw you'). COCKTON, Henry: Valentine Vox, the Ventriloquist. T-439.17: the valiantine vaux (With Vauxhall). Reference, 105.21: Suppotes a Ventriloquorst Merries a Corpse. COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. T-I23.23: the names of the wretched mariner; 324.8: They hailed him cheeringly, their encient, the murrainer. Q-137.22: by stealth of a kersse her aulburntress abaft his nape she hung (Based on: 'Instead of a cross .. .' as is the next); 512.21: In steam ofkavos now arbatos above our hearths doth hum; 202.12: Waiwhou was the first thurever burst?; 558.27: Albatrus ... her beautifell hung up on a nail. Biographia Literaria. Q-I59.7: myriads of drifting minds; 576.24: mirrorminded (From Chapter XV, 'myriad-minded'). COLLINGWOOD, Stuart Dodgson: The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons. n.d. [1898]. See Connolly, p. II. (An important source-book. See main text: 'Lewis Carroll'.) CICERO:
LITERARY ALLUSIONS COLUM, Padraic: 'A Portrait'. NQ-68.3S: The column of lumps lends the pattrin of the leaves behind us ... for wilde erthe blothoms (This refers to Colum's poem which ends: 'But what avail my teaching slight? Years hence in rustic speech, a phrase, As in wild earth a Grecian vase'). COLUl\ffiA, St. N-24o.21: Saint Calembaurnus. Q-I8S.14: altus prosator. COLUMELLA, Lucius Jucius Moderatus: De Re Rustica. N-255.19: contumellas; 281.5: Columelle; 3I9.8: colleunellas; 354.26: Calomella; 615.2: Columcellas (With Columkill. He seems to be named with FLINY (q.v.) to recall the quotation from Quinet in which their names are linked.) CO:NrUCIUS, or K'UNG FU-TEE: The Doctrine of the Mean. The Elements. NT-I08.II: Kung's doctrine of the meang. N-I31.33: has the most conical hodpiece of confusianist heronim and that chichuffous chinchin of his is like a footsey kungoloo around Taishantyland ('Chin' is the Chinese character UJ, see Letters, p. 250); 485.35: Hell's Confucium and the Elements! ... chinchin chat with nipponnippers. N-IS.12: confusium; 417.15: a confucion of minthe. CONNELLY, Marc: The Green Pastures. N-457.I: Connolly. Q-232.22: Did you boo mighty lowd .. Satanly, lade; 356.16: the tarikies held sowansupper. Let there bean a fishfrey; 363.13: Has they bane reneemed? Soothinly low; 568.35: Rex Ingram (Played 'De Lawd' in this play). COOPER, James Fenimore: Works. N-439.12: Cooper Funnymore. CORELLI, Marie: The Sorrows of Satan. T-230.10: a caughtalock of all the sorrows of Sexton (Joyce told Miss Weaver-Letters, p. 302-that he was using a book by Marie Corelli, but I can find no trace of anything except this title). CORNEILLE, Pierre: Works. N-173.20: cornaille ... tarabooming great blunderguns. COWPER, William: 'The Loss of the Royal George'. the lapses leqou asousiated with the royal gorge. Q461.6: the coupe that's chill (See BERKELEY). CROCE, Benedetto: Works. N-5II.3I: crocelips (1 do not understand the allusion but Joyce seems to have used many of Croce's works.) 243
APPENDIX CROKER, Thomas Crofton.: Fairy Legends of South Ireland, etc.
NQ-537.29: a croc:Kard or three pipples on the bitch (Includes 'Three pebbles on the beach').
John S.: A Condse Dictionary of Irish Biography. N-I3.36: crone; 390.7: the old cronioney. Q-256.I2: Cease your
CRONE,
fumings, kindalled busbies (See main text: 'Some Typical Books').
Concordance. NT-358.6: concrude. D'ALTON. Rev. Edward AJfred: A History of Irela:nd. CRUDEN, Alexander:
N-572.36: D'Alton insists. DANTE ALIGHIERI:
The Divine Comedy.
N-47.19: Seudodanto!; 251.23: dantellising; 269 margin: Undante; 344.6: damnty; 539.6: Daunty. NT-440.6: the divine comic Denti Alligator (See main text: 'Some Typical Books'). Charles: The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.
DARWIN,
The Descent of Man. NT-252.28: Charley, you're my darwing. So sing they the assent of man. T-504.14: the ouragan of spaces; 117.28: natural selections; 5°4.27 ... 33: the origin of spices and charlotte darlings ..• unnatural refection. Q-I45.27: the sowiveall of the prettiest. DASENT, Sir George. (Translator): The Prose Edda. N-578.I4: daysen!. DAUDET, Alphonse: Tartarin de Tarascon. T-227.35: a Tartaran. tastarin tarrascone tourtoun (Tartarin says 'There are two men in me'. Daudet comments, 'Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in the same man'. There is a dispute between the two halves of Tartarin's personality during which one half says, 'Cover yourself with glory', and the other half says, 'Cover yourself with flannel'). DAVIS, Thomas Osborne: National Ballads, Songs, and Poems. N-391.28: the Spasms of Davies (See main text: 'The Irish Writers'). DEFOE, Daniel: Moll Flanders. Robinson Crusoe. Roxana. N-30.II: Hofed; 316.24: The foe things your niggerhead needs ••• (This is a pun on 'Defoe' as the nigger-minstrel way of saying 'the four'). T-569.29: Moll Pamelas (With Fielding's Pamela); 2I!.I6: Rogerson Crusoe's Friday fast; 538.13: old Crusos; 2I2.II: Roxana (But see CLEMENTS). DELLA PORTA, Giambattista (1535-1615): Plays. N-9.35: Gambarlste della porea (His plays are discussed by Croce in 1 teatri di NapoH).
244
LITERARY ALLUSIONS Style. NQ-3I9.5: ringing rinbus round Demetrius (Demetrius wrote: 'The graceful needs for its utterance some ornament, and it uses beautiful words . . . For instance: "Earth myriad-garlanded is rainbowhued." '-Loeb Ed., p. 405). Q-13.15: With a grand funferall ('Fun at a funeral', Loeb Ed., p. 319); 414.35: funny funereels. DE MORGAN, William; Joseph Vance. T-2II.32: a stonecold shoulder for Donn Joe Vance Goyce gave up trying to read this novel-perhaps because he began by mistake at volume two. See Letters, p. 101). DE QUlNCEY, Thomas: Works. N-285 note 6: De Quinceys salade. DESCARTES, Rene: Works. N-304.27: a reborn of the cards; 269, note 2: If she can't follow suit Renee goes to the pack; 301.25: Cartesian spring. Q-304.31: cog it out, here goes a sum ~See main text: 'Some Typical Books'). DICKENS, Charles: Works. N-I77.3S: greet scoot, dl'.ckings and thuggery (With Scott and Thackeray); 434.27: dickette. Bleak House. T-337.II: bleakhusen. Reference (?) 6.2: je1lybies. Cricket on the Hearth. T-138.26: cricket on the earth; 549.29: the little crither of my hearth. David Copperfield. T-434.28: Doveyed Covetfilles. Old Curiosity Shop. T-434.30: the old cupiosity shape. Our Mutual Friend. T-434.28: your meetual fan; 63.35: our mutual friends. Pickwick Papers. T-I06.20: Pic.kedmeup Peters. References 131.16: Up Micawber; 178.27: a tompip peepestrel1a throug a threedraw eighteen hawkspower durdicky telescope (Characters from Great Expectations. The telescope is a little like Sam Weller's 'gas microscope'. Pip and Estella are named frequently but the reference is mainly to Swift's Journal). DIGBY, Sir Kene1m: Works. (On Alchemy.) N-313.26: that is Twomeys that is Digges that is Heres. (This is probably Digby, Hermes, and perhaps Thomas of Bologna-three alchemists-as Tom, Dick and Harry; i.e. any writers on Alchemy.) DIGGES, Thomas (fl. 1576): Works. N-313.26: that is Twomeys that is Digges (And see above). DILNOT, George: The Trial of Jim the Penman ('Famous Trials' Series). T -93.13: Shun the Punman; 125.23: Shem the Penman; 192.23: Pain the Shamman; 212.18: Shem, her penmight; 369.27: Schelm the 245
DEMETRIUS: On
APPENDIX Pelman; 517.18: shin the pumnan. ('Jim the Penman' was James Townsend Savard. A play Jim the Penman, by Sir Charles YOUNG, bears little relation to the facts of Savard's life, hut neither this nor the book seems to have been used by Joyce.)
History. N-39I.23: poor Dion Cassius Pooseycomb (With Boucicault). (Perhaps confused by Joyce with Diodorus Siculus who gave !I38 years as the whole period ofms History (I, 5, I), frequently used the word epiphany for the appearance of a god (1, 23, 5, etc.), and gave the famous description of the trouble after a cat was killed in Cairo (1,83,8-9) which seems to be alluded to in 5°9.19: Who kills the cat
DIO CAsSIUS: ROWAn
in Cairo coaxes cocks in Gaul). D'IsRAELI, Isaac, and Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield: Works. N-27.I: 'Tisraely; 100.19: beaconsfarafield; 373.27: dizzy (with 'Gladstools' following). T-337.35: 'fancred. (There are probably several borrowings from Curiosities of Literature, e.g. 236.19 refers to 'the Pantomimical. Characters', and 486.3I 'a pool of bran' refers to the Della Cruscans in 'Italian Literary Societies'.) DODGSON, C. L. (See main text, 'Lewis Carroll'.)
Domesday Book. T-485.6: Domesday. Q-I28.5: hidal in carucates he is enumerated, hold as an earl, he counts, shipshaped phrase ofbuglooking words ..• to our dooms brought he law, our manoirs he made his vill of. DONNELLY, Ignatius: The Great Cryptogram. N-28I, note 3: Donnelly (This note is to: 'But Bruto and Cassio are ware only of trifid tongues.' Joyce conceals the name 'Bacon' near many of his references to Shakespeare, and there is probably a cryptogram in this section of the Wake). DOSTOYEVSKY, Fedor Mikhailovich: Crime and Punishment. Q-235.32: Lady Marmela Shortbred will walk in for supper with her marchpane switch on, her necldace of almonds and her poirette Sundae dress with bracelets of honey •.. (Marmaledoff in C. and P. says that he has drunk all his wife's belongings-<J have actually drunk her stockings and her shoes ... I even drank her little Angora shawl.' Joyce's Marmela seems prepared for such treatment). 472.2I: you of the boots; 489.23: In his hands a boot ('Your boot ... the whole day you held it in your hands', p. 95); 343.II: A forward movement ... and dispatch (p. 254); 467.I ...4 ... 7: the misery billyboots .•• go to a general and 1'd pray confessions for him ... blood ..• greeping hastily down his blousyfrock; 5I7.6: to wend himself to a medicis (Quoting Raskolnikov's advice when Svidrigailov described
246
LITERARY ALLUSIONS how his dead servant came at his bidding.-Crime and Punishment, 'Everyman' Ed., pp. 218-19). Q-156.IO: raskolly. DOUGHTY, Charles Montagu: Adam Cast Forth. N-363.2I: doughdoughty (I suspect that this is a criticism of Doughty's prose); 361.35: Back to Droughty! The water of the face has flowed. DOUGLAS, Norman: London Street Games. Q-I04-I07.7 (Many of the phrases in this passage are distortions of the names of games mentioned by Douglas); Q-87.33: Deadman's Dark Scenery Court; 176.1: games like .•.; 225.6: peace in his preaches and play with esteem. DOWSON, Ernest: 'Cynara'. T-236.2: puffumed cynarettes. DoYLE, Sir Arthur Conan: The Sherlock Holmes Stories. The History of Spiritualism. The History of the Boer War. The Land of Mist. N-I42.26: doyles when they deliberate (With the Dati); 228.13: Our war, Dully Gray! A conansdream of 10dascirc1es (Combines a reference to a song popular in the Boer War with 'conan'. The name Doyle occurs often in the Wake, usually ",ith no reference to Conan Doyle); 574-5(?): DoyIes; 617.14: Conan Boyles (Doyle's Hist. of Spiritualism is not named in the Wake; but it is a standard work and may have been Joyce's source for the following, in which the reference to the Wake is given in the form usually adopted here, and the reference to the Hist. of Sp. with the volume and page numbers: 528.14: Eusapia 494.14: Eva 482.17: Mrs. Hayden 546.33 Red Indians
II,I-20 II, 92 , 95
1,36 1;31
Chapters 4 and 10 of The Land of Mist are amongst the possible sources for pp. 481-5°0.) Q-501.II: Challenger's Deep (Sherlock Holmes is named I65.32; 534.31.) DRYDEN, John: All for Love. 'Alexander's Feast'. T-569.32: all for love. Q-346.8: never eIding still begidding (But Joyce may have been thinking of Petronius, Hoc non deficit, incipitque semper, which he would know from Jonson's translation.) 366.II: on with the balls did disserve the fain. DUMAS, Alexandre. The Three Musketeers. The Man in the Iron Mask. ~'''".''''''''. musketeers! Alphas, Burkos and Caramis; 245.19: threes ... musketeering; 379.36: the three muskrateers; 390.IO: the man in the Oran Mosque.
247
APPENDIX
Alexandre, fils: The Lady of the Camelias. T-334.17: the lady of the com.eallyous. DUNBAR, William.: 'Lament for the Makers'. Q-378.20: Tiemore moretis tisturb badday! N-2II.34: Billy Dunboyne (with William. III.) DupIN, A.-A.-L. ('SAl-I""D, George'): Works. N-I89.I4: sands ..• accomplished women. DUMAS,
EARP, T. W.: Augustus John. (This book was in Joyce's 'Personal Library'. See Connolly, p. 14.) N-I9I.20: Little earps brapper. EGAN, Pierce: Tam and Jerry. Real Life in Dublin by a Real Paddy. NT-447.23: Compost Me in Dufblin by Pierce Egan (The names Tom and Jerry are used in u1.e Wake but they seem to have no connection with Egan's work). ELIOT, Thomas Stearns: The WasteLand. N-43.9: Elliot Goyce sometimes used this spelling when writing to Eliot. See Letters, pp. 314, 316); 92.16: swiney; 424.27: Sweeney; 504.23: sweeny. T-335.12: vastelend; 62.II: The wastobe land. Q-305.23: Thou in shanty! Thou in scanty shanty!! Thou in slanty scanty shanty!!l (The Waste Land, line 433 and note, 'Shantih. Repeated as here, a formal ending to an Upanishad. "The Peace which passeth understanding" is our equivalent to this word'. Joyce also parodied this in a letter to Miss Weaver, 'Shan't we? Shan't we? Shan't we?'-Letters, p. 231); ][35.6: washes his fleet in annacrwatter; whou missed a porter •.. (The Waste Land, 199-201). ELISABETH LOUISA, Queen of Rumania ('Carmen Sylva'): Works. N-360.13: Carmen Sylvae, my quest, my queen. Lou must wail ...
St.: Works. N-34I.26: Father Epiphanes. EUCLID: The Elements. N-155.32: Neuclidius; 206.12: Casey's Euclid; 284.24: nuc1euds. NT-302.12: elementator joyclid. EVANS, Mary Ann ('George Eliot'): The Millon the Floss. Daniel Deronda. T-213.2: Mill ... on the Floss. N-229.2: Nom de plume! •.• And send Jarge for Mary Inklender. T-189.12: congested around (Conceals the name 'Deronda'; the name 'George Sands' is also concealed in this passage about 'accomplished women'). N-533.5: EpIPHANES,
E,'anS. John: Sylva. N-62.34: Pomona Evlyn. T-I33.IS: Sylviacola.
EVELYN,
248
LITERARY ALLUSIONS FARQUHAR, George: Sir Harry Wildair. T-210.25: Wildairs' breechettes for Magpeg Woppington (Sir Harry Wildair was Peg Woffington's most famous breeches part). Q233.1 .•. 5 ... 8: telltale tall of his pitcher ..• Angelinas ..• For a haunting we will go (The villain in this play tries to deceive Sir Harry by means of a picture of his supposedly dead wife, Angelica, who complicates the story by pretending to be her own ghost). FERGUSON, Sir Samuel: Hibernian Nights Entertainment. T-335.26: hiberruan knights underthaner. FIELDING, Henry: Jonathan Wild, the Great. T-540.28: Jonathans, wild and great. N-274.24: fieldgosongingon. FITZGERALD, Edward: (Trans.) The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. N-(?) 2II.14: Funny Fitz. References: 122.9: from the fane's pinnacle is tossed down by porter to within an aim's ace of their quatrain ofrubyjets among Those Who arse without the Temple ... O'Mara has it ... K. M. O'Mara ('rubyjets'=Rubaryat; 'O'Mara, K. M.'=Omar Khayyam); 351.9: hand to hand as Homard keyenne was always jiggily-jugging about with his wendowed courage when our woos with the wenches went wined for a song; 368.24: And thus within the Tavern's secret booth The wisehight ones who sip the tested sooth Bestir them as the Just as bid to jab The punch of quaram on the mug of truth (In the form of FitzGerald's quatrains). FLAUBERT, Gustave: Bouvard eC pecuchet. Salammba. T -302.9: Buvard to dear Picuchet (There seem to be references to SalammbO at 538.9-13). FLETCHER, Phineas: The Purple Island, or The Isle of Man. NT-263 note 2: jietches ••• the isle we love in espice, Punt. N-312.36: fletcherbowyers (With Beaumont and Fletcher?). T -76.23: Isle of Man; I59.32: isle of manoverboard; 287.I5: the isle of Mun; 291.9: the ives of Man; 310.31: ale of man; 496.6: the Isle of Woman. FLORIAN, Jean-Pierre Qovis de: Fables. NT-385.II: Florian's fables (They do not seem to be used, but Joyce names all the great fabulists). FORT, Paul: Works. N-83.ro: marx my word fort. FRANKLIN, Benjamin: Autobiography. (In Joyce's 'Personal Library'. See Connolly, p. r6.) N-289.9: live wire, fired Benjermine Funkling outa th'Empyre; 372.7: our benjamin liefest, soemtime frankling to thise citye; 606.14: three Benns ... Whether they were franklings by name also 249
APPENDIX has not been fully probed. Q-(?) 271.5: tryonforit; 163.9: purr tyron (Tryon was a vegetarian whose regime Franklin adopted. Both the references have food m the context). FREUD, Sigmund: The Interpretation of Dreams. N-II5· 2 3: yung and easilyfreudened; 337.7: freudzay; 411.35: freudful mistake; 579.20: freund. T-338.29: an mtrepidation of our dreams (556.3I-557.12 seems to be based on a dream described in Freud's boek. See main text: 'The Structural Books'). FuR.'ITSS, Rev. John, C.SS.R.: The Sight of Hell. NT-289.13: Furniss's and .•. Ellishly Haught's. GALEN, Claudius: Works. N-184.13 ... I7: lithargogalenu ... cocked and petched in an athanor (I am not sure whe--J1er Joyce is considering Galen as an Alchemist or referring to the public burning of his works by Parace1sus. But Alchemy certainly comes into the passage); 424.7: Then he went to Cecilia's treat on his own to pick up Galen ('Cecilia's treat' is Cecilia Street, for which the entry in the old Dublin Street Directory reads: '4, 5 and 6, School of Medicine of Apothecaries' Hall. Site of Crowstreet Theatre Royal and anciently that of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity.' The School of Medicine fits Galen; Crow Theatre fits 'Cecilia's treat' (cr. 'King's treat'), and the Monastery of the Holy Trinity is referred to in 'on his solo' and the previous sentence). GALL, Franz Josef: Anatomie ..• du Cerveau. NT-364.14: Skall of a gall. . GARDINER, Samuel Rawson: History of England. N-I33.23: master gardiner. GAY, John: The Beggar's Opera. N-(?) I93.I9: Gay Socks (Gay ·was for a time a silk mercer). Q-235.2I: palypeachum. GELLIUS, Aulus: Noctes atticae. NT-255.I7 ... 20: the nights of labour ... what Aulus Gellius picked on Micmacrobius (See main text: 'Some Typical Books'). GmBoN, Edward: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. N-504.29: gibbonses; 531.I: gibbous disdag. T -I05.22: From the Rise • •• to the Fall (With. Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic). GILBERT, J. T.: History of Dublin. N-573.14: as Gilbert first suggested (All the names cited in parentheses in this part of the Wake belong to Irish historians). GILBERT, Sir William Schwenk: Trial by Jury. N-573.I4: Gilbert (With above but following Sullivan). T-242.14: trial by julias; 466.29: betrayal by jury.
250
LITERARY ALLUSIONS GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von: Works. NT-344.5: song of sorrowmon! Which goatheye and sheepkeeper they damnty well know. ('Song of sorrowmon' may combine The Sorrows of Werther with The Song of Solomon. N-539.6: Gouty (This phrase also names Dante and Shakespeare along with the Bible and Wordsworth as examples of great literature). T -283.28: Worse nor herman dororrhea. Give you the fantods seemed to him. (The title of Hermann und Dorothea is made to suggest German diarrhoea; but the passage occurs in the schoolroom section and ends with a quotation from Huckleberry Finn to whom any form of education 'gave the fantods', so it must not be taken as Joyce's verdict on Goethe). T-7I.8: Contrastions with Inkermann (Conversations with Eckermann). Q-479.29: Weissduwasland. QT-292.22: the crame of the whole faustian fustian, whether your launer's lightsome or your soulard's schwearmood. (Laune=mood; Schwermut=melancholy; Leichtsinn=levity. The reference is to Faust, and especially to the speech when Faust tells Wagner about the two opposing natures ofhis soul). Q-540.28: Been so free (Bin so frei grad herein zu treten). TN-480.23 ...36: weynecky fix . . . Wolfgang (Reineke Fuchs). GOGOL, Nikoloy Vasilyevich: Dead Souls (Mertvye dush~). NQ-339.4 ... 29: Oalgoak's Cheloven ... capecloaked hoodooman! First he s s st steppes (Chelovek is Russian for 'man'). N-34I.7: gigls; 343.3: gogemble. T-348.II: alma marthyrs. I dring to them, bycorn spirits . . . (All these are in a passage full of concealed references to Russian authors.
