A
Skeleton
Key to Finnegans Wake ?
A-Skeleton-Key-to-Finnegans-Wake
It is nearly closing time.
From afar come sounds of an approaching mob, singing a ballad celebrating the guilt and overthrow of HCE.
Feeling that he has been rejected by his people whom he came to rule, the tavernkeeper clears his place and is at last alone.
In desperation he laps up the dregs of all the glasses and bottles, and collapses drunkenly on the floor.
He now beholds, as a dream, the vi- sion of the next chapter (pp.
?
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-?
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).
Chapter ? : Bride-Ship and Gulls (pp. ? ? ? -? ? )
HCE, dreaming on the floor, sees himself as King Mark, cuckolded by young Tristram, who sails away with Iseult. The honeymoon boat is cir- cled by gulls, i. e. , the Four Old Men, who regard the vivid event from their four directions. HCE, broken and exhausted, is no better now than they.
Book III: The Book of the People
Chapter ? : Shaun before the People (pp. ? ? ? -? ? )
HCE has gathered himself up to bed with his wife. His dream vision of the future unfolds. Shaun the Post is seen to stand before the people recom- mending himself to their votes, and abusing his rival, Shem. To illustrate the brother contrast Shaun recounts the Aesopian fable of "The Ondt and the Gracehoper" (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ). His principal point against Shem is that his language is beyond the pale of human propriety. The vision fades and a keen is lifted for the departed hero.
? Chapter ? : Jaun before St. Bride's (pp. ? ? ? -? ? )
Shaun, now called Jaun (Don Juan), appears before the little girls of St. Bride's Academy, Iseult and her twenty-eight playmates. To them he de- livers a long farewell sermon, shrewdly prudential and practical, cynical and sentimental, and prurient. He is about to depart on a great mission.
Jaun is an imperial-salesman parodist of the Christ of the Last Supper, leaving advice to the little people of his Church. He introduces Shem, his brother, the Paraclete who will serve his bride while he is gone. Sped with pretty litanies, he departs--celebrated Misdeliverer of the Word.
Chapter ? : Yawn under Inquest (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ? )
Shaun (now Yawn) lies sprawled atop a ridge in the center of Ireland. The Four Old Men and their Ass arrive to hold an inquest. Ruthlessly they question the prostrate hulk, and it gradually disintegrates. Voices break from it, out of deeper and deeper stratifications. Shaun is revealed as the Gargantuan representative of the last and uttermost implications of HCE.
As the examination proceeds, it becomes more than the four old in- vestigators can handle. The complaints of raped India and Ireland, the garbled reports of self-contradictory witnesses and juries, wild, fragmentary outcries of subliminal voices long forgotten, the primeval scene of Finnegans Wake itself, come forth from the expiring titan. A group of young Brain Trusters takes over, to press the inquest to conclusion. Their sheafs of questionnaires quickly co-ordinate the evidence. They summon Kate, the widow of earliest times, and finally evoke the father presence himself. The voice of HCE pours forth in a vastly welling, all-subsuming tide, and the entire scene is dissolved in the primordial substance of HCE.
Chapter ? : HCE and ALP--Their Bed of Trial (pp. ? ? ? -? ? )
The Four Old Inquisitors now are sitting around the parental bed. They are the posts of the four-poster. The long night is yielding to dawn; the dream figments are dissolving back into the furnishings of the room. Everybody is asleep. A little cry is heard from Jerry (Shem) who has been having a nasty dream (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ).
The anxious mother leaps from bed, seizes the lamp, and, followed by her husband, hastens upstairs to the child's room. Child comforted,
? ? A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake ? ? Synopsis and Demonstration ? ?
? mother and father return downstairs to bed (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ). Their shadows on the windowblind flash far and wide the copulation of HCE and ALP. The cock crows; it is dawn (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ). The male and female relax for an early-morning nap.
Book IV: RICORSO
Angelic voices herald the day. The sleeper has rolled over; a beam of light troubles the back of his neck. The world awaits the shining hero of the new days (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ? ).
Issuant from the lake of night and celebrated by girly voices, arises the form of innocent St. Kevin. The idyllic moment is suggestive of Ireland's lovely Christian dawn of the fifth century (pp. ? ? ? -? ).
Day is gaining. The sleepers are passing from sleep. The ambiguities of night will soon be dispelled (pp. ? ? ? -? ).
The moment of the triumph of wakefulness over deep mythological dream is represented as the arrival of St. Patrick (ca. a. d. ? ? ? ) and his refu- tation of mystical Druidism. All thereafter moves toward enlightenment. Yet things are not essentially changed, only refreshed (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ).
The morning paper and ALP's letter in the mail will tell you all the news of the night just past (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ).
The woman, during the morning sleep, has felt her husband turn away from her. Time has passed them both; their hopes are now in their chil- dren. HCE is the broken shell of Humpty Dumpty, ALP the life-soiled last race of the river as it passes back to sea. The mighty sweep of her longing for release from the pressing shores and for reunion with the boundless ocean swells into a magnificent monologue (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ). Anna Liffey re- turns to the vast triton-father; at which moment the eyes open, the dream breaks, and the cycle is ready to start anew.
Demonstration
The First Four Paragraphs of Finnegans Wake
The first page and a half of Finnegans Wake hold in suspension the seed energies of all the characters and plot motifs of the book. Here the Joycean volcano in full eruption vomits forth raw lumps of energy-containing lava, a mythogenetic river still aflame as it floods across the page. The first
? impression is one of chaos, unrelieved by any landmark of meaning or recognition. Unless James Joyce could be trusted as a wielder of the most disciplined logic known to modern letters, there would be little hope that these hurtling igneous blocks would eventually respond to the solvent of analysis. The fact is, however, that these opening paragraphs are choked with nutrient materials of sense and sustenance. The themes here darkly announced are developed later with such organic inevitability that the reader, having finished the book, gazes back with amazement at the prophetic con- tent and germinal energy of the first page.