APPENDIX referring to the quotation in Wilde's De Profundis of 'Je sms un homme pour qui Ie monde exterieur existe', which the Goncourts report Gautier to have said). GOODRICH, Samuel Griswold ('Peter Parley): Peter Parley's Tales about Ancient Greece, etc. T-240.27: Anaks Andrum parleyglutton; 276, note 4: Parley; 288, note 6: Creeping Crawleys peteryparley (These books were used at Clongowes when Joyce was there). GORKY, Maxim: The Mother. NT-132.35: methyr ... gorky. GORMAN, Herbert: James Joyce, A Definitive Biography. N-407.I: between gormandising and gourmeteering he grubbed his tuck all right. TN-349.25: The Martyrology of Gorman (A medieval O'Gorman wrote a Martyrology and Joyce jokingly uses the title for Gorman's book). GRAY, Thomas: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Works. NT-192.34: crazy elegies. Q-32I.2: Ignorinsers' bliss •.• none too wisefolly; 385.26: purest air serene. GRIFFIN, Gerald: The Collegians. Talis Qualis. N-450.14: griffeen. T-228.32: collegions; 385.8: collegians; 167.5:
qualis . • . talis. GRIMM, Jacob and Wilhelm: Fairy Tales. NT-335.5: the grimm grimm tale; 414.17: the grimmgests of Jacko and Esau (With Aesop); 448.24: it isagrim tale (With Isengrim); 206.2: Grimmfather (With Havelock the Dane?); Grimm's Law378.27: smotthermock Gramm's laws! T-64.27: Snowwhlte and Rosered; 618.2: handsel for gerdes. HAGGARD, Rider: She. N-580.6: haggards. Reference 105.20: Ayesha (With the wife of Mohammed). HALIDAY, Charles: The Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin.
HALIDAY, William: (Trans.) History of Ireland, Keating.
N-573.2: Halliday (Either or both of the above). HALL and KNIGHT: School Algebra, etc. (They also collaborated with Todhunter).
N-28g.25: 0 them doddhunters and allanights. HALL, John B.: Random Records of a Reporter. (Describes life in Dublin about 1904. A copy was in Joyce's 'Personal Library'. See Connolly, p. 18. The author is mentioned in the Aeolus chapter of Ulysses: They're gone round to the Oval for a drink. Paddy Hooper is there with Jack Hall.) N-(?) 354.17: 25 2
LITERARY ALLUSIONS embaraced Vergemout Hall; 2II.31 (With Jekyll): a jackal with bide for Browne but Nolan. HALLIDAY, William Reginald: Greek and Roman Folk Lore. N-264.4: halliday of roaring month with its two lunar eclipses and three saturnine settings. Horn of Heathen, Highbrowed! (With a pun on 'holiday', and perhaps with Charles HALIDAY). HAMILTON, Anthony: Mhlzoires de la vie du Comote de Gramant. TN-I37.35 ... 138.I: the single maiden speech .•. to her Grand Mount . . . hebrew set to himmeltones or the quicksilversong of qwaternions (Three Hamiltons are named here to personify the confusion: 'Single-speech' Hamilton is followed by Anthony of the 'Grand Mount'; and we then meet 'Quaternions', a method of mathematical analysis invented by Sir William Rowan Hamilton). HARE, Harold Edward, and William Loftus: Who wrote the Mahatma Letters? (This seems to be one of Joyce's sources for information about Madame Blavatsky, and the word 'hare' may include their name whenever it occurs.) N-83.I ...2: hares . . . between hopping and trapping (With an Alice allusion); 285.4: hare and dart (With the German hier und dart, 'here and there'); II8.24: the hare and turtle pen and paper, the continually more or less intermisunderstanding minds of the anticollaborators •..; 238.2I: May he coIp, may he colp her, may he mixandmass colp her! Talk with a hare and you wake of a tartars (One of the implications of this is that a Hare has proved the Russian to be guilty. They describe the 'miracles' which attended the delivery of the Mahatma letters. A cup was produced from a mound; a broken china saucer was repaired by means of a sliding panel in a supposedly sealed cupboard; a little bell which occasionally rang was concealed in Madame Blavatsky's skirts-these incidents are described by the Hares and have echoes in the Wake). Q-8.12: the Cup and Soracer (The cup and saucer); 243.22: tschaina; 353.36: crockery; 336.4: sorracer; 357.20: sliding panel; 205.12: Which leg is it? The one with the bells on it? HAluNGTON, Sir John: The Metamorphosis of Ajax. N-266.I2: Harington's invention (The water-closet as described in bis book). TN-447.I...9: Jakeline •.. the sludge of King Haarington's at its height (Jacqueline Pascal is also named in this passage). HAruus, Joel Chandler: Uncle Remus. N-326.32(?): Harris. T-442.8: Uncle Remus. Q-574.4: Brexfuchs; 574.36: Breyfawkes.
253
APPENDIX HARVEY, William: Works.
N-462.12: harvey loads of feeling (Harvey's Works include an account of his post-mortem examination of Old Parr. 'The fall •.. of a once wallstrait oldparr' (3.18) alludes to Harvey's suggestion that Parr's death at the age of 15I was brought on by his having to do penance for incontinence. Joyce combines Harvey here with Harley, of Mackenzie's Man of Feeling, who was so sensitive that he died when his proposal of marriage was accepted). HAWTHOR..."I, Nathaniel: The Maypole of Merrymount. The Scarlet Letter. N-204.19: a whole drove of maiden hawthorns blushing and looking askance upon her. T-205.7: And here is her nubilee letters too. Ellis on quay with scarlet thread. Linked for the world on a flushcoloured field (The 'Scarlet letter' was sewn on Hester's dress but she felt as if it had been branded on the flesh-hence 'fl.ushcoloured'. There is also a reference to a Dublin quay, and to the 'scarlet thread' ofRahab, the harlot-Joshua 2:18). T-375.27: nonstop marrimont! HEALy, Timothy .Michael: Letters and Leaders of My Day. NQ-24.18: Healiopolis (See main text. Joyce knew this book well but disliked Healy). NT-176.12: Reali Baboon and the Forky Theagues. N-329.34: Healy. HEGEL, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Works. N-I07.36: Hallhagal.; 416.32: The June snows was flocking in thuckflues on the hegelstomes (Hegel was a voluminous writerhence 'tomes'-who that the order and connection of our thoughts are involved in the order and connection of things, and presupposed that Being and Knowing are identical. The atmospheric conditions in the Wake become chaotic to refute-or perhaps confirm this-as 'the June snows ... flocking' on to the volumes of Hegel's works suggest that Joyce's cOncepts of Knowing and the universe are less than Hegel's). HEMANS, Mrs. Felicia Dorothea: Poetical Works. N-397.3I: Mrs Shemans. Q-38S.32: the Moreigner bowed his crusted hoed and Tilly the Tailor's Tugged a Tar (parodies the first line of 'Bemado del Carpo': 'The warrior bowed his crested head and tamed his heart of fire'). T-342.9: a middinest from the Casabianca. ' HERMEs TRISMEGISTUS: The Smaragdine Tablet. N-(?) 81.7: Anton Hermes; (?) 313.27: that is Heres (In a passage al.luding to alchemy). NTQ-263.2I: The tasks above are as the flasks below saith the emerald canticle of Hermes (probably quoted from A. Symons, see main text: 'The Structural Books'). 254
LITERARY ALLUSIONS HERODOTUS:
History.
NT-13.20: our herodotary Mammon Lujius in his grand old historiorum. N-275, note 5: hairyoddities (The note is to 'Things of the past'); 614.2: horodities. HERRERA y TORDESILLAS, Antonio de: General History of the ... West Indies.
N-512.18: the herreraism of a cabotinesque exploser (In a passage containing the names of many explorers of America). HERRICK, Robert: Works. N-30.9: Herrick.. QT-162.35: cheery ripe; 29I.II: burryripe who'll buy? 508.23: cherierapest. HEYWOOD, Thomas: A Woman Killed with Kindness. T-430.32: the killingest ladykiller all by kindness. HIBBERT, H. G.: A Playgoer's Memories. N-388.29: howldmoutherhibbert (With old Mother Hubbard. Joyce is likely to have used some book to refresh his memories of the stage and this seems to be the most likely one. Many topics mentioned in the Wake are explained there; John McDougall; Sweeney Todd; old pantomimes; and an opera bouffe by Charles Collette called Cryptoconchoidsiphonostomata (135.16), which was followed by Trial by Jury on the stage, and so g:ves Joyce a good name for a nameless crime-are all chatted upon amiably by Hibbert). Hindu Scriptures. T -365.4: daimond cap daimond . . . panthoposopher (possibly a reference to The Diamond Sutra); 80.24: Agni •.. Mithra ... Shiva; 3°3.13: Upanishadem! Q-596.24: Atman. HOGG, James: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. N-69.19: hogg it and kidd him; 60.rr: Golforgilhisjurylegs .•. Up hog and hoar hunt (The devil in A Justified Sinner is called Gilmartin. Gill in the Wake seems always to mean a devil. See A Census, p. 46); 366.26: oggog hogs in the humand ... scotchem! 487.7: thogged; 533.35: hoggs (See main text:
APPENDIX HOMER: Iliad. Odyssey. (See main text: 'Some Typical Books'). HOPKINs, Gerard Maruey, S.J.: Works. N-26.2: Hopkins and Hopkins. Q-594.16: A Hesch and rasch, it shall come to pasch, as hearth by hearth leaps live. (Suggests Hopkins's 'World's wildfire leave but ash In a flash, at a trumpet crash .. .'-
That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire). Q-293' margin: Spring of Sprung Verse. HORACE: Odes. Satires. kfS Poetica. N-307 margin: Horace; 319.2I: Horace (Horace seems to be the name of the tailor who made the suit for the Norwegian captain and to be combined with Horus. But quotations from Horace are fairly numerous and rather obvious). Q-S4.S: Favout with your tongues! (Odes, III, I, 2); 57.22: an exegious monument aeruy perennious (Odes, III, 30, I); 58.18: Ebeu, for gassies! (Odes,. I!, 14, 1); II6.30: sesquipedalia CArs Poetica, 97); 168.13: Sacer esto? (Sat. II, 3, 161but this also occurs in 1P.e Law of the Twelve Tables); 280.31: that fount Bandusian shall play (Odes III, 30, I); 551.13: pelves ad hombres sumus (Odes, ][V, 7,16). HOUGHTON, Stanley: Hindle Wakes (A play). T-608.28: In the wake .•• hindled. N-6I3.12: hottyhammyum. HousMfu~, Alfred Edward: A Shropshire Lad. N-20S.35: This is the Hausman allpaven and stoned .•. (With Baron Haussmann. But mocking Housman's rhythms); 129.16: a no street hausmann when allphannd ('Allphannd' includes the meaning 'when called Alf'; A.E. is the 'no street', Baron Haussmann was re~ sponsible for pavl..ng many streets). T-:-386.S: duckasaloppics (From Salop = Shropshire. cr. POUND, 'Mr Housman ••• seems hardly to consider any verse save that having good heavY swat on every alternate syllable'-Literary Essays, p. 72). HSIUNG, S. 1.: Lady Precious Stream (A play). T -332.22: leedy plasheous stream (A copy of this was .in Joyce's library. See Connolly, p. 20). HUGO, Victor: Works. N-2II.18: Victor Hugonot; 29I.4(?); whowghowho? Q-54I.22: Walhallow, Walhallow, mourn in plein! HUME, David: Works. N-80.18: laid in its last cradle ofhume, sweet hume; 97.24: unhume; 261.5: his hume; 450.13: humely odours. (All seem to depend on puns upon Hume, home and humus.) 256
LITER..<\RY ALLUSIONS The Justice of the Peace in Ireland (4th ed. 1871). NT-134.34: Humphrey's Justesse of the Jaypees; 275, note 4: Humphrey's Justice of the Piece. N-Ig6.2I: the King fiercas Humphrey with illysus distilling, exploits and all. HlJYSMANS, Joris Karl: A Rebours. La Cathedrale. Q-I20.I3: that ideai reader (From: 'Le roman . . . deviendrait une communion entre un ecrivain magique et un ideallecteur.'-A Rebours, p. 265). QT-486.17: a blackfrinch pliestrycook . . . a cathedral of lovejelly (Includes the tide of La Cathedrale and an allusion to the dinner entirely in black described in A Rebours). IBSEN, Henrik: Works. N-I70.26: Gibsen's teatime; 378.25: Shaw and Shea are loruing obsen; 535.19: Ibscenest nanscence! Brand. T-583.29: brand; 617.16: a brand rehearsal. Catiline. T-307 margin: Catilina. Crown Pretenders (Kongsemmerne). T-133.36: kongsemma; 252.15: crown pretenders. The Doll's House (Et Dukkehjem). T-294, note I: dolls' home; 395.29: duckhouse; 533.18: cagehaused duckyheim (With The Wild Duck); 57p: weak wiffeyducky (With The Wild Duck). Emperor and Galilean (Kejser og Galilt2er). T -540.23: quaysirs and galleyliers. An Enemy of the People (En Folkefiende). T-442.2: enemy of our country; 542.18: folksfiendshlp, enmy pupuls. Ghosts (Gengangere). T-I26.IS: chainganger's; 323.35: ghustorily spoking, gen and gang ...; 540.24: gaingangers. Hedda Gabler. T-540.24: stale headygabblers. The Lady from the Sea (Fruenfra Havet). T -540.24: fresh letties from the say. The League of Youth. T-3IO.17: the Ligue of Yahooth O.S.v. (O.s.v. is a Nonvegian abbreviation meaning 'Aud so on'. The Order of St. Vincent are Irish teaching fathers.) Little Eyolf (Lille Eyolf). T -201.33: abbles for Eyolf. Love's Comedy. T (?)-540.26: politicoecomedy.
HUMPHREYs, Henry:
The Masterbuilder (Bygmester Solness). T-4.18: Bygmester; 58.16: Mester Begge; 62.3: baggermalster; 77.3: misterbuilder; III.2I: the masterbilker; 296.7: our monstrebilker; 324.27: bygger muster; 337.I8: biggermaster; 377.26: myterbuilder; 530,32: Bigmesser; 576.28: Eyg Maester; 6°7.30: Boergemister; 624.II: soleness . . . bigmaster. Peer Gynt. T -63.28: pier; 75.17, 3II.29, 389.29, 445.25 (All 257 '7
APPENDIX 'peer' punning on 'pair'); 25I.I4: pierce; 540.22: peers and gints; 614.3: Ormepierre. Q-246.6: at Asa's arthre; 279, note I: myoId nourse Asa; 326.10: aase; 313.13: boyg; 330.8: soloweys sang (801veig's song). Pillars of Sodety (Sanfundets Stotter). T-96.3I: some funneer stotter; 540.24: pullars off societies. The Viking's Barrow (Kjaempehejen). T-I8.13: viceking's graab; 383.22: Downbelow Kaempersally (With W. W. Kelly and Sally). The Warriors of Helgeland (Haermaende paa Helgeland) T (?)Trp. 22: horneymen. The Wild Duck (Vildanden). T-233.I2: wily geeses; 263-19: vild need (And see The Doll's House above). When We Dead Awaken (Naar vi dade vaagner). T -17o.I8: when wee deader walkner; 540.24: dudder wagoners. Poems. Q-I99.4: holding doomsdag over hunselv, dreeing his weird (This was pointed out by Kenner in Dublin's Joyce, p. 78. At digt--det er at holdej dommedag over sig selv: 'To write poetry is to hold doom-sessions over oneself'). INGELOW, Jean: 'High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire'. Q-577.26: cowslips yillow, yellow, yallow. INGRAM., John Kells: 'The Memory of the Dead'. N-93.29: Sean Kelly's anagrim. Q-553.3Z: truemen like yahoomen. IRENAEUS, St.: Against Heresies. N-Z3.19: Irenean. Q-447.24: Why such a number .•• why any number at all (11,26,2). JAMES, Henry: The Lesson of the Master. The Altar of the Dead. N-The name James occurs often and may sometimes refer to Henry James, but he is never named in full. T-539.8: my best master's lessons. Q-540.28: Been so free! Thank: you besters! (The first three words are the exclamation of the Hero of The Lesson when he learns that 'The Master', Mr. H. St. George, has stolen the girl he loves while he has been following 'the Master's' advice by giving all his attention to his writing). T-462.I: maitre d'autel (Combines both titles); 465-2: Julia Bride (A story in The Altar of the Dead). Q-464-36: I'm proud ofyoo french (French is a character of whom Julia Bride says she is proud); 536.17: husband her verikerfully (Vereker is a writer, the secret of whose works is never penetrated in 'The Figure in the Ca...rpet', one of the stories in The Altar of the Dead. It was so involved that the difficulties seemed insuperable until 'some day somewhere when he wasn't they fell, in all their superb intricacy, into the one right combination. The figure in the
258
LITERARY ALLUSIONS carpet came out.' This is another image for the Wake-but the solver dies before he can explain his discovery). lARRY, Alfred: Works. N-463.12: He has novel ideas I know and he's a iarry queer fish betimes (Jarry wrote Le Surmale, which has been described as 'the only strictly surrealist novel', and Ubu Roi, an extravagant farce in which one of his former teachers is enthroned as king. All his works are full of novel, but perhaps queer, ideas. He was very eccentric). JONES, Henry Arthur: Michael and his Lost Angels. N-48].Io:Jones. T-I47.z ... 6: lost, angel ... Ivtitche11; 443.35: Michan and his lost angeleens. JONSON, Benjamin: Volpone. Underwoods. N-38.z: benjamin; I92.35: joyntstone. T-97.I4: volponism. Q84.I: Moscas; 40.25: nano. T-526.3Z: Underwood. JOUSSE, Rev. Marcel, S.J.: Works. N-468.5: he jousstly says; 535.3: joussture; 568.8: joustle for that sonneplace (Fr. Jousse is a philologist who believes that language is derived from gesture. Joyce agreed with him.) N(?)-4I6.I2: joust. JOYCE, James: Works. (See main text. All Joyce's works are mentioned in the Wake.) JUNG, Carl Gustave: Works. N-Il5.22: yung; 268, note 3: The law of the jungerl; 460.20: Jungfraud's Messongebook (See main text: 'The Structural Books'). KARRs, Alphonse: Voyage autour de monjardin. N-339.14: Karrs and Polikoff'& the men's confessioners. T-309.7: like your rumba round me garden allatheses (Kart's thesis was that all women and all countries are alike-so why travel?) KEATS, John: Works. Q-162.35: A king off duty and a jaw for ever! 266.14: love at the latch (Joyce may be thinking of Isabella: 'He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch/ Before the door had given her to his eyes'). lZENNEDY, Margaret: The Constant Nymph. N-498.I9: at Kennedy's kiln. T -577. I I : constant lymph. KEEGAN, John: 'Caoch the Piper'. T-43.20: Caoch O'Leary. KELLER, Gottfried: Works. N-527.30: in his storm collar (Theodor Storm was Keller's friend). KIcKHAM, Charles Joseph: Knocknagow. N-208.3I: Kickhams a frumpier ever you saw. T-228.32: a knockonacow (This probably refers also to the often-repeated story that Kickham was once found gazing intently at a picture of a cow 259
APPENDIX in a Dublin gallery, and, when asked why, said: 'She is so like an old cow at Mullinahone'). KIERKEGAARD, Soren Aabye: Enten-Eller (Either-Or). N-20I.3I: kirkeyaard; 246.1: kerkegaard. T-28I.25: Enten eller. either or. (Ibsen saw the world in colours-or, rather, shades of grey-as Kierkegaard painted it, but I do not think that his philosophy seriously affected Joyce, although I would not attempt to defend this statement if it were contested by someone with a knowledge of Danish, in which some quotations from Kierkegaard are possibly concealed. His three 'stages' of life: aesthetic, ethic and religious, may have been imposed on Vieo's epochs). KINGSLEY, Charles: The Water Babies. 'The Three Fishers'. T-198.8: the waterbaby. Q-512.25: hairweed . • . bar in the moarning. KIPLING, Rudyard: Works. 'Danny Deaver'. T-352.27: the Dann Deafir warcry. 'Love O'Women'. T-436.13: Loves 0' women. 'Boots'. Q-332.35: boths, booths, booths, booths. 'The Absent-Minded Beggar'. Q-249.17: paypaypay. Just-So Stories. T-I53.26: justotoryum (This is mocking at Kipling for the admitted didactic element in his stories for children'Just to Tory them'. ][t is noteworthy that Kipling forestalled Joyce in some of his innovations; and stated in Something of Myself that he deliberately wrote Puck of Pook's Hill on four levels, to be interpreted by four different types of readers; and even included a cryptogram in it-although he had himself forgotten the answer). KLEIST, Heinrich von: Der zerbrochene Krug. TQ-70.4: myth brockendootsch, making his reporterage on Der Fall Adams. Q-532.6: Amtsadam, sir, to you! (The play is an allegory of the fall of Adam through his love for Eve. Adam is the local judge-Amt=office-trying a case in which a jug has been broken; but he has broken the jug himself while attempting to seduce t...h.e innocent girl, Eve Rull). KRAFT-EBBING, Richard von: Psychopathia Sexualis. N-290.28: his craft ebbing (I have been told that Joyce was given a copy of this book in ZUrich and afterwards lost it. Perhaps this explains why it seems to have been used for Uh'sses and not for the Wake). KROPOTKIN, Peter Alexeivich: Works. N-8I.18: cropatltin. KRYLOV, Ivan: Fables. NT-159.14: crylove fables (There is a faint echo in 416.14 of 260
LITERARY ALLUSIONS Krylov's 'Gadfly and Ant'. See Krylov's Fables, trans. Bernard Pares, London: Jonathan Cape, 1926, p. 71). LA FONTAINE, Jean: Fables. N(?)T-414.17: one from the grimm gests of Jacko and Esaup, fable one, feeble too ... the Ondt and the Gracehoper. (La Cigale et la fourmi is 'fable one' in La Fontaine's book, and Joyre's story simply turns it inside out, so perhaps 'Jacko' indicates Jean). LAVATER, Johann Kaspar: Physiognomische Fragmente. N-260.IO: diagnonising Lavatery Square (Lavater wrote that: 'The outward and visible is determined by the inner and spiritual.') LANNIGAN, Rev. John: Ecclesiastical History of Ireland. N-354.17: Meetinghouse Lanigan. LAYAMON: Brut. NT-254.6: your brutest layaman; 359.17: layaman's brutstrenth. LEAR, Edward: A Book of Nonsense, by Lear and others. Everyman's Library. (This book was in Joyce's library, see Connolly, p. 9. It contains 'The English Struwwelpeter' which may be referred to in 212.2: Roaring Peter. But the quotations from Lear are from poems not in this book.) N-65.4: Mr Leer. Q-275.27: crackley hat; 406.5: the roastery who lives on the hilli. 334.24: pobbel; 454.35: pobbel queue's remainder. LECKY, W. E. H.: History of Ireland. History of Rationalism. N-279.16: lecking; 438.25: in the slack march of civilisation ... becoming guilty ofunleckylike intoxication (Lecky saw history as a march of progress; Joyce thought it went round in circles-irrationally). LEE, Nathaniel: The Rival Queens. TN-I32.IO ... 15: their rival queens ... lVliraculone, Monstrueceleen. LE FANU, Joseph Sheridan: The House by the Churchyard. NT-213.I: Lefanu (Sheridan's) Old House by the Coachyard. N-265.4: Lefanunian. T-<)6.7: the old house by the chapelizod; 245.36: De Dud huis bij de kerkegaard. (A major source. See main text: 'Irish Writers'.) LEIBNITZ, Gottfried Wilhelm: La Monadologie. N-416.29: the leivnits in his hair made him think he had the Tossmania (Combines the name Leibnitz \Vith a mocking reference to his Monads-simple substances endowed with power of action). LELAN'D, Thomas: History of Ireland. N-3II.5: lea1and; 487.31: Lee1ander. LEVER, Charles: Tom Burki3 of Ours. Harry Lorrequer. N-93.34: Samvouwill Leaver (With Samuel Lover, q.v.). T-I06.5: Tonnoburkes; 228.21: hurry laracor. 261
APPENDIX LEVy-BRUHL, Lucien: How Natives Think. Primitive Mentality . .. N-I50.15: Professor Loewy-Brueller; 15LII: Professor Levi-Brulo; 151.32: Professor Llewellys ap Bryllars (A major source. See main text: 'The Structural Books'). LEWIS, Percy Wyndham: Works. Time and Westem Man. T -292.6: Spice and Westend Woman (utterly exhausted before publication, indiapepper edition shortly). QN-56.2I...28: some lazy scald or maundering pote, lift wearywilly his slowcut snobsic eyes ... Nonsense! There was not very much windy Nous blowing at the given moment through the hat of Mr Melancholy Slow! ('Windy' is naming Lewis. The passage replies to Lewis's: 'There is not very much reflection going on at any time inside the head of Mr. James Joyce', and his complaint that Stephen moves 'with incredible slowness . . . how he raises his hand, passes it over his aching eyes ...'). Q-l08.27: this Aludin's cove of our cagacity (Lewis described Ulysses as 'an Aladdin's cave of incredible bric-abrac'); 167.I2: gropesarching eyes (Lewis mocked the phrase 'great searching eyes' in Ulysses). T -320.17: wastended shootmaker. Childermass. T -330.33: The kilder massed; 355.34: childerness. NT-236.7: Luisome ... Cantalamesse (Includes Candlemas DayFebruary 2nd, Joyce's birthday). Cantelman's Spring Mate. (Named above with Childermass.) T-I72.6: You will enjoy cattlemen's spring meat. Snooty Baronet. T-493.14: Snooker, bort. Blasting and Bombardiering. T -167.14: blasted . . . bomb (See Kenner, Dublin's Joyce, pp. 362-9). LIVY: History of Rome. N-260.9: Long Livius Lane; 452.18: the annals of our ... livy. LODGE, Sir Oliver: Raymond. N-42I.2: lodge. Q-535.36: That was Communicatot, a former colonel. A discarnated spirit . . . may fernspreak shortly with messuages from my deadported; 533.24: K.K. (Raymond, p. 255: 'a colonel'; p. 360: 'the Communicator'; p. 205: 'K.K.'-a medium. The chief medium mentioned is Miss Alta Piper who is referred to as 'A.L.P.' on almost every occasion. There are many minor detailsspirits smoking cigars, and so on-which Joyce may have borrowed). LONGFELLOW, Henry Wadsworth: Poetical Works. N-26I, note 2: Longfellow; 82.13: stlongfella. Hiawatha. Q-206. li:5: Minn.eha . . .; 450.5: minnowahaw. T600.7: minnyhahaing here from hiarwather. The Wreck of the Hesperus. T -557.6: the wrake of the haps~urus. 262
LITERARY ALLUSIONS Q-387.20: the wreak: of Wormans' Noe ('The reef of Norman's Woe'). The Belfry of Bruges. Reference: 56.15: as Roland rung, a wee dropeen of grief (Roland is the name of the alarm bell in the belfry; when it rang Longfellow found his eyes 'wet with most delicious tears'. The name Roland in the Wake always includes this bell in its signification) . LOVELACE, Richard: Poems. N-231.I2: lovvey. (This attribution is made in A Skeleton Key, p. 126.) LOVER, Samuel: Handy Andy. Legends and Stories of Ireland. 'Molly Bawn'. N-93.34: Samyouwill ... Lover that jolly old molly bit. T-I29.I7: the handiest of all andies; 229.2: a writing in handy antics; 409.3I: ambly andy. Q-557.6: Kong Gander O'Toole ('King Gander O'Tool' from Legends and Stories). LUCAN: Pharsalia. N-419.36: Charley Lucan (With CHARLES LUCAS, q.v.); 255.21: that Buke of Lukan (Follows a list of Latin authors but includes St. Luke's Gospel and the Book of Lecan as well as Lucan's work.) T-353.24: Parsuralia. LUCAS, Charles: Pamphlets on the Government of Ireland. N-4I9.36: Thefuellest filth ever fired since Charlie Lucan's (Lucas's pamphlets were banned). L YLY, John: Works. N-583.9: lylyputtana. (With Swift's Lilliput.) LYTTON, Lord Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron: The Lady of Lyons. Richelieu. The Last Days of Pompeii. T-229.IO: lady the lalage of lyonesses; 449. II : my lady of Lyons; 5I9.33 and 520.I3: Mrs Lyons (?). Q-34.33: Pauline, allow!; 306.r8: Is the pen mightier than the sword? (Richelieu, Act 2, Scene 2-but this is a well-known quotation). T-64.14: last days of pompery. MACAULAY, Lord Thomas Babington, 1st Baron: Essays. Lays of Ancient Rome. N-25.36: Mick Mac Magnus MacCawley; 618.1: MacCrawls. T-277.5: lays of ancient homes. Q-83.7: lards porsenal. Essay on Clive. Q-IOLI6: everyschoolfilly of sevens core moons or more who knows; 339.32: who strungled Attahilloupa with what empoisoned El Monte de Zuma; 492.I8: Zenaphia Holwell . . . Surager Dowling ... I hindustand. 263
APPENDIX
Essay on Ranke's History of the Popes. Q-56.20: our Traveller ... from van Demon's land; 156.29: that brokenarched traveller from Nuzuland. MAcCARTHY, Denis Florence: Poems. N-200.34: Denis Florence MacCarthy's combies (Perhaps because he had Christian names of both sexes); 231.15: dense fioppens mugurdy (As an example of a bad poet); 452-9: Tennis Flonnels MacCourther. MAcDONALD, John: 'Daily News Diary' of the Parnell Commission. N-87.12: Hyacinth O'Donnell, B.A. (A major source. See main text, chapter: 'Irish Writers'). MCGEE, Thomas D'Arcy: Poems. History of Ireland. N-23I.I4: wretched some horsery megee. MACHIAVELLI, Niccolo: Ii Principe. TQN-89.6: The prince in principe! should not expose his person? Macchevuole! (This includes both English and Italian titles). N182.20: Nichiabelli. MACPHERSON, James: Ossian. NT-123.25: MacPerson's Oshean; 294.13: Makefearsome's Ocean. N-423.I: jameymockfarceson. T-I39.2I: the Rageous Ossean. Fingal. 22.10: a loud fingale; 72.7: the Sons of Fingal; 106.17: Fingallians; 215.14: fingalls; 329.14: Fingal; 469.15: Fingale; 496.18: I have it here to my fingall's ends; 228.4: Everallin; 228.14: Gelchasser; 228.12: Brassolis; 231.12: Fonar; 231.28: Malthos (These are all characters from Fingal or Temora). 131.23: Mora and Lora (These are two hills mentioned in Fingal and Temora. The passage which includes them is based on Ossian). 329.I4: Cathlin (Heroine of Cathlin of Cluna). Surly Tubal smiled upon drear Darthoola: and Roscranna's bolgaboyo begirlified the daughter of Cormac (Cormac is the king of the Fianna, Rosecranna is his daughter). 'Dartboola' (329.17) is Macpherson's Dar".hula, and Tuhal is another character inFingal. 131.22: our swaran foi (Swaran was Fingal's foe). Q-4.15: Phall if you but will, rise you must ('Fall I may! But raise my tomb'Carric-Thura). Works. N-255.2o: micmacrobius. MAETERLINCK, Maurice: La Vie des Abeilles. La Vie des Fourmis. L'Araignee de Cristal. N-417.4: his good smetterling of entymology (With a reference to his books about insects. Schmetterling is German for butterfly. He is MACROBIUS:
also Joyce's probable source for 108.15: Elberfeld's Calcnlating Horses).
LITERARY ALLUSIONS William: Works. N-458.r8: magginbottle (Maginn drank: himself to death. Joyce knew by heart Mangan's poem, 'The Nameless One', which contains the lines:
MAGINN,
'And he fell far thIough that pit abysmal, The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns, And pawned his soul for the devil's dismal Stock of returns'). Francis Sylvester (Father Prout'): Reliques of Father Prout. 'The Bells of Shandon' . N-133.2: Mahony; 482.31: The prouts. Q-I39.16 (Parody of 'Bells of Shandon'). T-393.27: their poor old Shandon Bellbox; 483.6: the bells of scandal; 445.28: and recollection by rintrospection. MALACHI: Prophecy concerning the Roman Pontiffs. T-I55.34: Malachy the Augurer. (Joyce's 'personal library' contained a copy of: Piobb, P.-V. Le Sort de [,Europe d'apres la dlebre prophitie des papes de Saint Malachie •.• Paris: Editions Dangles, 1939. See Connolly, p. 31. But this was published too late for F. W.). MALHERBE, Franc;:ois de: Works. N-478.9: there are fully six hundred and six ragwords in your malherbal Magis landeguage. (The Donkey has said this and seems to have confused Malherbe with bad grazing saying that there are ragworts-a weed noxious to cattle-growing there to the number of 606, which suggests Salvarsan.) MALLARME, Stephane: Works. CApres-Midi d'un Faune. Un Coup de MAHONY,
Des.
T-I22.13: Day the Dicebox ThIom. (Un Coup de Des). (See main text and D. Hayman, Joyce et Mallarme.) MALORY, Sir Thomas: Morte d'Arthur. T -151.20: Mortadarthella taradition. N-I5I.24: Mullocky (This is also Malachi who 'wore the collar of gold' but the traditions of Tara and Camelot are combined in this passage). T-392.34: The merthe dirther! Q-285.2: mierelin roundtableturning; 132.5: the modareds that came at him in Camlenstrete; 389.23: gouty old galahat, with his peer of quinnyfears (With Peer Gynt. There are about twenty references to Arthur and Guinevere but are combined with many other themes. E.g. 28.r: queenoveire (Makes Guinevere queen of Ireland); 285 margin: Arthurgink's hussies and Everguin's men (Here King Arthur's Gwendolen and Guinevere are balanced against his queen's lovers to the rhythm of 'All the king's horses and
265
APPENDIX
all the king's men'. The balanced reversals of the names set up the kind of pattern Joyce liked to establish.) .MANGAN, James Qarence: Poems. N(?)-4I.4: Mongan; 209.7: Clarence (With Qarence from Richard II!); 2II.I: Mann in the Cloack. Q-93.27: from dark Rosa Lane a sigh and a weep; 351.9: durck rosolun; 4I9.25: from the Otherman or off the Toptic (Also a quotation from Joyce's essay on Mangan); 387.I7: long ago ... the barmaisigheds, when my heart knew no care (And see: WILLIAMS, R. D'A.); 535.29: Nine dirty years mine age, hairs hoar (The Nameless One: 'Old and hoary/ At thirty nine'); 66.14: written in seven divers stages of ink (From a description of a Mangan MS. by Imogen Guiney: 'O'Daly also had said that the versions of the Munster poets were often brought to him in differentcoloured inks indicative of different public houses in which they were composed.'-I. Guiney, James Clarence Mangan. London: John Lane, 1897, p. 22.) .M..A.NNERS, John Hartley: Peg 0' My Heart (A play). T-290.3: peg-of-my-heart; 362.2.0: the peg ... off his heart; 490.3I: of his heart ..• Pegeen; 577.16: peg of bis ..• heart (There are probably references to Manners's wife, Laurette Taylor, who played the pa...'1: of Peg). T-143.1: Sweet Peck-at-my-Heart picks one man more. N-99.8: masculine manners; 365.33: Taylor. .MANzoNI, Alessandro: I Promessi Sposi. T -361.6: Spose we try it promissly. N-36I.13: man's in his .•. MARDRUS, J. C.: (Trans.) Le Koran. (In Joyce's library, but only the first thirty-two pages have been opened. See Connolly, p. 23.) N-374.12: the Murdrus duelect; . 517.U: The author, in fact, was mardred. .MARGADANT, Simon Lemnius: Raetius. TQN-32.7.II •.. 13 •.. 14 ... IS ... 18: rheadoromanscing ... ester ... pled ... glatscb ... piz ... aura ... marchadant (The first word gives the language, Raeto-RomapJc or Romansch, and tt'1e title; the last word gives the authors name; between come Romansch words meaning-in order-foreign, word, ice, mountain-peak and weather.) .MARx, Karl: Das Kapital N-83.IO: marx; 83.15: remarxing; 365.19: nompos mentis like Novus Elector what with his Marx and their Groups (Seems to include the statement that the new voter who favours Marx is of unsound mind.) MATHARAN, M.-M.: Casus de matrimonio. (According to Counolly: 'The most heavily marked of all the books
266
LITERARY ALLUSIONS in the Joyce Library.'-p. 25. Its influence, however, seems to be confined to the passage beginning 572.I9: 'The Procurator Interogarius Mealterum ... ' and ending 573.32: 'Has he hegemony and shall she submit?' Incidentally this passage is the subject of a story, 'A Case of Conscience', in Best SF (Ed. E. Crispin) Faber & Faber.l MATURIN, Charles Robert: Melmoth the Wanderer. N-335.35: 0 Mr Mathurin, they were calling, what a topheavy hat you're in! (With St. Maturin, the French patron of fools, whose hat, presumably, is a fool's cap. The Camb. Hist. of Lit., XIII, II, p. 26I, describes Melmoth as being 'written in a style of towering nonsense'. The reference here may include Oscar Wilde, who took the name Melmoth in Paris, and 'mathurin' is a French slang word for a sailor.) MEAD, G. R. S.: Thrice Great Hermes. N-563.3: A stake in our mead ... How his book of craven images; 479.8: Meads Marvel, thass withumpronounceable tail; (?) I8.22: Meades. Q-263.2I: The tasks above are as the flasks below, saith the emerald canticle of Hermes. (But Joyce met this first in Arthur Symons, The Symbolist Movement in Literature, see above, p. 46.) MELVILLE, Herman: Moby Dick. Reference I3.34: groot hwide Whalefisk; 270.I4: queckqueck. MrCHELET, Jules: (Translator) Principes de la philosophie de l'histoire, traduits de la scienza nuova de J. B. Vico, et precedes d'un discours sur Ie systeme et la vie de l'auteur. Bruxelles, I839. N-II7.II: The olold stolium! From quiqui quinet to michemiche chelet and a jambebatiste to a brulobrulo! (Michelet was a friend of Edgar Quinet who translated Herder and wrote an essay on Vico, from which Joyce quotes the sentence 28I.4-I3. The summary (pp. 6-39) of Vico's theories contains nearly everything that Joyce used from Vico. Perhaps a major source. MILL, John Stuart: The Subjugation of Women. On Liberty. NT-2I3.2: Mill (J) On Woman with Ditto on the Floss. Ja, a swamp for Altmuehler and a stone for his flossies. (According to a letter in the T.L.S., 2Ist August, I953, by P. G. Burbidge, this comes from H. R. Wheatley, What is an Index? London: Henry Sotheran& Co., I878, p. 66: 'Mill on Liberty - on the Floss.') N-416.32: hegelstomes, millipedes (In a passage about philosophers). 1 Since expanded into a full-length novel: A Case of Conscience. James Blish, Faber & Faber, 1959.
APPENDIX MILLER, Hugh: Old Red Sandstone. Footprints of the Creator. NT-2I3.2: Altmuehler and a stone. T-I37.16: footprints on the megacene. MILLIGAN, Alice: The Last Feast of the Fianna (A play). N-I33.26: was drummatoysed by Mac Milligan's daughter (The passage is about Finn). MILTON, John: Paradise Lost, Works. N-7I.7: Milltown. T-6IO.34: Peredos Last; 6I5.25: paladays last. Q-I82.4: light phantastic; 194.15: clothed upon with the mettuor and shimmering like the horescens (This combines two phrases from P.L.: 'clothed with transcendent light'-I, 86; and 'shone like a meteor'-I, 537). 230.25: such as engines weep; 5°5.16: like angels weeping; 343.36: Of manifest 'tis obedience and the. Flute! 233.33: pure undefallen engelsk. lucydlac; Q-203.26 ... 28 ... 30: enamelled eyes ... violetian ... laurals (Lycidas, 11. 134, 139, I49.) MINUCIUS, Felix: Octavius. N-486.13: Minucius Mandrake. Q-124.I6: the ancestral pneuma of one whom, with rheuma, he venerated shamelessly ... at Cockspur Common. MISTRAL, Frederic; Works. Mireille. N-453-I7: Mistral; T-327.30: mireic11es; Q-43.22: the felibrine trancoped metre (Mistral founded the Fe1ibrige school of poets). MITCHELL, John: Jail Journal. N-I3.9: Miry Mitchell; 281, note 4: All this Mitchells . . . T228.33: gheol ghiornal (Probably includes Wilde's De Profundis). Q-60I.17... 34 (This passage is mainly about Kevin Izod O'Doherty whom Mitchel met and called 'St. Kevin'). MOLIERE, Jean Baptiste Poquelin: Le Malade lmaginaire. Le Bourgeois
Gentilhomme. N-II7.12: jambebatiste. (With Vico and St. John the Baptist). T-I77.27: bis Ballade lmaginaire; 365.4: baron gentilhomme. Q-3.I2: sosie (The word is used in French to signify 'twin or double' from the character Sosie in Moliere's version of Amphitryon). MOMMSEN, Theodor: Roman History. N-I55.33: Mumfsen. (Cited as one of the Mookse's authorities.) MOORE, George: Confessions of a Young Man. Ave. Salve. Vale. N-I60.25: Will you please come over and let us mooremoore murgessly to each's OL1.er down below our vices (This alludes to Moore's weakness for confession and combines him with Moore and Burgess, the black-faced minstrels). Aves SelvaeAcquae Valles! 305.27 Ave ... Vale ... salvy; 600.7: whereinnoncewelave'tisalveandvale.
268
LITERARY ALLUSIONS MOORE, Thomas: Irish Melodies. Lallah Rookh. TN-I06.8: Medoleys from Tammany Moohr; 184.15: lallaryrook moromelodious . . .; 331.12: Tommy Melooney; 439.9: Moore's melodies; 468.27: the moore the melodest; 492.34: tummy moor's maladies. Q-Mr. M. J. C. Hodgart has pointed out that Joyce quotes all the titles of Moore's Melodies together 'With the name of the air to which each was set. For example: 49.6: alohned in crowds to warnder on like Shuley Luney. This comes from 'Alone in crowds to wander on', words which Moore wrote to the tune Shule Aroon. But as these borrowings have been fully discussed by lVlr. Hodgart, and come under the heading of songs rather than literature, they will not be listed here. There do not seem to be any quotations from Lallah Rookh; but 68.12: Aslim-all-Muslim may refer to Azim, the hero of the first part of that book, and 394.18: Lally ... and Roe, to the reference in it to Sir Thomas Roe. MORGAN, Sydney, Lady: The Wild Irish Girl. N-36.5: Morganspost; 60.27 ... 33: Sydney . . . Moirgan's lady. MORLEY OF BLACKBv"RN, John, 1st Viscount: The Life of Gladstone. N-54I.12: morely. (Gladstone forms a part of the figure of H.C.E. and this work is probably Joyce's source for the details about Gladstone, e.g. 31.16: some shortfingeredness. See WRIGHT, Peter E.) MORRIS, William: News from Nowhere. NT-333.36: Noviny news from Naul ... Morrienbaths. MOTLEY, John Lothrop: The Rise of the Dutch Republic. N-338.II: Mottledged. T -1°5.22: the Rise of the Dudge Pupublic. MUGGLETON, Lodowick: The Divine Looking-Glass. N-I23.21: Neomugglian Teachings; 312.26: Muggleton. T-408.2I: what Simms sobs today I'll reeve tomorry ... I'm thine owelglass. (Muggleton's associate was John Reeves, here combined with the tenor Simms Reeves. But there is no evidence that Joyce had read Muggleton's books. 'Neomugglian Teachings' is probably referring to the modem psycho-analysts, particularly J ung and Freud, who claim. that no one can be accepted as an authority on their subject who has not himself been psycho-analysed. Joyce compares this to the taunt made by O. W. HOLMES (q.v.) in The Professor at the Breakfast Table about the Muggletonians-who will only accept criticism from people who have professed Muggletonianism. The reference to Holmes's book follows shortly after the reference to Neomugglian teachings, and this is surrounded by phrases suggesting psycho-analysis.)
APPENDIX MURRAY, Lindley: Grammar of the English Language. N-269.20: all them fine clauses in Lindley's and Murrey's. NASHE, Thomas: Pierce Penniless, His Supplication to the Devil. N-75.20: Nash; 290.29 ...291.27: the unirish title, Grindings of Nash .•. a notoriety, a foist edition •.• (This passage is mainly about authors and Nashe seems to be one of them, although only the name and title may be used. Nash is Hebrew for snake-a symbol for Satan, and Pierce is short for Peter-whose pence are proverbial: so Pierce being penniless presents Joyce with another personification of his image of the writer as anti-Christ: 'his word wounder' (75.19). There are many things in the Wake that could have been taken from Nashe's works, but most of them are likely to have other sources. The following are typical examples. My references to Nashe are to McKerrow's edition-3o.2 (etc.): Humphrey; 4°5.17: nunch with good Duke Humphrey (Nashe, I, 163, III, 147); 86.8: Crowbar (Nashe I, 167); 94.13: Agrippa (Nashe I, 19I); 415.15: sommerfool (Nashe III, 227: Summer's Last Will and Testament. This is a play about Will Sommers, Henry VIII's fool. Joyce is also punning on somervogel, Swiss-German for butterfly). Q-378.20: Theplaygue will soon be over (Nashe: The plague full swift goes bye-III, 283towards the end of the play.) NEPOS, Cornelius: Themistocles. N-389.28: Cornelius Nepos. TQ-392.24: Themistletocles on his multilingual tombstone ('An epitaph in several languages was written on his tomb'-Themistocles, X, 4). NEWMAN, John Henry, Cardinal: 'Lead, Kindly Light'. N-282.20: his element curdinal numen; 467.33: numan;596.36 and 614.17: newman. T-II2.9: Lead, kindly fowl! (See Letters, p. 305). Q-594.6: light kindling light has led we hopas but hunt me the journeyon. NICHOLAS OF CuSA:
De Docta Ignorantia.
NQ-49.33: Micholas de Cusack . . . the coincidence of their contraries; I63.I7: Cusanus •.. old Nicholas (See main text: 'The Structural Books'). NIETZSCHE, Friedrich Wilhelm: Thus Spake Zarathustra. Ecce Homo. N-83.IO: Nichtian. T-28I margin: Also Spuke Zerothruster~ Q150.26: Why am I not born like a Gentileman and why am I now so speakable about my own eatables. (parodies the chapter titles of Ecce Homo.) Q-302 margin: Agonizing Overman. NIJIN~.Y, Romola: Life of Vaslav Nijznsky. Q-274.8: entre chats; 274 margin: Pas d'action; 274, note I: Go up 270
LITERARY ALLUSIONS quick, stay so long, come down slow. T-513.II: Dawncing the kniejinksky choreopiscopally like an easter sun ... O'DOHERTY, Kevin Izod: Works. N-2II.14: Kevineen O'Dea; 231.13: coffin acid odarkery; 283.14: o doherlynt! 601.18: Keavn! O'GORMAN: Martyrology. (See GORMAN.) O'HEGARTY, P. S.: The Victory of Sinn Fein. Q-473.8: devil era (Joyce's information about 'Document Number One', etc., may come in part from this book). OLIPHANT, Laurence and Margaret: Works. N-427.22: Tuskland where the oliphants scrum (Both cousins were born in Cape Town and became voluminous writers). ORCZY, Baroness: The Scarlet Pimpernel. T -564.28: a scarlet pimparnell. O'REILLY, John Boyle: Works. N-23I.13: gumboil owrithy. ORIGEN: Works. N-I6I.8: origen. T(?)-I55.3S: the Cappon's collection. OVID (P. Ovidius Naso): Metamorphoses. Tristia. Ex Ponto. N-306 margin (Ironically placed opposite: 'Is the pen mighter than the sword? A career in the Civil Service); 403.7: nasoes. T-190.30: a song of alibi • . • metamorphoseous (The first phrase probably refers to Tristia and Ex Ponto). QT-434.30: You'll fix: your eyes darkles on the autocart ... but here till youre martimorphysed please sit still ... how wrong will he look (One of the allusions here is to Ovid's statement that he was exiled because he saw something.Tristia, III, 5, 50). Q-267.9: plutonically pursuant . . . pretty Proserpronette whose slit satchel spilleth peas (But, like several other allusions-to Deucalion and Pyrrha, for example-this does not necessarily involve Ovid). PARACELSUS (Theophrastus Bombastes von Hohenheim): Works. N-484.34: Theophrastlls Spheropneumaticus (It seems unlikely that Joyce read Paracelsus. Possibly his source was the 'Digressions to Swift's Tale of A Tub). PARTRIDGE, Eric: Works. N-344.7: partridge; 447.28: I am perdrix and upon my pet ridge (These allusions seem to combine four things: there is the almanack-maker, the modern lexicographer whose books Joyce seems to have used, the mythological Perdix and the phrase Toujours
perdrix). 27 1
APPENDIX PASCAL, Blaise: Lettres Provinciales. Pansees. N-372.IO: Blaize (And in the word 'paschal'). T-403.I4: Pensee! 4°8.31: what the eldest daughter she was panseying; 443.14: pansements; 446.3: loveliest pansiful thoughts (With Hamlet); 447.1...12: help our jakeline sisters . . . the provincials. References: 446.26: EuphoIDa; 528.24: Euphiamasly (pascal's sister Jacqueline took the name of Euphemia in religion at Port Royal, and wrote a Life of her brother. Joyce is using the pair as characters for Shem/Shaun and 188y). Q-271 margin: Cliopatria, thy hosies history; 172.27: You see chaps it will trickle out . . . (Pascal seems to be included in the page following this as a pa.."'t of the character of Shem). PATRICK, St.: Confessio. Tripartite Life. N-3.IO: thuartpeatrick; 3°7.22: Saint Patrick (The name occurs nearly fifty times in various versions); 54.15: Cothraige; 480.12: Magnus; (?) 485.7: Suck at! (St. Patrick had four names: Sucat, Cothraige, Magonius and Patricius. See Tripartite Life, Rolls Series, 1887, p. 35. He is recognized as one of the voices that speak from the sleeping Yawn. His contributions begin on p. 478) 478.21: Moy jay trouvay fa clay dang les champs; 478.25: trefling .•. partnick . . . padredges; 479.12: Pat ...; 480.2: the slaver ... Folchu ... (These references thicken until pp. 483-4 is almost solidly based on the Confessio). N-483.34: patristic. T -484.1: I confess; 486.28: your tripartite. Q-I69.n:: an adze of a skull ('St. Patrick was called Adzehead from his tonsure'-Tripartite Life, p. 35); 480.13: laid bare his breast to give suck (Refers to St. Patrick's refusal to accept adoption by this ancient ceremony); 605.8: portable altare cum baIneo ('The portable stone altar ... swam round the boat'-Tripartite Life, p. 447)· PELAGIUS: Works. N-I82.3: pelagiarist; 525.7: Pelagiarist!; 538.36: Pelagios. PETRARCH, Francesco: Works. N-203.30: throw those laurels now on her daphdaph teasesong petrock; 269.24: the greater the patrarc the griefer the pinch. PLATO: Works. QN-I64.5 ... II: the omber the Skotia of the one •.. babbling point of platicism (Republic, 515 A). T -2II.24: symposium's syrup. Q-2I4.7: we're umbas all (Rep., 514-8); 231.15: as thought it had been zawhen intwo (Referring to Aristophanes' speech in The Symposium about man's original body having been sawn in two). N241.13: Talop's ..• legture; 262.2: Approach to lead our passage! (Invoking Plato by an anagram of the initial letters). Q-28I.I7:
272
LITERARY ALLUSIONS shadows shadows multiplicating (Rep., 515 C.); 291.8: timocracy (Rep., 545 R, with T. M. Healy's Dublin). NQ-292.30: twinnt Platonic yearlings-you must, how, in undivided reawlity draw the line somewhawre (Combines the Aristophanic joke about divided bodies with Plato's image of 'the divided line' (Rep., 509 D.), and the 'two circles appointed to go in contrary directions' (Tim., 39 A.) which are referred to frequently in the next four pages). T-294.I2: me now! (Meno-named for the geometry lesson it contains). Q-300.20 ... 22: that Other by the halp of his creactive mind ... our Same ... ('God ... blended a third form of Being ... out of the Same and the Other .. .' (Tim., 39 A.). Tbis is quoted by Yeats in a passage in A Vision ('Creative Mind', pp. 68 et seq.) wbich is also being quoted here). N-307 margin: Plato; 348.8: platoonic. T415.34: me no. N-417.I5: plate 0'. Q-424.32: Every dimmed letter in it is a copy and not a few of the silbils and wholly words I can show you in my Kingdom of Heaven (Rep., 5x6-8); 486.9: Mere man's mine: God has jest. N-622.35= Platonic (Gorgias is also likely to be named and used, but its title is difficult to distinguish from the name of Joyce's son Giorgio. It may be intended in the following.) T-3.8: gorgios; 303.17= Georgeous; 458.25: gorgiose; 492.34: singorgeous (With G. Joyce and St. George's Channel); 562.29: gorgeous (The statement that 'Men who have spent their lives in evildoing are transformed at their next incarnation into women' (Gorgias, 91 A.) may be one explanation of the occasional changes of sex inF.W.). PLINY, 'the Elder': Natural History. PLINY, 'the Younger': Letters. N-28I.4: aux temps de Pline et de Columelle (Joyce sometimes combines the two, and their name is mentioned four or five times together with that of COLUMELLA (q.v.), presumably because Quinet named them together in the sentence from bis essay on Vico wbich Joyce quotes in the Wake); 255.18: While Pliny the Younger writes to Pliny the Elder his calamolumen of contumeilas; 354.26: bright plinnyflowers in Calomella's cool bowers; 319.6: it's a suirite's stircus haunting hesteries round old volcanoes. We gin too gnir and thus plinary indulgence makes collemullas of us all (Tbis refers to the famous letter, Bk. VI, 16, from the Younger Pliny to Tacitus describing the eruption of Vesuvius wbich caused his uncle's death); 615.2: Plooneyand Columcellas. Q-2IO.23: a drowned doll to face downwards (Natural History, VII, 17, says that drowned men float face upwards, women face downwards). 273
APPENDIX
PLOTINUS; Works. N-76.I8: out of plotty existence; 470.20: Oisis, plantainous dewstucqmirage playtennis! (These conceal Plotinus's name, Egyptian birth, and belief in the purely spiritual nature of existence.) POE, Edgar Allan: 'The Raven'. Tales of Mystery and Imagination. NQ-3I5.34: pounautique, with pokeway paw, and sadder raven evermore. N-236.30: po's taeorns; 534.21: Poe's Toffee's Directory. Q-49.II: queth their haven evermore; 129.3°: Nevermore; II2.25: weird week-day in bleak Janiveer. T-4I9.20: furloined notepaper (Includes 'The Purloined Letter'). POPE, Alexander: Works. N-I33.20: popeling; 448.17: Pope's Avenue; 466.II: popetry. Q-6I.30: this leaden age ofletters ('To hatch a new Saturnian age of lead'-Dunciad); 301.24: Sink deep or touch not the Cartesian spring! 397.24: and by the world forgot; I61.I: michelangelines have fooled to dread; 568.I8: his clouded cane. T-542.29: raped lutetias in the lock (With The Rape of Lucrece and the 'Lock' Hospital); 423.21: He was grey at three, like sygnus the swan, when he made his boo to the public ... rapes the pad offhis lock (Joyce brings in Pope as an example of a literary child prodigy who 'lisped in numbers', and compares him with himself, whose bow to the public was some verses booing T. M. Healy). PORPHYRY: Works. N-264, note 3: Porphyrious Olbion, redcoatliar, we were always wholly rosemarines on our side every time. (porphyry was a Neoplatonist with whose ideas Joyce might have sympathized. The name of his Syrian name, Malchus=King, but Joyce is a Greek seems to be using it merely in its sense of purple.) PORTER, F. T.: Gleanings and Reminiscences (Dublin, I875). N-I35.7: whon missed a porter (This combines the song 'Oh Mr. Porter' with Ii complicated pattern of allusion involving F. T. Porter and T. S. Eliot. Eliot wrote of 'When lovely woman stoops to folly' quoting Goldsmith. Joyce wrote of 'When lovely woman stoops to conk him'-I7o.14. This refers to an incident described, and elucidated, by IF. T. Porter in his book. The Dublin Annals in Thom's Almanack state that in the year 1822 a woman threw a bottle into the Lord Lieutenant's box. Attempts to find the culprit were unsuccessful for thirty years until Porter found out that a man called Henry Hanbri.dge was responsible. Joyce completes his pattern with an allusion to the song quoted by Eliot about 'The sun shines bright on Mrs. Porter'). 274
LITERARY ALLUSIONS POUND, Ezra: Works. N-89.24: A maunderin tongue in a pounderin jowl (Refers to Pound's translations from the Chinese, but 'maundering' is a I7th century cant word for begging, and I think there is also an allusion to Pound's pronouncements on literary topics); II6.2: blurtbruskblunt as an Esra (This describes Pound's blunt epistolary style which is compared to a view of buttocks through the looking-glass: 'Esra'); 309.23 and 566.1: pound (Joyce seems to have accepted many of Pound's prejudices-against Housman, for example-perhaps without realizing where he had got them from; his own final technique may owe something to the maxims laid down by Pound. See main text: 'The Structural Books'). PREVOST D'Exn.ES, A. F., Abbe: Manon Lescaut. N-5.2z: sways like that provost scoffing bedoueen the jebel and the jpysian sea (May refer to his leaving the Church and then returning to it, but still writing about women although he was in orders). T-203.2I: Nanon L'Escaut. PRICHARD, James Cowles: The Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations. N-44.8: Pritchards; 176.2: Pritchards. PRINCE, Morton: The Dissociation of a Personality. N-278.26: prince; 280.22: prints chumming; 460.I2 ... 22: prince ... mort; 5I1.33: the sap that hugged the mort (A major source. See above, pp. 40-41). PRIOR, Matthew: Works. N-422.36: noisy priors. PROUST, Marcel: A La Recherche du Temps Perdu. N-424.9: Prost bitte! Conshy! Tiberia is waiting on you, arrestocrank! 482.3r: the prouts who will invent a writing (Combined with 'Father Prout' who invented spoof classical originals for the writings of his contemporaries). T -564.28: pities of the plain (Cities of the Plain); 587.26: two legglegels in blooms (A l'ombre de jeune filles en fleur, with the song 'Two Little Girls in Blue'); 410.3 and (?)I27.15: Swann; 450.5 and 465.35: swansway (Perhaps with the Anglo-Saxon image for the sea). Q-s8r.I7: lord made understanding, how betwixt \vife1y rule and mens conscia recti (The Latin phrase was the motto of the Baron de Charlus; Joyee is mischievously assuming that Proust intended a pun on the word rectum-but see VIRGIL); 536. 12: Mongrieff! o Hone! Guestermed with the nobelities (This seems to combine Proust's English ttanslatorwith D. Hone, the medium, a Gaelic Alas l) PSALMANAZAR, George: Autobiography. NT-15o.16 ... 24: Shalmanesir . . . his talked off confession (He 275
APPENDIX said that he had formed his name from Shalmaneser-2 Kings, 17:3·) PUSHKIN, Alexander Sergeyevich: Works. T -33.26: that man d'airain (The Bronze Horseman); 2Il.8: Ludmilla (Ruslan and Ludmila); 348.5: omegrims (Eugene Onegin); 134.8 ... 135.II: spates ... dames; 34I.34: damas; 548.13: dame, pick (Pigue Dame); 351.12: tsingirillies' zyngarettes (Tsyngany). QT-341.8 ... 344.27 ... 346.3°: ivory girl and ebony boy . .. Peder the Greste .•• Ibrahim (The Moor of Peter the Great-his name was Ibrahim). N(?)-32P6: pushkalsson. QUINET, Edgar: Introduction a la philosophie de l'histoire de l'huw.anite. N-II7.U: quinet (A sentence from this essay is quoted almost verbatim 281.4-13, and parodied at 14.35 and 236.19. I give here the sentence as printed in Quinet's (Euvres Completes, Paris, 1857, II, p. 367: 'Aujourd'hui, comme aux joms de Pline et de Colume1le, 18 jacinthe se plalt dans les Gaules, la pervenche en IllY'tie, 1a marguerite sur les ruines de Numance; et pendant qu'autour d'elles les villes ont change de maitres et de nom, que plusieurs sont rentrees dans Ie neant, que les civilisations se sont choquees et brisees, leurs paisibles generations ont traverse les ages et se sont succedes l'une it I'autre jusqu'a nous, fraiches et riantes comme aux jours des batailles.' This differs in several minor ways from Joyce's version which follows a transcript in Joyce's hand reproduced in the James Joyce Year Book, facing p. 128). RABELAIS, Fran~ois: Gargantua and Pantagruel. Q-229.23: the c1ufl: that meataxe delt her (With a pun on Delta); 368.I5: And not to be always ..• treeing unselves up with one exite; 381.2: the leak of McCarthy's mare. READE, Charles: The Lyons Mail (A play). N-63.2: Reade. T-465.15: the lyonised mails. RENAN> Ernest: 'Prayer on the Acropolis'. T-541.24: praharfeast upon acorpolous. RIMBAUD, Arthur: Works. 'Les Voyelles'. N-3!9.5: rinbus. Reference 318.::n: With that coldbrundt natteldster wefting stinks from Alpyssinia, wooving nihilnulls from Memoland and wolving the ulvertones of the voice. But his spectrem onlymergeant crested from the irised sea in plight, calvitousness, loss,nngnr, glydinyss, unwill and snorth. T -267.17: se1fioud (Selbslaut, German for vowel; f0I10Wi."lg rainbow and with pun on loud self-praise.) ROBIRT OF CHEsTER (or ROBERT OF RETINA): Works. N-86.7: P.e. Robart; 443.1: his quorum of L'llages all on my 276
LITERARY ALLUSIONS retinue, Mohomadha,vn Mike. (Robert of Chester translated the Koran into Latin in II42, and an Arabic book of Alchemy two years later. Although Robert is disguised as a policeman in the first reference, the mass of alchemical details in the context make this identification certain. Joyce does not appear to have used the Book of the Composition of Alchemy, but he could have learned of it from almost any book on the history of Alchemy.) ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques: Confessions. N-463; the jeanjakes. ROWNTREE, Benjamin Seebohm: Poverty, a Study of Town Life. N-544.35: Rowntrees (See main text: 'Some Typical Books'). SAPPHO: Works. N-go7 margin: Sappho. SAXO GRA.Jl.iMATICUS; Works. N-go4.18: Saxon Chromaticus; 388.3I: Sexon grimmacticals (This probably refers to the history of the Danes). SCALIGER, Julius Caesar: Works. N-49I.z8: the blutchy scaligerl; 524.31: scaligerance (In both cases the reference seems to be to J. C. Scaliger's fertility rather than to his son Joseph Justus Scaliger's learning.. The elder Scaliger, after having been a Franciscan brother, married and had fifteen children of whom the famous scholar was the tenth). SCHELLING, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von: The World Soul. NT-4I6.4: bynear saw altitudinous wee a schelling in kopfers •.. when he was not making spaces in his psyche. SCHILLER, Johann Christoph Friedrich: Die Rauber. TQ-224.32: the rapier of the two though thother brother can hold his own, especially for he brandished it with his hand (There is a reference here to the two warring brothers in Die Rauber whose father favours the hypocrite while the good one is banished to a bandit band). SCHOPENHAUER, Arthur: Works. N-414.3g: schoppinhour. SCHWEITZER, Iohan Friedrich ('HELVETIUS'): Works (On Alchemy). N-4.2I: Helviticus (With Leviticus.) SCOTT, Sir Walter: Works. N-I6I.23: reading for our prepurgatory, hot, Schott? .•. Schott! NT-I77.3S: great scoot, duckings and thuggery •.. with all the teashop lionses of Lumdrum hivanhoesed up gagainst him; 2II.29: Great Tropical Scott. T-38I.I6: heart of midleinster; 465.36: The leady on the lake. Q-r68.I: who never with himse1fwas fed (From 277
APPENDIX 'That never to himself has said . • .'-Lay of the Last Minstrel); 24.12: Have you whines for my wedding, did you bring bride and bedding, will you whoop for :my deading .•. ? ('Young Lochinvar'); 344.1: though the unglucksarsoon is giming for to git (This seems to be based on, 'Oh the young Lochinvar is come out of the west .• !).
SHARMAN, John: An Introduction to Astronomy, Dublin, 1794. N-427.IO: And the stellas were shinings ..• It was shanning! William: Works. N-I77.3I: aware of no ot..her shaggspick, other Shakhisbeard .•.; 1912: Scheekspcir; 257.20: Missy Cheekspeer; 274 margin: Shakefork; 295.4: As Great Shapesphere puns it. All's Well. T-4o.r: All Swell that Aimswell. Antony and Cleopatra. margin: Cliopatra; 271.6: Anthemy. As You Like It. 326.29: winter you likes or not (With Winter's Tale.) Comedy of Errors. 425.24: Acomedy of letters! Coriolanus. 228.u: the conolono. Cymbeline. 292.25: symibellically. 6°7.10: cymbaloosing. Hamlet. 79.35: Hamlaugh's ... dayne; 143.7: prince of dinmurk; 418.17: Moyhammlet. Henry IV, V, VI. 431.26: Great Harry; (?)545.23: Enwreak us Wrecks; (?)539.32: Hungry the Loaved. Henry VIII. I38.32: hahnreich the althe; 539.33: Hangry the Hathed. Julius Caesar. 306 margin: Julius Caesar. King John. 261.1: John. King Lear. 398.23: kingly leer. Love's Labour's Losi. 157.23: mild's vapour moist. Macbeth. 290.6: MacBeth; 250.][6,17,18: GIamours, Coldours, Lack breath. Measure for Measure. 336.5: measures for Messieurs. Merchant of Venice. lOS.!: Myrtles af Venice; 435.2: the Smirching
SHAKESPEARE,
af Venus. Midsumnze?' Night's Dream. 502.29: Miss Somer's nice dream. Much Ado About Nothing. 227.33: McAdoo about nothing. Othella. 196.1: 0 tell me (?) Pericles. 306 Pericles. Richard II. Richo;fd Ill. 319.20: Reacher the Thaurd; :;:38.33: writchad the thord.
Taming of the SJrrew. This ?la.y is not na.'11ed. Titus Andronicus. 128.!5: Caius and Sempronius (?) 278
LITERARY ALLUSIONS Troilus and Cressida. 129.2: trollyours (?) Twelfth Night. 364.3: Twelfth. Two Gentlemen of Verona. 569.41: two genitalmen of Veruno. Winter's Tale. 20I.II: winter's doze. The Rape of Lucrece. 277, note 2: rape in his lucreasious. (There are so many quotations from Shakespeare in the Wake that I shall make no attempt to list them. See main text: 'The World's a Stage'.) SHAW, George Bernard: Plays. N-4I.8: shavers in the shaw; II2.34: as a strow will shaw; 256.13: your wildeshaweshowe moves swiftly sterneward; 303.7: Pshaw (In a list of Irish writers); 378.25: Shaw and Shea are loming obsen; 33I.21: shaws; 132.10: bragshaw; 369.7: Mr G. B. W. Ashbumer (With Gas from a Burner); 527.8: bombashaw. T-24.9: windower's house; 155.14: motherour's houses. Q-299, note 3: Gee each owe tea eye spells nsh; 226.13: Mammy was, Mimmy is, Minuscoline's to be (Man and Superman). Q(?)-226.13: And among the shades that Eve's now wearing she'll meet a new nancy, tryst and trow (Back to Methuselah). Q-I62.3: a thunpledrum mistake (Refers to the song in St. Joan. See Letters, p. 221.) SHAW, Henry Wheeler ('Josh Billings'): Works. (Some of the references to the name Shaw may apply to this American humorist who used distorted spellings.) SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe: Works. N-23 I. 12: feastking of sheIlies. NQ-450.lo: shellyholder •.. abower ... L'Alouette's Tower (To a Skylark). T -41.5: epipsychidically (Epipsychydion); 32.36: Alustrelike (Alastor); 560.1: Promiscuouos Omebound (Prometheus Unbound). SHENSTONE, William: The Schoolmistress. N-332.13: shenstone. T -228.r6: sheolmastress. SHERIDA...~, Richard Brinley: Works. N-I84.24: Sharadan; 256.12: sherigoldies (From Boswell, with Goldsmith); 545.35: Sheridan's Circle. T-208.14: the rivals. QIII.2I: lydialike languishing. T-80.34: a whole school for scamper (School for Scandal). SIGERSON, George ('Erionach'): Bards of the Gael and Gall. N-530.2I: sickerson the lizzyboy! Sackerson, magnon of Errick (With Sackerson, the famous Elizabethan bear-I do not know why). T-63.6: gaelishgall; I34.22: the gale of his gall; 5IP5: the Gaelier's Gall; 5I5.7: a gael galled (But since Gall means ungaelic in Gaelic none of these certainly refers to Sigerson).
279
APPENDIX SINNETT, Alfred Percy: Life of Madame Blavatsky. NT-352.13: be me procuratress of the hory synotts. SMOLLETT, Tobias George: Works. NT-28.35: be that samesake sibsubstitute of a hooky salmon there's already a big rody ram lad atrandom ••.; 29.5: humphiug his share ... in pickle ..• clin..kers. (A young salmon is called a smolt=Smollett, at one stage. Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle and Humphrey Clinker are all named in the same sentence.) blackmail him I will in arrears or my name's not penitent Ferdinand (Ferdinand Fathom). N-580.8: Toobiassed (Tnis may refer to Smollett's statement in the first paragraph of Ferdinand Fathom that: 'How upright soever a man's intentions [in writing his own memoirs] he will be sometimes misled by his own phantasy and represent objects as they appeared to him through the mists of prejudice and passion.' Smollett is never named clearly in the Wake. I think this is a tribute to him from Joyce who seems to have considered him to be his forerunner in using misspellings to suggest another, and usually bawdy, meaning. In Humphrey Ch'nker, whose eponymous hero has the same name as one hero of the Wake, Sir Launcelot Greaves writes phrases such as 'privileges and beroguetifs', and a whole series of letters from. a female servant are written in a language almost closer to Finnegans Wake than to standard English). T-38I.Il: Roderick Random; 539.1: Roderick's our most monolith; 129.Il: (?) Roderick, Roderick, Roderick, 0 (With Roderick O'Connor). Q-456.3Z: the marshalsea (leads up to the mention of Count Fathom who was imprisoned there).
SOCINUS, Faustus: Christ, the Servant. NT-132.I9: socianist, commoniser (1 have not read Socinus's book, there is no modem reprint and most of the original copies were burned as he was a notorious heretic, but Joyce probably used only the title). SODDY, Frederick: Chemistry of the Radioactive Elements, etc. N-264, note I: Startnaked and bonestiff. We vivvy soddy. All be dood; 299, note I: are we soddy we missiled her? (Joyce seems to have assumed that the study of radioactivity would result in the construction, and use, of atomic bombs. 'We very sorry. All be dead'). SOPHOCLES: Works. N-47.19: SUJ.'foc!ose (There are many allusions to people whom Sophocles wrote of, but so many other people have written about them as well that it is not possible to say if Joyce used his works. There do not seem to be any recognizable quotations). 280
LITERARY ALLUSIONS SPEKE, J obn Hanning: Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile. (The Nile is given at the end of the Wake as one of Anna Livia's sisters. Speke forms a part of the mysterious character-Man the Explorer-whose identity troubles the two washerwomen-202.12: Waiwahou was the first ... ?) Q-202.18: will find where the Doubt arises like Nieman . . . found the Nihil. Worry you sighin foh Albern, 0 Anser? N-455.II: Joe Hanny (Speke wrote: 'I saw that old father Nile without any doubt rises in the Victoria Nyanza, and as I had foretold, that lake is the great source of the holy river which cradled the first expounder of our religious belieP). Q-595.r8: Wisely for us Old Bruton has withdrawn his theory (This is Sir Richard BURTON (q.v.) who accompanied Speke at the beginning of his journey, having withdrawn his own theory about the source of the Nile, but fell ill and had to leave Speke to continue alone. Page 597 contains references to The Thousand and One Nights); 598.5: Nuctumbulumbumus wanderwards the Nil. Victorias neanzas. Alberths neantas. It was a long ... an allburt unend, scarce endurable, and we could add mostly quite various and somewhat stumbletumbling night. (Joyce finds a close parallel between the discovery of the source of the Nile and the writing-and perhaps the reading-of Finnegans Wake.)
SPENGLER, Oswald: Der Untergang des Abendlandes. N-I5I.9: spanglers. Q-292.22: the crame of the whole faustian fustian. SPENSER, Edmund: The Faerie Queene. Colin Clout. A View of the
Present State of Ireland. T-328.3I: our fiery quean. NT-49.26: coulinclouted. QN-6I.29: Be these mere merchant taylor'S fablings of a race referend with oddman rex? Is now all seenheard then forgotten? Can it was, one is run in this leaden age of letters now to wit, that so diversified outrages (they have still to come) were planned ... we trow ... we, on this side ought to sorrow for their prickings. (Merchant Taylors is the school where Spenser was educated. 'Oddman' for Edmund, 'versified', 'fables', 'prickiugs', all suggest Spenser; his grim view of the then state ofIreland is the subject of the passage). Q-I4.30 and 23.19: Irena (Spenser's name for Ireland). SPINOZA, Baruch: Works. N-414.r6: spinooze you one from the grimm gests ... NQ-I50.6: At a recent postvortex piece infustigation of a determinised case of chronic spinosis an extension lecturer on The Ague who out of matter ofform was trying his seesers ... Talis and Talis originally mean the 28I
APPENDIX same thing •.• (Spinoza lived at The Hague' from 1663 till his death in 16]7. 'Matter' and 'Form' are aspects of the Scholastic view of the world; 'Extension' is a term used by Spinoza (as one of the aspects of the Divinity susceptible to human understanding) which Joyce perhaps equated with one of these. But Spinoza held that all modes of existence are comprehensible only as aspects of an immanent Divinity and is brought into the Wake again in the debate between Berkeley and St. Patrick); 6II.36: his fellow saffron pettikilt look same hue of boiled spinasses. STANIHURST: Description of Ireland. (See main text: 'Irish Writers', Joyce only quotes the quotation from S. in Chart's Dublin.) STEELE, Sir Richard: The Tatler. N-303.5: This is Steal (In a list ofIrish writers). Q-138.24: and to know whom was a liberal education (The Tatler, No. 49. But Joyce would have known the tag, or could have got it from Bartlett's Dictionary of Quotations, a copy of which was in his library. See Connolly, p. 8); 178.23: bickerrstaffs. (Isaac Bickerstaff was the pesudonym under which Steele published the first numbers of The Tatler; but Joyce may be referring only to Swift's use of the name). STEIN, Gertrude: Works. N-287.19: gert stoan. STERNE, Laurence: Tristram Shandy. N-4.21: stemely; 36.35: stern; 199.7: stemes; 256.14: swiftly stemward; 282.7: a stem poise for a swift pounce; 291, note 4: hitching your stern; 292.3°: sternly; 303.6: Starn; 454.20: swifter as mercury
he wheels right round starnly • . . with his gimlets blazing rather sternish; 486.28: sternly. T-621.36: treestirm shindy; 21.21: kidsnapped up the jiminy Tristopher and into the shandy westemess she rain, rain, rain; 323.2: shandymound (With Sandymount). STEVENSON, Robert Louis: Works. Q-I24.32: the sailor ... nor the humphar foamed to the fill. ('Home is the sailor, home from the sea,/ And the hunter home from the hill'). Reference 291.2: Ship me silver! (possibly an allusion to Long John Silver). Q-466.2I: sedulous to singe (With SYNGE). Jekyll and Hyde. T -150.17: Mr. Skekels and Dr. Hydes; 211.31: a jackal with hide; 589.15: Going forth on the prowl, master jackill, under night and creeping back, dog to hide, over morning. STOKER, Bram: Dracula. NT-145.32: Let's root out Brimstoker and give him the thrall of our lives. It's Dracula's nightout.
282
LITERARY ALLUSIONS STOPES,
Dr. Marie: Works.
N-444.8: when Marie stopes ... STOWE, Harriet Beecher: Uncle Tom's Cabin. N-365.36: Beacher. T-622.7: Uncle Tim's Caubeen (With T. H. Healy. There are a few vague references to Eliza crossing the ice). STUART, Dorothy M.: The Boy Through The Ages. T-485.17: me boy, through the ages. N-498.I: stuarts. STURLASON, Snom: Heimskringla. The Prose Bdda. N-257.36: Sealand snorres. NT-551.4: she skalded her mermeries in my Snorryson's Sagos. T-I7.28: a waast wizzard all of whirlworlds (Kringla heimsins='the world's circle'); I34.27: herald hairyfair; 169.4: Horrild Hairwire; 610.3: 0 horild harafiare!; 51.16: Thorkill's time; 91.9: thurkells; 464.32: Tower Geesyus; 493.19: Ota, weewahrwific1e of Torquells (Sturlason says that Torgils, Latinized to Torgesius, was once King of Dublin). Q-262, note 1: Gotahelv (Heimskringla, 666. See main text: 'The Sacred Books'). SUETONIUS, The Twelve Caesars. TN-6.4 ...7: romekeepers ... suits tony_ SULLIVAN, Sir Arthur: Box and Cox. T-105.5: the Boxer Coxer Rising; 308 margin: Boox and Coox; 347.29: boxerising and coxerusing; 5I7.I7: Did Box then try to shine his puss?-No but Cox did to shin the punman. N-573.13: Sullivani ... Gilbert. (Box and Cox was written by Sullivan and Sir Francis Cowley Burnand who also wrote Black Byed Susan but does not seem to be named in the Wake.) SULLIVAN, Sir Edward: (Ed.) The Book of Kells, 'Studio' edition. (See main text: 'The Manuscripts'.) Suso, Heinrich: Das Buchlein der ewigen Weisheit. N-ILI6: suso sing the day we sally bright. SWEDEh"130RG, Emmanuel: Heaven and Hell. NT-552.16: arcane celestials to Sweatenburgs Welhell! SWIFT, Jonathan: Works. (A major source. See main text, chapter: 'Swift'.) SWIh"13URNE, Charles Algernon: Poems. NQ-4I.6: slept the sleep of the swimborne in the one sweet undulant mother (The same passage is quoted with a reference to Swinburne in the first chapter of Ulysses. Its source is 'The Triumph of Time': 'I will go back to the great sweet mother Mother and lover of men, the sea'). Q-24o.II: peccat and pent fore, pree (There are many literary and folk ballads with a similar rhythm but I think this is based on 'A
283
APPENDIX Reiver's Neck-Verse', 'Faggot and fire for ye> my dear>/ Faggot and fire for ye'); 178.2: bad cad dad fad sad mad nad vanbaty bear (Combines a reference to Vanity Fair with 'VIDon our sad bad glad mad brother's name' from 'A Ballad of Francis Villon'). N-434.3S: Antist Algy. T-19.15: Wippingham. Q-270.S: a solicitor's appendix, a pipe clerk or free functionist flyswatter, that perfect little cad, from the languors and weakness of limberlimbed lassithood. (Watts, later Watts-Dunton, was originally a solicitor; his name comes in 'flyswatter'. Swinburne's 'Lilies and languors .• .' is then quoted.) SYNGE> John Millington: Works. N(?)-Z5I.Io: anysing. N-2S6.13: yeassymgnays (in a group of Irish playwrights); 466.21: sedulous to singe (Combined with a quotation from STEVENSON (q.v.), this follows Shaun's statement that women like violent men as lovers); 466.13: Rip ripper rippest ... that's the side that appeals to em, the wring wrong way to wright women. (Christy Mahon is sought after by all the girls in The Playboy of the Western World because they believe he has killed his father). NQ-S49.3: quintacasas ..• syngeing (The first word may include the Widow Quin's house from The Playboy). Q-16.1: What a quhare soott of a mahan (The first version of this, B.M. Add. MS. 4747I, f. 28, has 'mahon'. Adaline Glasheen says, A Census, p. 82, that 'Mahan appears to be one name of the Man Servant.' It also seems that one aspect of the Man Servant is Christy Mahon, described by Pegeen Mike as 'The oddest walking fellow I ever set my eyes on', and told by her, a minute later: 'You're pot boy now in this place.' C£ 245.33: Watsy Lyke sees after all rinsings); 254.26: Mahun Mesme; 62.30: Christy Mellestrals (Probably the addition of Christy Mahon to the Christy minstrels explains the violence in this passage); 224.20: Misty's trompe . • . The youngly delightsome friUes-inpleyurs are now showen drawens up (This may include a reference to the speech which helped to cause the 'Playboy Riots' of I907: 'What'd I care if you brought me a drift of chosen females standing in their shifts itself, maybe ...). Q-482.22: Sometimes he would keep silent for a few minutes as if in prayer ••. and he would not mind anybody talking to him or crying stinking fish (This parodies the last speech in Riders to The Sea, ' ... maybe a fish that would be stinking .. . She
kneels down, crossing herself and saying prayers under her breath'). T-183.2: in violent abuse of self and others this was the worst, it is hoped, even in our western playboyish world for pure mousefarm filth.
Works. N-I7.3: as Tacitu.."'1l pretells, our wrongstory shortener (Taciturn
TACITUS, Cornelius:
284
LITERARY ALLUSIONS is probably intended to describe To's prose style. The reference may be to Agricola, 24, where we are told that' Agricola had in his protection one of the petty kings of Ireland who had been exiled through domestic sedition and whom he kept, under the appearance of friendship, till an opportunity should arise to make use of him' . This is the first appearance in literature of 'the Exile of Erin', and the first mention of 'domestic sedition' in Ireland. Perhaps Joyce meant that this was the first summary of the state of Ireland).
The Talmud. T-30.10: the Dumlat, read the reading of Hofed-ben-Eclar (Joyce does not, in my opinion, use The Talmud to any appreciable extent in the Wake. The parody of a Rabbi's name above just means the Hill of Howth). TAYLOR, Thomas: Works. N-356.IO: how comes ever a body in this our tayloIised world to se1ve out thishis, whither it gives a primeum nobilees for our notomise or not (Taylor'S works on Neo-Platonism are obscurely written. Joyce seems to be discussing his theories here). TENNYSON, Alfred, 1st Lord: Works. N-48.23: Tuonisonian. The Charge of the Light Brigade. T- I 59. 32: charge of the night brigade; 349.IO: the charge of a light barricade; 474.I6: the light brigade. Q-87.IO: theirs not to reason why; 188. I: plunders to night of you, blunders what's left of you; 292.27: half a sylb, helf a solb, half a salb onward; 334.26: canins to ride with 'em, canins that leapt at 'em woolied and flundered (With 'John Peel'); 339.7: Limbers affront of him, lumbers behund; 347.14: heave a lep onwards; 567.3: half a league wrongwards. Maud. TQ-253.17: come into the garner mauve. Q-405.36: the batblack night oerflown; 446.34: Come into the garden guild and be free of the gape athome. A Dream of Fair Women. T-S32.33: dreams of faire women. In Memoriam. Q-213.19: Wring out the clothes! Wring in the dew! The Lady of Shalott. T -550.15: shallots out of Ascalon. Locksley Hall. Q-II9.23: Cathay cyrcles; 328.6: turn my t:hiriks to things alove. The May Queen. TQ-360.I3: Carmen Sylvae, my quest, my queen. Lou must wail to cool me early! Coil me curly, warbler dear! ('Carmen Sylvae' refers also to the pen-name of ELISABETH, Queen of Rumania, and the last sentence may refer to her Unter der Blume). 28 5
APPENDIX William Makepeace: Works. NT-I77.35 ... 178.3: greet scoot, duckings and thuggery ... vanhaty bear; 225.6(?): make peace. TN-434.24: Vanity flee and Verity fear! Diobell! Whalebones and buskbutts may hurt you (thwackaway thwuck!). T -2:1:2.32: vanitty fair; 327.9: funnity fare; 177.30: Maistre Sheames de 1a Plume (This is the Diary of c. Jeames de la Pluche, Esq. It is mentioned because of the Christian name and because 'Jeames' wrote letters containing many comical misspellings. Prophet for profit is a typical example and is used in the Wake,305.I, and reversed 68.28). THEOCRITus: Works. N-307 margin: Theocritus. THEOPHRASTus: The Characters. N-484.30: Theophrastius. T-302.31: the charictures. THIBAULT, Jacques Anatole ('Anatole France'): L'Isle des Pingouins. N-420.9: handmud figures from Francie; 504.30: proffering praydews to their anatolies (This also refers to Zacharias, VI, 12, the LXX version of which gives &w:t:mA~, 'sunrise, east', for the Hebrew ~em~, 'shoot of a plant'). QT-577.I. .•2 ••• 6 ... I7 ... 27 ... 34: mandragon mor and weak willey duckey . . . basilisk glorious with his weeniequeenie ... feel-this-feather ... cliffscaur grisly ... pinguind ... karkery felons (Cf. L'1. des P., Bk. II, chaps. V-X. 'Karkery' includes Kraken, the 'Dragon d'Alca'). Q(?)-I4.17: lines of litters slittering up ... ('Les lettres ... s'echappent dans toutes les directions •. .' etc., Book II, chap. IV). THOMAS, Brandon: Charley's Aunt. N-(Thomas and Tom occur often). T-I83.27: Charleys' Aunts'. TrncK, Ludwig: Works. N-I8.20: Tieckle. T-467.8: Octavium. TODHUNTER, Isaac: School Algebra, etc. N-293, note 2: toadhauntered. TOLAND, John: Works (Include a translation of Bruno's Of the Infinite Universe and Innumerable Worlds). N-60Jr.34: Tolan who farshook our showrs. (He was driven out of Ireland after the publication of Christianity not Mysterious). NT599.23: Browne yet Noland. (Toland's translation of Bruno begins: 'If I had held the plow, most Illustrious Lord' ... he had, however, no land.) TROLLOPE, Anthony: Works. N-409.6: trollop ... Samt Anthony Guide! (Trollope had a position in the Post Office. S.A.G. are initials written on the backs of 286 THACKERAY,
LITERARY ALLUSIONS envelopes by pious Catholics to invoke St. Anthony's guidance for their letters). NQ-S82.34: mettrollops, Leary, leary, twentytun (Larry Twentyman is a character in The American Senator). N6°3.28: heliotrollops. T -132.36: thee warden (? The Warden. Joyce had a copy of volume two of the Everyman Edition of Phineas Finn. Finn is the hero of the Wake, but I can find no indication that Joyce ever used this book in any way. Perhaps it seemed too obvious a source book). TOBIN, John: The Honeymoon (A play). Q-445.I2: the man who lifts his pud to a woman is saving the way for kindness (The Honeymoon, II, I-'The man that lays his hand upon a woman,/ Save in the way of kindness is a wretch/ Whom '!Were gross flattery to name a coward.' But Joyce probably took this from Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, a copy of which was in his library). Twelve Tables, The Law of the T-I67.23: Twelve tabular times till now have I edicted it; 389.3: twelve tables. Q-I68.13: Sacer esto. (Cf. HORACE, Satires.) Upanishads. T-303.13: Upanishadem! VAUGHAN, Fr. Bernard, S.J.: The Workers' Right to Live. NT-609.2: pettyvaughan populose. VAUGHAN, Henry ('The Silurist'), or his twin brother, VAUGHAN, Thomas ('Eugenius Philalethes'): Works. N(?)-482.I8: Evan Vaughan ... that found the dogumen number one. VEGA, Garcilaso: History of the Incas. NT-423.2: a mouther of the incas with a garcielasso. VEGA, Lope de: Works. N-44o.17: Loper de Figas. VERNE, Jules: Around the World in Eighty Days. N-469.18: Jerne valing is. T-237.14: round the world in forty mails. ' VICO, Giovanni Battista: Scienza Nuova. (A major source. See main text: 'The Structural Books'.) VIRGIL: Works. N-27o.25: valve the virgil page (With the Valva, the wise woman of the Voluspo, and a reference to the sorces virgilianae, added to a pun on virgin); 618.2: virgils; 569.16: open virgilances (Again with a reference to the sortes, which interested Joyce); 281 margin: SORTES VIRGINIANAE. Q-389.19: Arma virumque romano (Based on the first 28 7
APPENDIX line of the Aeneid); 403.9: Tegmine-sub-Fagi (Based on the first line of the Eclogues. Joyee's classical quotations are by no means recondite); 58r.I7: mens cons cia recti (Aeneid, I, 604. But see PROUST); 5 12.36 : Nascitur ordo seculi numfit (Eclogues, IV, 5); 545.28: parciful afmy subject but debelledem superb (Aeneid, VI, 853). QT-I85.27: pious Eneas; 240.33: pious alios; 291, note 3: a drooping dido; 357.I5: Culpo de Dido! (With Un Coup de Des). VILLON, Fran<;ois: 'Ballade des dames du temps jadis'. Q-54-3: but wowhere are those yours of Yestersdays? VOLTAIRE, Fran<;ois Marie Arouet: Works. Q-:33.25: if he did not exist it would be necessary quoDiam to invent him (But this is a well-known saying and in all the dictionaries of quotations and I can find no other references to Voltaire, except perhaps to 'The best of all possible worlds' from Candide) 158.9: the waste of all peaceable worlds. WADDING, Luke: Annales Minorum. N-573.26: according to Wadding (Au Irish Franciscan who wrote the history of his Order. Joyce seems to have used only his name). WALPOLE, Horace: Letters. N-72.6: Horace the Rattler; Q-46S.26: Gunning; 596.15: GunDings (Adaline Glasheen suggests tl'lat the 'House that Jack built' rhythms of the 'Museyroom' passage are based on Walpole's letter to Miss Berry, about u~e Gunning scandal, beginning: 'This is the note that nobody wrote'. 'Rattle' was Walpole's word for gossip.) WALTON, Izaak: The Compleat Angler. N-76.26: a ttoutbeck, vainyvain of her osiery and a chatty sally with any Wilt or Walt who would ongle her as Isaak did to the tickle of his rod and watch her waters. ('Walt' is, of course, Walton; but there may be a reference to the story of Sir Walter Raleigh and the maid of honour told in Aubrey's Brief Lives.) T -296.23: to compleat anglers. WARE, Sir James: History of Ireland. N-464-4(?): Be ware; 572.32: the supposition is Ware's. WHITMAN, Walt: Works. N-z63.9: old Whiteman self. Q-8I.36: the cradle rocking equally ('Out of the cradle endlessly rocking'. A. Glasheen in her A Census writes: 'Compare A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Modern Library Ed., pp. I98-201) with "Out of the cradle endlessly rocking", and compare F. W. 536-54 with "Song of Myself".' The similarities do in fact suggest that Joyce had Whitman's work in mind when he wrote these passages). Q-r69.18: manroot (From 'Children of Adam'-'mauroot ... I am large. I contain multitudes'). 288
LITERARY ALLUSIONS WILDE, Oscar Fingall O'Flahertie: Works. N--69.3: wilde (And with the same spelling 41.9; 81.17; 98.2; 510.II); 46.20: Fingal Mac Oscar; 419.25: Oscan Wilde. (See main text: 'Irish Writers'.) WILLL.\.\iS, Richard D'Alton: Poems. Q-387.2I: the barmaisigheds ('The Barmaid Sighs'). WILLS, William Gorman: A Royal Divorce. N-577.21. T-9.35: his royal divorsion; 32.33: A Royal Divorce; 243.35: their loyal devouces; 260, note 3: a royal divorce; 315.1: raolls davors; 348.15: royal devouts; 365.29: a reyal devouts; 388.7: A Royenne Devours; 423.3: his royal divorces; 616.15: His real devotes. (See main text: 'The World's a Stage'.) WrsDEN, J.: The Cricketer's Almanack. N-584.16: wisden. (Source for the cricketers' names on pp. 583-4, etc. But Joyee was interested in cricket and would know most of the names without using Wisden.) WOOD, Antony A.: Autobiography. NQ-80.3: Sorrel a wood knows (Combines wood-sorrel, with the horse Sorrel whose stumble caused William Ill's death, and A Wood who mentioned it). WORDSWORTH, William: Works. N-539.5: a wordsworth's of that primed favourite continental poet (Groups him with Shakespeare and Dante, but I can't find a single quotation). WRIGHT, Peter E.: Portraits a:nd Criticisms (London, 1925). N-269.8: a pale peterwright in spite of all your tense accusatives; 466.15: wrong way to wright women (This book is used often in the Wake. To fit with Joyce's theories Gladstone, as a father-figure, the G.O.M., had to be a sinner. In his book Wright foolishly accused Gladstone of constandy pursuing and possessing all sorts of women. Gladstone's sons, believing that 'no property in law can exist in a corpse' (576.5), or that no libel action could be taken on behalf of a dead person, forced Wright to take them to court by describing him publicly as 'a liar, a fool and a coward'. Wright's action ended with this being adjudged fair comment. But Wright's accusations figure frequendy in the Wake. N-597.II: the wright side and the wronged side. (This seems to admit that Wright was doing harm.) WYSS, Johann ~udolf: The Swiss Family Robinson. N-203.15: wyst •.• or where the hand of man has never set foot ... the fairy ferse time. T-129.34; the Suiss family Collesons. 289
APPENDIX XENOPHON:
Anabasis.
N-308 margin: Xenoplwn. Q-324.9: Thallasee; 100.2: The latter! The latter! YEATS, William Butler: Works. N-4I.9: yoats; 303.7: Doubbllinnbbayyates (Following the instruction: 'Double you B'). NQ- 170.16: Yeat .•. when you are old I'm grey fall full wi sleep. Q-605.24: honeybeehivehut in whose enclosure to live. A Vision. T-566.28: Vision; 179.31: visiou; QT405.12: cones of this •.• vision; Q-300.20 ...22: creactive mind .•• booty of fight (creative mind, body of fate'). (Yeats's 'Gyres' are mentioned: 239.27; 292.28; 295.22 ... 3 ... 4j 298.16. See above p. II3.) YOUNG, Sir Charles: Jim the Penman (A play). T-93.13: Shun the Punman; 125.25: Shem the Penman; 192.23: Pain the Shamman; 212.18: Shem her penmight; 369.27: Schelm the Pelman (With Pe1manism); 517.18: shin the punman. (See main text: 'The World's a Stage'). ZIMMER, Heinrich: Maya der Indische Mytlws. N-6g.32: zimmer; 349.4: zimmerminnes. (See main text: 'Other Sacred Books'). ZOLA, Emile: Nana. Germinal. T-4o.23: night birman, you served him with natigal's nano! 331.25: beauty belt •.. nana karlikeevna (Narw is Italian for dwarf; Karliki are spirits in Russian mythology who fell into the underworld and became dwarfs. There is also an allusion to the Sumerian Aphrodite, Nana, who wore a 'beauty belt'). T-352.I: gemenal 354.35: germinal. ZOSIMOS: Works. N--63.32: zozimus; 154.8: the sissymusses and the zozzymusses .•• quailed. . . for you cannot wake a silken mouse out of a hoarse oar; 186.4... 5... 12... 16: through the slow fires •.. perilous, potent ••• circling the square .•• zazimas; 232.4 ... 7 (With the Irish balladsinger 'Zozimus'): a pure flame and a true flame ••. Sousymoust. (Zosimos was a third-century alchemist whose extant works were published with a French translation by Berthelot and Ruelle in r887-8. These volumes may have been one of Joyce's sources for the alchemical business in the Wake. But his main source for this kind of information has still to be found.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY I
Books about Joyce (Only books containing references to 'Finnegans Wake' have been included) ALLT, Peter, Some Aspects of the Life and Works of James Joyce. Groningen: J. B. Walters, 1952. ANDERSON, Margaret, My Thirty Years' War. London: Alfred A. Knopf, 1930. BECKETT, Samuel, and others, Our Exagmination round his Factijication for Incamination of Work in Progress. Paris: Shakespeare & Co., Sylvia Beach, 1929. (Sheets of this edition were later sold to Faber and Faber, London; and to New Directions, Norfolk, Conn., who issued them with the title An Exagmination of James Joyce in 1938.) BUDGEN, Frank, James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses. London: Grayson & Grayson, Ltd., 1934. BUDGEN, Frank, Further Recollections of James Joyce. London: The Shenval Press, 1955. CAHOON, Herbert. See SLOCUM, John J. CAMPBELL, Joseph, and ROBINSON, Henry Morton, A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake. London: Faber & Faber Ltd., 1947. COLUM, Mary, Life and the Dream. London: Macmillan & Co., 1947. CONNOLLY, Thomas E., The Personal Library of James Joyce, University of Buffalo Studies, Monographs in English, No.6. Buffalo, N.Y.: The University of Buffalo Press, 1955. DUFF, Charles, James Joyce and the Plain Reader. London: Desmond Harmsworth, 1932. EDEL, Leon, James Joyce-the Last Journey. N.Y.: The Gotham Book Mart, 1947. GHEERBRANT, Bernard, James Joyce: Sa Vie, Son (Euvre, Son Rayonnement. Paris: La Hune, 1949. GIEDION-WELCKER, C[arola], In Memoriam-James Joyce. ZUrich: Fretz & Wasmuth, 1941. GILBERT, Stuart, James Joyce's Ulysses, a Study. N.Y.: Alfred Knopf, 1934 and 1952; London: Faber & Faber, 1930 and 1952. 19*
BIBLIOGRAPHY GILBERT, Stuart (Editor), The Letters of James Joyce. London: Faber & Faber, 1957; New York: Viking Press, 1957. GILBERT, Stuart, and HuxLEY, Aldous, Joyce-tr.e Artificer, Two Studies of Joyce's Method. London: 'Issued for Private Circulation in an edition of 90 copies', 1952. GILLET, Louis, Stele pour James Joyce. Paris: Sagittaire, 1943. GrORGIANNI, Enis, Inchiesta su James Joyce. Milano: Edizioni Epilogb.i. di Perseo, 1934. GIVENS, Seon (Editor), James Joyce, Two Decades of Criticism. New York: The Vanguard Press, 1948. GLASHEEN, Adaline, A Census of 'Finnegans Wake'. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1956, and London: Faber & Faber, 1957. GoLDING, Louis, James Joyce. London: Thornton Butterworth Ltd., 1933· GORMAN, Herbert, James Joyce, a Definitive Biography. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1939; London: John Lane the Bodley Head, 1941. HAYMAN, David, Joyce et Mallarme. Paris: Lettres Modemes, 1956. HUTCHINS, Patricia, James Joyce's Dublin. London: The Grey Walls Press, 1950. JOLAS, Maria (Editor), The Joyce Book. London: The Sylvan Press, 192 3. JOLAS, Maria (Editor), A James Joyce Yearbook. Paris: Transition Press, 1949· JONES, William Powell, James Joyce and the Common Reader. Norman, Oklahoma; University of Oklahoma Press, 1955. KAIN, Richard M., Fabulous Voyager, James Joyce's Ulysses. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1947. KAIN, Richard M., and MAGALANER, Marvin,Joyce, the Man, the Work, the Reputation. New York: New York University Press, I956. KENNER, Hugh, Dublin's Joyce. London: Chatto & Windus, 1955. LEVIN, Harry, James Joyce, a Critical Introduction. London: Faber & Faber, 1944. New York: New Directions. NOEL, Lucie, James Joyce and Paul Leon, the Story of a Friendship. New York: The Gotham Bookmart, 1948. NOON, William T., Joyce and Aquinas. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957. PARIS, Jean, James Joyce par lui-meme. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1957. PARKER, Alan, James Joyce: A Bibliography of His Writings. Critical Material and Miscellanea. Boston: Faxon, 1948. RIvOALAN, A., Littirature irlandaise contemporaine. Paris: Hachette, 1939. ROTHE, Wolfgang, James Joyce. Wiesbaden: Limes Verlag, 1957. 292
BOOKS ABOUT JOYCE RUSSELL, Francis, Three Studies in Twentieth Century Obscurity. Ash-
ford, Kent: The Hand and Flower Press, 1954. SLOCUM, John J., and CAHOON, Herbert, A Bibliography of James Joyce 1882-1941. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1953. SMIDT, Kristian, James Joyce and the Cultic Use of Fiction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1955. SOUPAULT, Philippe, Souvenirs de James Joyce. Paris: E. Charlot, 1943. STRONG, Leonard Arthur George, The Sacred River, an Approach to James Joyce. London: Methuen & Co., 1949. TINDALL, William York, James Joyce, His Way of Interpreting the Modern World. London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950. USSHER, Arland, Three Great Irishmen: Shaw, Yeats, Joyce. London: Gollancz, 1952. WALDOCK, A. J. A., James Joyce, and Others. London: Williams & Norgate, Ltd., I937. WILSON, Edmund, Axel's Castle. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, I93 1 • WILSON, Edmund, The Wound and the Bow. Boston: Houghton Mifflin & Co., I941; and London: Seeker & Warburg, 1942; W. H. Allen, I952.
293
BIBLIOGRAPHY II
Articles in Periodicals THIs lists only articles about Finnegans Wake which have been used in some way by the present writer. It do,es not include any articles which have afterwards been published in books which are listed in Bibliography I, and only contains those articles of my own which have not been incorporated into this book. Leonard, 'James Joyce and the Masons', AD., Vol. II, 1951, PP·40-52 • ATHERTON, James S., 'Frank Power in Finnegans Wake', Notes and Queries, Vol. 198, NO.9, Sept. I953, pp. 399-400. ATHERTON, James S., 'Finnegans Wake: the gist of the .pantomime', Accent, Vol. XV, No. I, Winter 1955, pp. 14-26. BREBE, Maurice, <Whose Joyce?' The Kenyon Review, Vol. XVIII, NO.4, Autumn 1956, pp. 650-8. BURMAN, Ben Lucien, 'The Cult of Unintelligibility', The Saturday Review, Vol. XXXV, !st Nov. I952, pp. 9-10. CAss, Andrew, 'Childe Horrid's Pillgrimace', Envoy, Vol. V, April 1951, PP·I9-3 0 • DAVIES, Aneiran, 'A Note on Finnega:ns Wake', The Welsh Review, Vol. VII, Summer 1948, pp. 141-3. (The first account ofTIuJ House by the Churchyard in F. W.) DUFF, Charles, 'Magnificent Leg-Puller', The Saturday Review, Vol. XXXIII, 9th Sept. 1950, p. 24. ELLMA.'rn, Richard, 'The Backgrounds of Ulysses', The Kenyon Review, Vol. XVI, NO.3, Summer !954, pp. 337-86. (This is part of Ellmann's forthcoming life of Joyce which will probably become the definitive authority on the subject.) ELLMANN, Richard, 'joyce and Yeats', The Kenyon Review, Vol. XII> NO.2, Autumn 1950, pp. 618-38. (Treats the relationship between the two from a biographical viewpoint but includes some literary criticism and tends to the view that Joyce was not much influenced by Yeats.) EUMANN, Richard, 'Ulysses the Divine Nobody', The Yale Review. 294 ALBERT,
ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS Autumn 1957, pp. 56-71. (Contains new material about the Dublin background in 1904.) GLASHEEN, Adaline, 'Finnegans Wake, and the Girls from Boston, Mass." The Hudson Review, Vol. VII, No. I, Spring I955,PP. 89-96. (points out the use Joyce makes of Morton Prince's The Dissociation of a Personality.)
GOGAATY, Oliver St. John, 'They Think They Know Joyce', The Saturday Review, Vol. XXXIII, March 18, I950, pp. 8-9. HALPER, Nathan, 'Most Eyeful Hoyth of Finnegans Wake', New Republic, Vol CXXIV, 7 May I95I, pp. 20-23. HALPER, Nathan, 'James Joyce and the Russian General', Partisan Review, Vol. XVIII, July-August 1951, pp. 424-31. HALPER, Nathan, 'Twelve O'Dock in Finnegans Wake', The James Joyce Review, Vol. I, No.2, pp. 40-4I. HODGAAT, M. J. c., 'Work in Progress" The Cambridge Journal, Vol. VI, No. I, Oct. 1952, pp. 23-39. (Outlines the literary background of the Wake.) HODGART, M. J. C., 'Shakespeare in Finnegans Wake', The Cambridge Journal, Vol. VI, No. 12, Sept. 1953. pp. 735-52. (This gives a very full account of Joyce's use of Shakespeare in the Wake and lists his quotations from Shakespeare in an appendix.) JUNG, Carl G., 'Ulysses-ein Monolog', Europaische Revue, Vol. VIII, 1932, pp. 547-68. (English translation: 'Ulysses-A Monologue', Nimbus, Vol. II, June 1953, pp. 7-20.) KArn, Richard M., 'Mythic Mazes in Finnegans Wake" The Saturday Review, Vol. XXXIII, 4 March 1950, p. 19. KELLY, Robert G., 'James Joyce: a Partial Explanation" PMLA, Vol. LXIV, March 1949, pp. 26-27. KLEIN, A. M., 'The Black Panther: a Study in Technique', Accent, Vol. X, Spring 1950, pp. 139-55. LITz, Walton, 'The Genesis of Finnegans Wake', N. & Q., Vol. 198, Oct. 1953, pp. 445-47. MAsON, Ellsworth, 'Joyce's Categories', The Sewanee Review, Vol. 61, July I953, pp. 427-3 2 • MAyOUX, Jean-Jacques, 'L'Heresiede James Joyce', English Miscellany (Rome), 1951, pp. 222-46. (In spite of its title this article is mainly about Joyce's use oflanguage.) McLUHAN, Herbert M., 'A Survey of Joyce Criticism', Renascence, Vol. IV, 1951, pp. 12-18. MONTGOMERY, Niall, 'The Pervigilium Phoenicis', New Mexican Quarterly, Vol. XXIII, Winter 1953, pp. 437-69. (A valuable 295
BIBLIOGRAPHY article which provides useful and accurate lists of the appearances of certain words and phrases in the Wake.) MORSE, J. Mitchell, 'Jacob and Esau in Finnegans Wake', Modern Philology, Vol. LII, NO.2, Nov. 1954, pp. 123-30. MORSE, J. Mitchell, 'Cain, Abel, and Joyce', ELH, Vol. XXII, NO.1, March 1955, pp. 48-60. MORSE, J. Mitchell, 'Augustine, Ayenbite, and Ulysses', PMLA, Vol. LXX, NO.5, Dec. )[955, pp. II43-59. (Discusses Joyce's use of St. Augustine's Confessions.) PARANDOWSKI, Jan, 'Begegnung mit Joyce', Die WeZtwoche, ZUrich, I I Feb., 1949. PEERY, William, 'Shakbisbeard at Finnegans Wake', Studies in English, University of Texas, Vol. XXX, 1951, pp. 243-57. POLSKY, Ned, 'Joyce's Finnegans Wake', The Explicator, Vol. IV, 1950, item 24. PRESCOTT, Joseph, 'Notes on Joyce's Ulysses', PMLA, Vol. LXVIII, Dec. 1953, pp. 1223-8. (Some of the notes apply also to the Wake.) PREsCOTT, Joseph, 'Concerning the Genesis of Finnegans Wake', PMLA, Vol. LXIX, NO.5, Dec. 1954, pp. 1300-5. PRESCOTT, Joseph, 'Two .Manuscripts by Paul L. Leon concerning James Joyce', Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. II, NO.2, May 1956, PP·7 1-76. SWEENEY, James J., 'The Word Was His Oyster', Hudson Review, Vol. V, 1952, pp. 404-8. THOMPSON, Francis J., 'A Portrait of the Artist Asleep', Western Review, Vol. XIV, 1950, pp. 245-53. (States that Joyce is himself intended to be the dreamer of the Wake.) TINDALL, William Y., 'Joyce's Chambermade Music', Poetry, Vol. LXXX, May 1952, pp. 105-][6. (Suggests a coprophilic basis for Joyce's poems.) VON PHUL, Ruth, 'Who Sleeps at Finnegans Wake ?', James Joyce Review, Vol. I, NO.2, pp. 27-38. WmTE, William, 'James Joyce: Addenda to Alan Parker's Bibliography', Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Vol. XLIII, Fourth Quarter 1949, pp. 401-II. WHITE, William, 'Addenda to James Joyce Bibliography, 1950-1953', The James Joyce Review, Vol. I, NO.2, June 1957, pp. 9-25. WmTE, William, 'Addenda to James Joyce Bibliography, 1954-57, The James Joyce Review, Vol. I, NO.3, Sept. 1957, pp. II-23. WORTmNGTON, Mabel P., 'Nursery Rhymes in Finnegans Wake,' Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 70, Jan.-March, 1957, pp. 37-48. 296
Index Abbey Theatre, 151 Abdullah, 205 Abel,175 Abraham, 176 2JO Abu Lahab, 203, 217 Ad,207 Adam, 24> 30, 141, 142, 164, 175, 222, 260 Adamnan, 233 Adrian IV, 147 Ady, 233 Adzehead, 272 Aeneas, 8o Aesir, 221 Aesop, 233, 252 Agrippa, Henricus Cornelius, 233 Ainsoph, 134 Ajax, 74 Alain,241 Albert, Leonard, 294 Albina, 144 Alchemy, 46, 47, 65, 67, 245, 254, 277,290 Ali,206 Alice (Alice Liddell), II7, 126, I28, 129, 130, 131, 253 Aline (Solness), 157 Allah, utS, 202, 203, 204, 205, 2II Allt, Peter, 291 Ally Sloper, 170 A.L.P. (Anna Livia Plurabelle), 14, 15, 24, 3 1, 34, 40, 63, 72 , 93, H7, 120, 121, 126, 130, 149, ISO, 156, 157,236,239, 262 Ambrose, St., 147 Amentat, 126 Amenti, I93, 194 Amlnah, 205 Andersen, Hans Christian, 233 Anderson, Margaret, 233, 291 St. Andrew's cross, 66 Angelus, 187, 188 Ani, 192, 193 Annals, 97 Annals oj the Four Masters, 89 Anonymous, 233 Ansars, 204 Antheil, George, 169 Anthony, St., 287 Anti-selves, 41, 165 Anu (Heliopolis), I95 Apep, 200
Apollo,73 Aquinas, St. Thomas, 20, 137, 138, 139, 234 Arabian Nights, 219 (see Thousand and One Nights) Archdruid, 98 Archer, Charles (Dangerfield), III Archer, William, 234 Aristophanes, 21, 234, 272, 273 Aristotle, 234 Arius, 147 Arnauld, Antoine, 86 Arnold, Matthew, 219 .'Up, Hans, 52, 84, 234 Arrah, 158, I59, 160, 161 Arrah-na-Pogue, 149, 151, 157-61, 237 Arthur, King, 265 Arthur's Seat, 42 Asella, 144 Asita, 225 Ass, donkey, u5, 121, 221, 241 Asvaghosa, 170 Atem, 32, 55, 125, 132, I33, 194, 196, 197,200 Atherton, J. S., 19, 32, 92, 100, 127, 2II,294 Aubrey, 288 Augustine, St., 13, 140-3, 234, 296 Augustus, 68 Austen, Jane, 234 Avebury, J. L., 234 Avicenna, 234 Axioms, 22, 28, 29, 30, 36, 37, 48, 50, 5 2-4, 132, 146, 169, 175, I79, r87 Ayenbite oj Inwyt, 19, 46, 47 Ayesha, 205, 210, 252 Azim, 269 Babel, tower of, 174 Bacon, Francis, 164, 165, 246 Badr, battle of, 207, 21I Balbus, 174 Ball, F. E., 122 Banim, Michael, 94,95,234 Barham, Richard Hams, 234 Barnacle" Nora, 13" 24
Barrie, James Matthew, 234 Barrington, Jonah, 110,235 Barry, Spranger, 151 Bartlett, 282, 287 Basile, Giambattista, 235
297
INDEX Batta, 182 Baudelaite, Charles, 235 Beach, Sylvia, 16, 19 Beach, T. M., 176 Beauchamp, Christine L. (Sally), 40, 4I, II7, 129 Beaumont and Fletcher, 249 Beck, J. S., 235 Beckett, Samuel, 15, 16, 29, 49, 73, 191,291 Beebe, Maurice, 27, 294 The Beggar's Opera, 86 Behemoth, 206 Bekker, Immanuel, 67 Belaney, G. S., 235 Bell, D. C., 87 Bell, E. T., 85 Bellows, H. E., 219 Belvedere College, 73 Bennett, Arnold, 235 Bennu, 195, 196 Beowulf,68 Beranger, Jean-Pierre de, 235 Bergin, Fisch, 29 Berkeley, George, 18, 47, 97-9, 103, 141, 235, 243, 282 Berry, Miss, 288 Besant, Annie, 235 Bible, 28, 45, 73, 164, 171, 172-83, 208,25 1 Bickersfaff, u8, u9, 120, 282 Bismillah, 204, 205, 212 Blak . 65, 235 Bia , 228, 236, 253 Bloom, pold,71, 158 Bloom, Molly, 71, 158 Boccaccio, Giovanni, Boerne, Ludwig, 84, Boetbius, 80 Boileau, Nicolas, 236 Bolivar, Simon, 120 Book of Common Prayer, 184, 188 Book of the Dead, 21, 132, 171, 183, 191-200 Book of Kells, 19, 62, 63, 64-7, 104 Book of Mormon, 209 Borrow, George, 237 Borselino, 13 Borgia, Cesare, 240 Boru, Brian, 23, 93 Boston, Mass., 40, 41 Boswell, James, 237, 279 Boucicault, Dion, 99, 151, 157-61, 237,246 Bouquet, A. C., 179 de Bourca, Seamus, I60 Bourke, P. J., 160 Bowman, lsa, 130, I3l, 133 Boyd, E. A., 240 Braddon, M. E., 237 Brahe, Tycho, 237
Brennan, Christopher, 237 Breton, Andre, 237 Brewer, 33, 87, 209 Bride, JulIa, 258 Bridget, 100 Bronte, Emily, 238 Broughton, Rhoda, 94, 170, 237 Brown, T. J., 61, 62 Browne & Nolan, 36, 108 Browne, W. J., 239 Browning, Robert, 239 Bruno, Giordano, 28, 35, 36, 37, 52, 53, 54, 65, 108, 136, 146, 188, 238, 286 Bruno (in Sylvie and Bruno), 136 Brutus, 178 Buckingham, 163 Buckley, 103 Buddha, 170, 225, 226, 227 Buddhism, 225-7 Budge, Wallis E. A., 53, 191-8, 200 Budgen, Frank, II, 17, 51, III, 173, 191, 218, 219, 220, 291 Bulkley, Miss, 97 Bulwer-LyttOIl, 109, lIO, 263 Bunyan, John, 238 Burbidge, P. G., 267 Burgess, 268 Burman, Ben Lucien, 294 Bumand, F. C., 283 Burus, Robert, 238 Burton, Sir Richard, 238, 281 Bury, John Bagnell, 239 Busch, Wilhelm, 239 Bushe, Charles Kendal, 86, 239 Butler, Samuel, 239 Butler, Samuel, 239 Butt, Isaac, 118 Butt and Taff, 36, 42, I28, 2n Byron, Lord George, 239 Byron, Henxy James, 84, 239 Cabbala,44, 46, 47, 48, 51, 53, 66, 87, 134 Cabell, J. B., 240 Caelestine, Pope, 145 Caesar, 199, 240 Cahoon (see Slocum) Cain,I75 Cairnes, John E., 240 Callgula, 68 Cambronne,9 1 Campbell, Joseph, 12,62, II5, 291 Campbell, Lady Colin, 95 Campbell, Thomas, 240 Carberry, Ethna, 240 Carey, James, 83 Carey, Patrick, 101 Carleton, William, 94, 99, ICO, 240 Carlyle, Thomas, 2II, 240 Cannen SylVa, 248, 285
298
INDEX Carroll, Lewis, 32, 33, 54, 69, 92 , 115,124-36,187,206,208,213,240 Carter, J., 240 Casanova, 109 Cass, Andrew, 294 Cassius, 178 Castlemallard, Lord, I I I Catechism, 180 Catholicism, 3I, 45, I38, 139, 142, 147, 184, 185, 188, 190, 2II Caterpillar, 95, 96, 128, 135 Cavendish, Lord Frederick, II I Cervantes, Miguel de, 241 Chamber Music, 48, 107 Chambers, 130 Charlus, Baron de, 275 Chan, D. A., 91, 241, 282 Chartier, Emile, 241 Chassant et Tuasin, 33 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 241 Chekhov, A. P., 241 Chevreu1, 52 Chin, 227,243 Christ, 65, 183, 189 Christ Church, 132, 133, Church Catechism, 70 Churchill, Charles, 241 Churchill, Sir Wiuston, 241 Cicero, 68,75, I44, 242 Clarence, 266 Claudius, 68 Clement, Pope, 147 Clemens, Samuel L. (Mark Twain), 242,244 Cleopatra, 68, 69 Clontarf, 93 Cocoa, II8 Cockton, Henry, 242 Coffee, II7, u8, 153 Cohen Library, 161 Coleridge, S. T., 37, 165, Z42 Collette, Charles, 255 Collingwood, S. D., 127, 129, 130, 132, 136, 242 Colum Cille, 63 Colum, Mary, 48,291 Colum, Padraic, 243 Columba, St., 63, 243 Columbus, Christopher, 176 Columella, L. J., 63, 243, 273 Comic Cuts, 20 COIl...+ucius, 227 Confucianism, 171, 243 Conn, the Shaughrllun, 237 Connelly, Marc, 243 Connolly, Thomas E., 21, 22, 43, 87, 90, 184, 202, 224, 248, 252, 261, 265, 266, 282, Cooper, J. F., 84, 243 Copenhagen, 155 Corelli, Marie, 20, 84" 109, 243
Corneille, Pierre, 86, 243 Cortese, Giacomo, 69 Cothraige (St. Patrick), 145. 272 Cottonian Library, 58, 69 Cowper, William, 9&, 243 Croce, Benedetto, 243, 244 Croker, T. C., 244 Crone, J. S., 86, 105, 244 Crosby, 21, 193 Crow Street Theatre, 151 Cruden, 172, 244 Cummianus, St., 145 Curran, C. P., 153 Czerny, Karl, 79 Dadaists, 84 Daedalus, 120 Dailey, A. H., 41 D'Alton, Rev. E. A., 90, 244 Dangerfield (Charles Archer), 17, III Dante Alighieri, 79-82,208,244,251, 28 9 Dark Night of the Soul, 192 Darwin, Charles, 84, 222, 244 Dasent, G. W., 221, 244 Daudet, Alphonse, 244 David, King, ID5, 106, 176 Davies, Aneiran, 294 Davis, Thomas Osborne, 105, 244 The Day of the Rabblement, 36, 107, 108 The Dead,1'2 Dedalus, Simon, 133 Dedalus, Stephen, !2, 67, 109, 123, 137, 139, 207, 229 Defoe, Daniel, 13, 244 De Ginkell, 68 Delaney, 220 Della Porta, Giambattista, 244 Demetrius, 245 De Morgan, William, 245 Demosilienes, 75 Dempsey, 86 Deodatus, 140 De Quincey, Thomas, 173, 245 Descartes, Rene, 85, 245 Deucalion, 27! De Valera, Eamon, 92 Devereux, Captain, II2, 1I3 Devil, 41, 42, 83, 138, 209, 210 Dew, 47 Dickens, Charles, 14, 245 Digby, Sir Kenelm, 245 Digges, Thomas, 245 Dignam, Paddy, 18 Dillon, Black, I II Dilnot, George, 70, 245, 246 Die Cassius, 246 Diedorus, 246 Dioscuri, 42 D'Israeli, Isaac, 246
299
INDEX 'DOC', 100 The Doctrine of the Mean, 227 Document Number One, 271 Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge (Lewis Carroll), 124-36, 246 Dolph, 65 Domesday Book, 104,246 Domitian, 69 Donnelly, Ignatius, 246 Donovan, Dick, 70 Dostoyevsky, F. M., 246 Dousy, 246 Doughty, Charles Montagu, 247 Douglas, NOIIuan, 79, 247 Dowden, E., 48 Dowson, Ernest, 247 Doxology, 174, 177 Doyle, Conan, 47, 247 Dream, n, 17,38, 106, 128, 138, 150, 173,250 Druids, 79, 228 Dryden, John, 247 DUblin Annals, 92, 93 Dublin Gaiety Theatre, I5! Dubliners, 101, 106, 107, 109 Duff, Charles, 291, 294 Duffy, James, 99 Dulcinea, 241 Duma~Alexandre,247
Dumas, Alexandre, fils, 247 Dunbar, William, 248 Dupin, A.-A. L., 248
Earp, T. W., 248 Easter, 145, 183 Eckennann, 83 Eddas, I71, 19I, 218-23 EdeJ., Leon, 291 Eden, III, 129 Edinburgh, 42 Egan, Pierce, 248 Egg,43,I26 Ekdal, Hjalmar, 155 Eliot, George, 248 Eliot, T. S., 18, 97, 143, 193, 248 Elisabeth, Louisa, 248, 251, 274, 285 Eliza, 283 Ellis, E. J., 65 Ellmann, Richard, 15, 72, !O3, 294, 295 Elm, lIZ Elrington, Tho~, 122, 151 Elsie, 129 Emerson, R. W., 18 Encyclopaedia Britannica, II, 47, 87, 202 Epiphanes, St., 248 Ervine, St. John, 100, 101, 134 Essie, 238 Esther, rI9 Etymology, 34
Euclid, 82, 248 Euphemia (Jacqueline Pascal), 86, 272 Eusapia (palladino), 247 Eusebian Canons, 63 'Eva' (A medium), 247 'Eva' (O'Doherty, Mary Ann), 195 Evans, Mary Ann ('George Eliot'), 248 Eve, 24, 32, 129, 175, 205 Evelyn, John, 248 Everallin, 95, z64 Our Exagmination round his Factification for Incaminatiim of Work in Progress, 16, 38, 49, 60, 64, 191, 192, 218, 291
Eyrbyggjasaga,2I8
Fall, 30, 31, 32, III, I27, 129, 141, 14:<\, 156, 157, 173, 179, 2Z1 Fancher, Mollie, 41 Farquhar, George, 249 Fathom, Count, 280 Fatihah, 20Z, Z14 Fatima, 205 Faust, 82, 83, 251 Faustina, 68 Felicita, 144 Fenians, 104 Femis, 221 Ferguson, Sir Samuel, 249 FeIIuat, P. de, 85 F.E.R.T., 33, 34 Fielding, Henry, 244, 249 Film, 150 Finn, 13, 15, 18, 23, 134, 145, 164, 173, 207, 268 Finn's Hotel, 13, Z4 Finnegan, Iz6, 173 Fitzgerald, Edward, 249 FJammarion, 20 Flaubert, Gustave, 13, 249 Fletcher, Phineas, 249 Flood, 175, 176 Flood, J. M., 91 Florian, Jean-Pierre, 249 Fort, Paul, 249 the Four (the four old men, four evangelists), 18, 54, 89, 121, 140, 146, 149, 156, 158, 159, 182, 183 Fox-Davies, A. C., 33 France, Anatole, 286 Francis, H. T., 227 Franklin, Benjamin, 249, 250 Frazer, Sir James, 193, 194, 199 Freemasonry, 67, 68, 294 French, Percy, 64, 146 Freud, Sigmund, 18, 28, 37-9, 53, 54, 159, 250, 269 Furia,l44 Furniss, Rev. JOM, 250
300
INDEX Galba,68 Galen, Claudius, 250 Gall, Franz Josef, 250 Galleotto, 81
Gulliver, 120 Gunn, Michael, 151 Gwendolen, 265
The Garden of the Soul, 184 Gardiner, Samuel Rawson, 250 Garrick:, David, 149 Garter, motto of the, 34 Gas from a Burner, 107, 279 Gate Theatre, 151 Gaussian curve, 69 Gautier, Theophile, 52, 54, 252 Gay, John, 250 Gellius, Aulus, 75, 250 George, H. St., 258 Germanus, St., 145 Gheerbrant, Bernard, 21, 291 Giants, 30 Gibbon, Edward, 143, 206, 250 Giedion-Welcker, Carola, 84,291 Gilbert, J. T., 90, 250 Gilbert, Stuart, II, 14, 22, 59, 62, 137, 291, 292 Gilbert, William Schwenk, 250 Gill, 41, 255 Gillet, Louis, 12, 17, 292 Gilmartin, 41, 255 Ginnunga-gap, 222 Giorgianni, Enis, 292 Giraldus, Cambrensis, 90, 91 Givens, Seon, 15, 38, 191, 292 Gladstone, 136, 269, 289 Glasheen, Adaline, 14, 33, 40, 41, 46, 82, 101, 10:;!, II3, lI5, 123, 183, 288, 292, 295 Glugg, 109, lIO God, 31, 33, 35, 36, 55, 140, 142, 143, 148, 71 , 151, 171, 174, 175, 179, 183, 187, 188, 196, 199, 203, 209, 210, 229 Goethe, J. W., 81, 82, 83, 251 Gogarty, Oliver St. John, 12, 19, 295 Gogol, N. V., 251 Golding, Louis, 292 Goldsmith, Oliver, 97, 98, 251, 279 Goncourt brothers, 251, 252 Goodrich, S. G., 252, 275 Gordon, E. V., 219, 220, 227 Gorgias, 206, 273 Gorky, Maxim, 84, Gorman, Herbert, 86, 94, IIO, 126, 235, 252, 292 Gounod,82 Gray, Thomas, 252 Greaves, Sir Launcelot, 280 Griffin, Gerald, 94, 252 Grimm, Jakob and Wilhelm, 252 Guenevere, 81, 265 Guilt, 31, 54, 131, 132 Guiney, Imogen, 266 Guinness, 173, 189
Haggai,42 Haggard, Rider, 252 Haliday, Charles, 90, 252, 253 Haliday, William, 252 Hall, Harriet, 212 Hall, John B., 252, 253 Hall, Samuel, 212 Halliday, W. R., 253 Halper, Nathan, 103, 295 Ham, 176 Hamilton, Anthony, 253 Hamilton, W. G. 'Single Speech', 253 Hamilton, Sir William Rowan, 253 Hamlet, 36, 67, 205, 206 Hammerton, J. A., 87 Hanbridge, Henry, 279 Hap, 200 Hare, H. E., 253 Hargreaves, MIs. Reginald (Alice Liddell), 136 Harley, 254 Harmsworth,255 Harrington, Sir John, 74,253 Harris, J. C., 253 Harris, Rendell, 42 Harris, Walter, 92 Harvey, William, 254 Hastings, 148 Hathaway, Ann, 165 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 254 Haussmann, Baron, 256 Havelock the Dane, 252 Hayden, MIs., 247 Hayman, David, 28, 49, 50, 177, 2II, 212, 265, 292 H.C.E. (Humpbxey Chimp den Earwicker), II, 12, 13, 17, 18, 23, 24, 34. 40, 42, 73, 95, 98, 99, 103, 104, II5, II6, 120, I26, 136, 142, 143, 145, 150, 153, 154, 155, 157, 163, 170, 179, 180, 181, 183, 187, 190, 195, 197, 199, 206, 207, 209, 220, 225, 227, 269 Healy, T. M., 125, 133, 195, 254, 273, 274,283 Heathc1iffe, 238 Hegel, Georg, 18, 138, 254 Heimskringla, 218, 283 Helena, St., 20 Heliotrope, 109, II7 Heliopolis, I25, 133, 195, 196 Hell,80 Helvetius, 277 Hemans, MIs. Felicia Dorothea, 87, 254 Hen, 65, 68, 157, 236 Henry II, 92, 147
301
INDEX Hera, 72 Heraldry, 30, 32, 33, 54 Herder, J. G., 34,267 Hermes, 245 Hermes Trismegistus, 46, 254 Herodoms, 255 Herrera y Tordesillas, 255 Herrick, Robert, 255 Hesitancy, 96, !O2, 103, 125, 131, 136 Hester, II7 Heywood, Thomas, 255 Hibbert, H. G., 255 Hill, Dr. Birbeck, II8 History, 18, 23, 30, 32, 34, 35, 46, 52, 53, 55, 126, I46, 151, 182 Hodgart, M. J. C., 14, 20, 50, 69, 164, 172, 269, 295 Hoffmann, Frederick J., 38 Hogg, James, 13, 4I, 42, 255 Holmes, O. W., 255, 269 Home, John, 255 Homer, 59, 72, 73, 74, 184 Homosexualism, 95, 96 Houyhnhnms, 120, 121 The Holy Office, 101, 107 Hone, D., 275 Hopkins, G. M., 256 Horace, 200, 256 Horus, 197, 200, 210, 256 Houghton, Stanley, 255 Housman, A. E., 255, 275 H'siung, S. I., 256 Hubbard, Mother, 255 Hughes, 201, 204, 205, 208, 209, 212, 213 Huginn,223 Hugo, Victor, 256 Hurne, David, 256 Humphreys, Henry, Humpty Dumpty, 92, 127 Hunefer, I93 Hutchins, Patricia, 13, 22, 59, 107, 137,219, 292 Huxley, Aldous, 292 Huysmans, J. K., 50, 257 Ibrahim., 276 Ibsen, Hendrik, 31, 45, 73, 75, 108, 141, 151, 152-7,234,257,260 Iliad, 72, 74 !ngelow, Jean, 258 Ingram, J. K.,258 Invincibles, I II Ireland, William, 70 Irenaeus, St., 258 Irons, Ezekiel, lI3 Isaac, 210 Isabel, Issy, 23, 40, II2, I22, 133, I42, ISS, 189, 221, Isengrim,25 2 Iseult (see Isabel), II7, 128, 130, 131
Isis, 191, 193, 197, 198 James, Henry, 179, 258, 259 James, Henry, sen., 179 James, William, 179 Jansen, 148 Japhet, I76 Jarrell, M. L., 123 Jarry, Alfred, 190, 259 Jatakas, 226 Jaun, 144 Jekyll, 253, 282 Jerome, St., I43-4, 222 Jesuits, 3I Jim the Penman, 70, 152 John, St., 177, 180, 182 John, St. the Baptist, 268 John, St. of the Cross, 192 John, Earl of Orrery, 122 Joim Scoms Erigena, 148 Johnson, Esther, II4, II6, II7 Johnson, Sam, 75 Jolas, Eugene, 15, 17, 51, 60 Jolas, Maria, 49, 60, 292 Jonathan, 176 Jones, Betty, I I 8 Jones, Henry Arthur, 259 Jones, William Powell, 292 Jonson, Benjamin, 247, 259 Joseph, II6, 200 Josephine, 149, I61, 162, 206 Jousse, Marcel, 54, 177, 259 Jove, 32, 53 Joyce Book, The, 49, 292 Joyce, John Stanislaus (Joyce's father), 17, 24, 103, 108, 1I0, III, 143, 17I, 15/6,235 Joyce, Giorgio,273 Joyce, Patrick, !IO Joyce, Stanislaus, 20 Juggernaut, 226 Julius, 68 Jung, C. G., 18, 37-9. 65. 259, 269, 295 Jurgen, 240 Jute and Mutt, 3I Kaia, 157 Kain, R. M., 28, 50, 109, lIO, 292, 295 Kali,210 Kant, Immanuel, 259 Kantaka, 227 K.a:rdec, Allan, 48 ~,Alphons~ 259 Keane, 241 Keats, John, 259 Keegan, John, 259 Keller, Gottfried, 259 Kelly, Mary Ann, 105 Kelly, R. G., 19,20,295 Kelly, W. W., ISS, 161, r62, 258
302
INDEX Kenner, Hugh, 14, I6, 22,41, 59, 60, 65, I30, 134, 165, x84, 185, 258, 262,292 Kephera, 192 Kev,65 Kevin, St., 105, 145, 268 Kevin, I0 5 Kickham, C. J., 94, 259, 260 Kierkegaard, Soren, 39, 260 Kingsley, Charles, 260 Kipling, Rudyard, 260 Kiss, l58, 159 Klee, Paul, 52, 53, 84, 200, 234 Klein, A. M., 295 Kleist, Heinrich von, 260 The KZora:n, 170 Koran, 45, 171, 172,201-17,276,277 Kraft-Ebbing, Richard von, 260 Kropotkin, P. A., 260 Krylov, Ivan, 260, 261 Ku Klux Klan, 170 K'ung Ch'iu, 227 Kung fu Tze, 227 The Lady of Lyons, 109 La Fontaine, Jean, 234,261 Lamb, Charles, 73 Lancelot, 81 Lang, Andrew, 73 Language, IS, 16, 17, 30, 32, 34, 50, 5r, 52, 53, 1°4, II4, lIS, I21, 143, 170, 171, 177, 196,200 Lannigan,John,91,261 Lanson, G., 235 Larbaud, Valery, 16 Larionov, 52, 54 Lavater, J. K., 261 The Law of the Twelve Tables, 256, 287 Lea, 144 Leaf, Walter, 73 Lear, Edward, 261 Leah and Rachel, 81 Le Carron, Henri, 176 Lecky, W. E. H., 91, 92,261 Lee, Nathaniel, 26x LeFanu,Sheridan,x7,94,IIQ-I3,z61 Leibnitz, Gottfried, 261 Leit-motiv, 50, 54, 69, 154, 162 Leland, Thomas, 92, 261 Lennon, F. B., 135, 136 Leno, Dan, l47 Leo, Pope, 147 Leslie, Shane, n8 The Letter, 13, 40, 63, 65, 69, II6, 236,250 Lever, Charles, 261
Levin, Harry, 12, 38, 107, !OS, II4, II7, 126, 191, 193, 208, 292 Levy-Bruhl, Lucien, 22, 28, 43-5, 53, 172,262 Lewis, G. L., 47
Lewis, Wyndham, 43, 86, 97, 262 Lia Fail, 228 Liddell, Alice (see Alice), 32, 69, 129, 181,206 Liddell, Edith, 129 Liddell, Lorinda Charlotte, 129 Liffey, 14, 41, 93, 126, 163 Lilith, 181 Liturgy, 172, 184-90 Litt, Walton, 295 Liu Wu-Chi, 227 Livy, ;;:62 Lockwood Memorial Library, 21, 6I, 224 Lodge, Sir Oliver, 262 Loegaire, 63 Loki,221 Lokman5 202, 203, 204, 214 Lo H. W., 262, 263 Lor er, 182, 186, 187 Loretto, ny of, 130, 206 Lory, 129 Lothario, 142 Lotus, 226 Lovelace, Richard, Lover, Samuel, 95, 263 Lucan, 263 Lucanus Ocellus, 99 Lucas, Charles, 263 Luke, St., 180, 183 Lumpkin, Tony, 97 Luqman, 233 Luttre1, Henry, 68, 154 Luttrell Psalter, 68 Lyly, John, 263 Lyons, 109 Lytton, Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 109, lIO, 263 Maas, 159 Macaulay, Lord Thomas Babington, 2 63, 264 McAlmon, Robert, 64, 79 Macbeth, 163, 164, 165, 190 MacCarthy, Denis Florence, 104, 105,264 McCormick, Mrs., 38 MacDonald, John, 101, 102, 103, 104, 138, 264 McDougall, John, 255 McGee, Thomas D'Arcy, 92, I04,264 McGrath, Cornelius, 98 McGreevy, 51 Machiavelli, I31, 264 Mackenzie, 254 McLuhan, H. M., 295 Macpherson, James, 82, 95,264 Macrobius, 264 Maeterlinck, Maurice, 264 Maffei, Scipio, 68 Magalaner, Marvin, 109, lIO, 292
INDEX Maginn, William, 265 Magonius (St. Patrick), 145, 272 Mahaprajapati, 225 Mahon, Christy, 284 Mahony, F. S., 265 Mahound,206 Malachi,265 Malherbe, Fran<;ois, de, 265 Mallarme, Stephane, 28, 49, 50, 53, 108, 142, 2II, 212, 213,265 Malory, Sir Thomas, 265 Manesse codex, 71 Manesse, Riideger von, 71 Mangan, James Clarence, 107, 121, 238, 264, 266 Manners, J. H., 266 Manzoni, Alessandro, 84, 266 Mara, 226 Marcella, 144 Marcion, 148 Mardrus, J. C., 202, 266 Marengo, 155 Margadant, Simori Lemnius, 266 Marie Louise, 149, 162, 206 Mark, King, IrS, 131 Mark, St., 180, 183 Marmaledoff, 246 Maronite lirurgy, 188, 189 Martin, Maria, 36 Martin, St., 147 Marx, Karl, 138, z66 Mary, Virgin, 128, 130, 188, z06 Mason, Ellsworth, 295 Mass, 184, 185, 186, 187, 190, 198, 199 Matharan, M. M., 90, 266, 267 Matthew, St., 181, I8z, 183 Maturin, C. R., 95, 267 Marurln, St., 267 Maunsel, I07 Maya, 22, 227 Mayoux, Jean-Jacques, 295 Mead, G. R. S., 2&; Meade, 'L. T.', 170 Melkarth, 188 Melnoth, Sebastian, 94, 267 Melnotte, Claude, 109 Melville, Herman, 267 Metempsychosis, 18 Mezouzah, 174 Michael, 174, 175 Michael of Northgate, 46 Michelet, Jules, 28, 267 Midas, lI2 Midgard, 2:1.1 Migne, 145, 148 Mike, Pegeen, 284 Mill, J. S., 267 IV1iller, Hugh, 268 Milligan, Alice, 268 Milton, John, 206, 268 Min, 194
Minucius Felix, 145, 268 lVIisch-Masch, 124 Mistletoe, 199 Mistral, Frederic, 268 Mitchell, John, 94, 105, 268 Mohammed, 190, 205, 2.06, 207, ::110, 2II, 212, 2I3, 252 Moliere, Jean Baptiste Poquelin, 268 MOlnir,22I Mornmsen, Theodo~ 268 Moncrief, Archie, 96 Moncrieff, C. K. Scott, 275 Montgomery, Niall, 34, 142, 295, 296 Moody, 225 Mookse and Gripes, 139, 147, 268 Moor Park, lI8 Moor~George,268
Moore, Thomas, 45,172,269 Moran, Michael (Zozirnus), 105 More, Sir Thomas, Play of,67 Morel,62 Morgan, Lady Sydney, 87, 269 Morley of Blackburn, 269 Morris, 188 Monis, William, 218, 269 Morse, J. Mitchell, 46, 138,296 Moses, 42, 81, 173, 179 Motley, J. L., 269 Muggleton, Lodowick, 255, 269 Milller, Max, 169 Muninn,223 Murray, Mary Jane (Joyce's mother), 24, 188 Murray, Lindley, 270 Music, 28, 50, 53 Mutt and Jute, 218, 219, 220 Myers, Ernest, 73 Myersian theories, 48 Nana, 290 Napoleon, 149, 161, 162, 206 Nashe, Thomas, Nathan, II6 Nepos, Cornelius, 270 Nero, 68 de Nerval, Gerard, 50, 51 New Testament, 177, 181-3 Newman, Cardinal, l41, 142, 270 Niall,63 Nicholas of Cusa, 28, 35, 36, 39, 53, 65,270 Nietzsche, F. W., 270 Nijinsky, Romola, 270, 271 Noah, 175, 176, 180 Noel, Lucie, 292 Noon, W. T., l39, 292 Norma, 199 North, Sir Thomas, 76 Norwegian Captain, 163, zoo, 223 256
INDEX Patricius, 145 Patrick, St., 18, 63, 98, I45, 187, 209, 210, 272, 282 Patrick, Croagh, 120 Patrologia Latina, 20, I38, 145, I48 Paula, I44 Pauline, 109 Peery, William, 296 O'Clery, Michael, Conary and Pere- Pelagius, 147, 272 grine, 89 Perdix, 120, 27 I O'Connor, Sir James, 127 Peter, Jack and Maron, II9 O'Connor, Roderick, 280 Pethers, Caroline, 134, 135 Odin, 42, 221, 223 Petrarch,80,272 O'Doherty, K. 1., 104, lO5, 268, Petrus, 147 27 1 Pepeue, lI5 O'Doherty, Mary Ann (Eva), 105 Pepi 1,196 O'Donnell, 101 Pepi II, 200 O'Donovan, T., 89 Pepper ghost, I62 184 Odyssey, 73, 74, Petronius, 247 O'Flaherty, Fireworker, III Phil the Fluter, 146 Ogham writing, 67 Phoenix, 173, I95, 196 O'Gorman, 252, 271 Phoenix Park, 17, III, 142, 150, I73, O,Hegarty, P. S., 92, 127, 27I 179, 196, 198 Olafsson, 219 Phoenix Park Murders, 83, 102 Olcott, Colonel H. S., 225, 236 Pigou, Richard, 96, !O2, 103 Old Testament, 55, I43, 172-80 Pilate, 182 Oliphant, Laurence, 271 Pip and Estella, 245 Ondt and Gracehoper, 139, 140 Piper, Alta, 262 O'Mulconry, Farfessa, 89 Plato, 206, 272, 273 Orczy, Baroness, 271 Pliny, the Elder, 273 O'Reilly, I. B., 104, 271 Pliny, the Younger, 273 Origen, 145,271 Plautl.1s,90 Orkhon, 146 Plotinus, 274 Oscar, 95 Poe, E. A., 274 O'Shea, Captain, 134 Pollard, G., 240 O'Shea, KiUy, 134 Polsky, Ned, 60, 296 Osiris, I89, 190, 191, 193, 195, 197, Pope, Alexander, 70, 85, 274 198, 199 Porphyry, 274 Othello, 241 Porter, 150 Otho,68 Porter, F. T., 251, 2 4 O'Toole, Lawrence, I8g Portrait of the Artzst as a Young Ovid, 120, 271 . Man, 100, 101, 107, 108, 109, 123, Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 141 133, 137, 169, 288 Pound, Ezra, 28, 52, 53, 227, 256, 275 'Ppt', 114 Palmer, E. H., 209 Prescou, Joseph, 17,226,296 Paolo and Francesca, 79, 80 Prevost, Abbe, 275 Papyrus of Ani, 192, 193, 195 Prichard, J. C., 275 Paracelsus, 46, 250, 271 Prince, Morton, 40--1, II7, 275 Parandowski, Jan, 51,296 Paris, Jean, 292 Prior, Matthew, 275 Proust, Marcel, 275, 288 Parizot, J. P., 47 Parker, Alan, 292 Prout, Father, 265, 1.75 Psalmanazar, George, 70, 275, 276 Parley, Peter, 252 Parnell, C. S., 3°,96,100-4, II7, 134, Ptah,200 Pushkin, Alexander, 276 135, 176 Pyrrha, 271 Parr, Old, 254 Pattridge, 120 Pytha.goras, 87 Partridge, Eric, 125, 129, 159, 271 Queen of Sheba, 182 Pascal, Blaise, 85, 86, 272 Queen's Theatre, 161 Pascal, Jacqueline, 85, 86,253,272 Pater, Walter, 50, 53 Quin, Widow, 284
Novel,14 NumbeIS, 44, 48, 53, 134, 176, 209 Nun, 204 Nuy, 203, 214 Nuuer, III Nutting, Mrs., 127
z
30 5
INDEX Quinet, Edgar, 28, 34, 35, 39, 63, III, 243, 267, 273, 2-;6
Rabelais, Franyois, 127, 276 Ragnarok, 220, 22I Rahab,255 RahuIa, 225, 226 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 288 Rama,225 Raphael, Mme France, 61 Raskolnikov, 246 Reade, les, 2-;6 Reeves, , 269 8, 269 Reeves, Renan, Ernest, 276 Reynard, 102 RichaId III, 163 Rimbaud, Arthur, 276 Rivoalan, A., 292 Robert of Chester, 201, 276, 277 Roberts, 107 Rodwell, J. M., 209 Roe, Sir Thomas, 269 Roger, I22 Roland, 263 Roscius, 241 Rosicrucianism, 47, 66 Rosmer, 155 Rothe, Wolfgang, 292 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 13, !90, 277 ROWlltree, B. S., 19, 75-9, 92, 277 A Royal Divorce, 149, 151, 161-2,289 Ruggiero, Paul, I08 Run, Eve, 260 Runes, 220, 227 Russell, Bertrand, 46 Russell, Sir Charles, 102, !O3 Russell, Francis, 292 Russell, George, 225 Russian General, 103,212,226,260 Sackerson, 279 Saemund the Wise, 219 Sale, George, 205, 209 Sally (see Beauchamp) Salvaxsan, 265 Sand, George, 248 Sankey, 225 Sappho, 277 Sarah, 176 Sarah B 41 Satan, 30, 174, 209, 270 Savard, J. .,70,246 Saxo Grammaocus, 277 Sayers, D. L., 80 Scarab, 192, 193 Scaliger, J. C., 277
. J., 277
F. W. j. von, 277 Schiller, • C. F., 277 SChopennauer, Arthur, 277
SChweitzer, J. F., 277 Scipio, 68, 75 Scott, Sir WalteX', 245, 277, 278 Sean the Post, 158, 159, 160, 161 Sejanus, 90 Sekhet Hetep, 170, 196 Senn-Baldinger, Fritz, 71 Set, 197, 200 Sex, change of, 206, 273 Shabo images, 194, 195, 198 Shamrock, I47 Shatman, John, 278 Shakespeare, William, 45, 67, 70, 72, 73, 76, 81, 151, 162-4, 165, 205, 206,> 229, 246, 251, 278, 279, 289, 295 Shaun, 13, I4, 8r, 99, 104> 107, !IS, II9, 120, 143, 149, 157, 159, I60, 175, 178, r83, 184> 185, 187, 189, 190, 201, 204> 207, 218, 220, 221, 272,284 Shaun the Post, 99 Shaun, Buie McGaveran, 99, 100 Shaw, G. B., 279 Shaw, H. W., 279 Shaw, T. E., 73 Sheep, goats, 148 Shelley, P. B., 279 Shem, 13, 14, 49, 50, 104, 107, 109, II4, lI5, II7, I20, 143, 145, 149, I57, 163, 175, 176, 183, 201, 2Il, 272
SheIn (Bib!.), 176 Shenstone, William, 279 Sheridan, R. B., 97, 279 Shirley, 70 Sh'ma, 174 Shrewsbury, DuChess of, II7 Shu, 32
Siddhartha (Buddha), 225 Sigerson, George, 279 Silver, Long John, 282 Sin, 23, 30, 31, 32, 33, 53, 63, 131, 142, 143, 153, 157, 165, 171, 174, 179, 187, I95, 210, 226 Sinnett, A. P., 236, 280 Sirius, 146 Sisam,46 Skeffington, F. J. C., 107 Slingsby, I43 S:r..JCUm, J. S., 36, 61, 107, 192, 291, 293 Smedley, F. E., lIO Srrridt, ~stian,293 Srrrith, H. T., 48 Smock Alley, 151 Smollen, T. G., 280 Smythe 94 Snakes, 65 Soames,IoI Socinus, Faustus, 280
306
INDEX Soddy, Frederick, 280 Solness, Halvard, 155, 156, 157, 257 Solness, Mrs., I54 Solomon, 178, 180, 181, 182 Solveig, 258 Sommers, Will, 270 Sopbocles, 81,280 Sorrel,289 Sosie, 268 Soupault, Philippe, 293 Southey, Robert, 219 Space, 54, 55, Speke, J. H., I7I, 28I Spengler, Oswald, 281 Spenser, Edmund, 206, 281 Spmoza, Baruch, 281, 282 Stanford, W. B., 73 Stanihurst, Richard, 91, 282 Stapleton., H. E., 47 Steele, Sir Richard, 282 Stein, Gertrude, 282 Stella, 69, II4> lIS, II6, II7, II8, 122, 129 Stensgard, 257 Stephen Hero, 137 Stephens, James, II3 St. Stephen's, Ie7 Stern, J. P. M., 137 Sterne, Laurence, n8, 123, 282 Stevenson, R. L., 282, 284 Stockman, Peter, 154 Stoker, Bram, 282 Stoker, Whitley, 63, 145 Stone and Tree, II2 Stopes, Marie, 283 Stowe, H. B., 283 Strand Magazine, 23 Strong, Kate, 91 Strong, L. A. G., II4, IX7, 293 Sttuldbugs, 121, 176 Stuart, D. M., 283 Sturk, I7, III Srurlason, Snorri, 219, 220, 283 Stutter, 31, 54, 131, 136, I74, 182 Sucat CSt. Patrick), I4S, 272 Suetonius, 283 Sudlow, Bessy, 151 Sullivan, Sir Atthur, 283 Sullivan, Sir Edward, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 250, 283 Sulpicius, 68 Suso, Heinrich, 283 Surt,222 S,idrigailov,246,247 Sweeney, J. J., 296 Swedenborg, Emmanuel, 20, 283 Swift, Jonathan, 44, 54, 69, II3, II4123, 13I, 134, 153, 173, 176, 283 271, Swinburne, C. A., 283, 284 Sylvie, 136
Symons, Arthur, 28, 46, 48-54, 254, 267 Synge, J. M., 284, 285 Tacitus, 273, 284 Taft' (see Butt and Taft') Talmud, 285 Taplin, Walter, 51 Targum, 55 Tartarin de Tarascon, 244 Tar water, 98 Taylor, E. S., 47 Taylor, L., 266 Taylor, Thomas, 47, 285 Tea, 98, lI8, 153, I54 Tefnut, 32, 197 Tem CAtem), 133, 196, I97 Temple, II8 Temu CAtem), 196 Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 33, 129, 285, 286 Tephilin, I74 Thackeray, W. M., 245, 286 Theobald, Lewis, 70 Theocrirus, 286 Theodosius, Macrobius, 75 Theophrastus, 286 Theravada Cancn, I69 Tbibauld, J. A. ('Anatole France'), 286 Thorn's Dublin Directory, 92, 93, 274 Thomas of Bologna, 245 Thomas, Brandon, 286 Thomas, E. J., 227 Thompson, Francis, 12, 296 Thor, 68, 221 Thoreau, H. D., 72 Thorgils, 68 ThQrkelin, G. J., 68 Thoth,200 Thousand and One Nights, 202, 238, 281 Thunder, 30, 31, 54, 136, 182, 197, 221,222 Todd, Sweeney, 255 Tibb, St., 70 Tiberius, 68 Tieck, Ludwig, 286 Tim, 55, 133, 196, 1.97 Time, 17, 54, 55, 188 The Times, 101, 102 Tindall, W. Y., 32, 36, 50, 70, 141, 293,296 Tisdall, Rev. William, 122 Titley, A. F., 47 Tims,69 Tobin, John, 286 Tocll:1unter, Isaac, 286 Toland, Ioa'1., 36, 286 Torgils (Torgesius), 283 Tom, 55, 133, 196, 197
INDEX Tompion, Thomas, 55 transition, 22, 64 Tl'aube, L., 69 Tree, lI2, 183 Trieste Note-book, 49, 50 Trollope, Anthony, 286, 287 Trot, Even, 100 Tryon, 250 Tunc page, 54, 66 Turgesius, 68 Tutankhamen, 159, 194> 195 Twentyman, Larry, 287 Twenty-nine girls, 100, II7, 120, 183, r89 Two temptresses, 33 Uachet, 200 Ugg Ugg, 136 Ugolino. 147 Ulysses, 12, 38, 39, 48, 50, 59, 65, 67. 73, 74> 94, 101, 103, I09, 123, I37, 158, r84, 190, 2rI, 225, 229, 238, 252, 260, 262, 283 Upanishads, 228, 248, 287 Ussher, Arland, 293 Vanessa, 114, II6, lI7, 1I8, 122 Vanhomrigh, Esther, II7 Varina crane Waring), IIS Vaughan, Henry, 287 Vaughan, Thomas, 287 Vega, Garcilaso, 287 Vega, Lope de, 287 Vauxhall, 242 The Venture, ro7 Vera, 97 Vereker, 2$8 Verne, Jules, 287 Vespasian, 69 Vice, Giovanni Battista, 18, 19> 22, 28, 2~34, 52, 53, 54> 126, 136, 149, ISO, 260, 267, 268, Victoria Nyanza, 171 Virag, 65 Virgil, 75, 80, 146, 275, 287, 288 Villon, Fran9ois, 288 Vishnu, 225 Vitellius, 68 Voltaire, 288 Voluspo, 218, 2Ig, 220, 287 Volva, 220, 287 Von Phul, Ruth, 296 Vousden, Val, 151, r60 Vulgate, 96, 143, 172, 177, 178, 179, 181, 182 Wadding, Luke, 91, 288 Wagner (in Faust), 82, 83, 25! Wagner, Richard, 28, 50, 54, 69 Waldock, A. J. A., 293 Walpole, Horace, u8, 219,288
Walsingham, Lylian, !l2, 181 Walton, Izask,288 Wangel, Hilda, 156, 157 Ware, Sir James, 90, 288 Wa.~,Jane, 118 Waterloo, 162 Watts-Dunton, 284 Weatherly, F. E., 74 Weaver, Harriet, I4, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 27, 29, 38, 39,48, 61, 62, 74, 84, 92, 100, 103, 106, II9, 127, 134, 141, 170, 183, 188, 191, 218, 227, 243,248 Weller, Sam, 245 Wellington, Duke of, 36, 155,226 Wens, H. G., 123 Werle, ISS West, Rebecca, 38, 154, ISS, 156 Whalley, Jonah, 110 Wheatley, H. R., 267 White, William, 296 White horse, ISS, 162 White Knight, the, 134 Whitman, Walt, 288 Wildaix, Sir Henry, 249 Wilde, Oscar, 19, 48, 95-7, 108, 252, 267,289 Wilkins, W. J., 228 William III, 155,248,289 Williams, C. W., 38 Williams, Harold, II6 Williams, Richard D'Alton, 238, 266, 289 Wills, W. G., 151, 161, 162, 289 Wilson,Edinund,1I,I2,II4,I50,293 Wisden, J., 289 Wise, T. J., 240 Woffington, Peg"I5I, 249 Wood, Anthony A., 289 Wood's halfpence, II9, 120 WOl1dsworth, William, 251, 289 Worthington, Mabel, I72, 296 Wright, E. A., 143, 144 Wright, Peter E., 269, 289 Wyss, J. R.,289 Xenophon, 290 Yahoos, 120, 121 Yawn, lI6, 146, 272 Yeats, W. B., 65, II3, II4> 273, 290 Yggdrasil, 221, 222 Young, Sir Charles, 70, 246, 290 Zaid,205 Zemzem, 205 Zeus, 72 Zimmer, Heinrich, 22, 224, 290 Zola, Emile, 290 Zosimos, 290 Zozimus (Michael Moran), 105, 290
English Literature
“In the mass of exegesis on that puzzling work, Finnegans Wake . . . this little volume ranks high for clarity and insight . . . A goldmine for Joyce lovers.” —Virginia Kirkus € In Finnegans Wake James Joyce uses world litÂ�erature, great and small, sacred and proÂ�fane, as one of the most important and frequent of his sources. Setting out to ex plore these literary allusions, James S. Atherton sheds a great deal of light upon other asÂ�pects of Joyce’s work. Chapters are devoted to such major figures as Swift and Lewis Carroll, while less important influences are grouped together under such headings as “The Irish Writers” and “The Fathers of the Church.” Atherton also surÂ�veys the various interpretations of Finnegans Wake and makes use of the Letters of James Joyce and the manuscript of Finnegans Wake in the British Museum.
Southern Illinois University Press 1915 University Press Drive Mail Code 6806 Carbondale, IL 62901 www.siu.edu/~siupress ISBN 0-8093-2933-6 ISBN 978-0-8093-2933-5
Printed in the United States of America