The first four paragraphs of Finnegans Wake remotely suggest the first verses of the Book of Genesis. On a darkened stage, and against a cosmic backdrop, terrestrial scenes and characters begin to emerge in a drama of creation. The landscape itself gropes its way into action, and in the primeval dawn we dimly descry a river and a mountain.
riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
Appropriately, the first word of Finnegans Wake is "riverrun. " Opening with a small letter, it starts the book in the middle of a sentence. "Riverrun," however, is not a beginning, but a continuation--a continua- tion among other things of the ecstatic, swiftly slipping, and abruptly in- terrupted sentence with which the volume ends. For the book is composed in a circle; the last word flows into the first, Omega merges into Alpha, and the rosary of history begins all over again.
"Riverrun" is more than a clue to the circling plan of Finnegans Wake; it characterizes the essence of the book itself. For in this work, both space and time are fluid; meanings, characters, and vocabulary deliquesce in con- stant fluxion. The hero is everywhere: in the elm that shades the salmon pool, in the shadow that falls upon the stream, in the salmon beneath the ripples, in the sunlight on the ripples, in the sun itself. Three men looking at you through one pair of eyes are not men at all, but a clump of shrubs; not shrubs either, but your own conscience; and finally, not your private conscience, but an incubus of the universal nightmare from which the sub- lime dreamer of cosmic history will awaken, only to dream once more.
Alive to the depthless metaphor in which we are moving, let us begin
? ?
A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake ? ? Synopsis and Demonstration ? ?
? by bringing into focus the composition of place indicated in the first sen- tence of Finnegans Wake. Specifically, "riverrun" refers to Dublin's River Liffey, flowing past a Franciscan church called by Dubliners "Adam and Eve's," which is situated on its banks. As Adam and Eve stand at the be- ginning of human history, so they stand at the beginning of our book, sug- gesting Eden, sexual polarity, the fall of man, and the promise of redemption. "Riverrun" suggests, too, the river of time, on which these world events are borne.
from swerve of shore to bend of bay . . .
We follow the topography of the Irish shoreline from the mouth of River Liffey northward to a deep bend where the waters of Dublin Bay pound the Hill of Howth. The swerve of shore is the coy gesture of the pretty isle herself which invites the assault of the bay waters, thus hinting at a Seduction theme which will later emerge full of import. Again, the waters of Dublin Bay continually pounding the Head of Howth represent, on an elemental level, the perennial invaders of Ireland continually pum- meling the head of the defender.
brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation. . .
Joyce here announces in the word "recirculation" the Viconian ricorso theme, the metaphysical pivot on which the Finnegan cycle turns. The cunning key word, "vicus," means street or highway, but is at the same time the Latin form of the Italian Vico. "Commodius" sweeps the mind back to the Rome which showed its first severe symptoms of decay in the time of the emperor Commodus. It also suggests the broad and easy path that leads our present civilization to destruction. [[It may also suggest Dante's Commedia. --ELE]]
back to Howth Castle and Environs . . .
The Dublin landmark (note the initials HCE peeping through the name) is a high headland crowned by a castle and guarding Dublin Bay. It is popularly regarded as the cranium of a recumbent giant whose belly is the city of Dublin and whose feet turn up amidst the hillocks of Phoenix Park. If the River Liffey is the heroine, this sleeping landscape giant is the hero. Historical associations crowd around his recumbent form. On this headland the sentinels of Finn MacCool stood guard against invaders
? from the sea. Centuries later, when the Anglo-Norman king Henry II sub- jugated the island, the present castle was founded by one of the invading company, Sir Almeric Tristram. That was in the century of the flowering of the Arthurian romances, with which are inseparably woven the names of Tristram and Iseult.
So now we read:
Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passencore re- arrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war . . .
The basic sense is this: Sir Tristram, musician of love, from across Saint George's Channel,* had not yet rearrived? from North Brittany, which is on Ireland's side of rugged Europe,? to wage again his war. The war is des- ignated "penisolate," which suggests "late, or recent war of the penis," a designation not inappropriate to the gest of a Tristram. But the word may also be read "pen-isolate," whereupon it suggests a war waged with the pen, not by a robust extrovert, but by an isolated, introverted man of letters. The Tristram figure will later split into such antipodal characters, giving battle to each other. Finally, if we read "Peninsular War," we shall be re- minded of the Anglo-Irish Dubliner, Arthur Wellesley, first duke of Wellington, who in the Peninsular War waged his first great battles against Napoleon.
With this sounding of the Tristram motif of guilty love, Joyce boldly strikes some of the major chords of Finnegans Wake. The legend of Tristram and the two Iseults is well known; its mold fits perfectly over HCE. He has a bewitching daughter whom he compares to the second Iseult, her of Brittany, whereas his wife in some of her transformations is identical with Iseult of Ireland. Torn between the two, the man is tempted and destroyed by the representatives of the younger, but he is gathered up
? ? * Tristram first arrived in Ireland by coracle from Cornwall, over the same sea crossed by the historical Sir Almeric Tristram, founder of Howth Castle.
? Note the curious implication of "rearrived. " Joyce intends to indicate that in the courses of the Viconian cycle all has happened before and is on the point of happening again.
? North Armorica is North Brittany, the scene of the love-death of Tristram and Iseult of Ireland. It was the scene also of Tristram's morbid, unconsummated marriage with the second and younger Iseult, Iseult of Brittany.
? ? A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake ? ? Synopsis and Demonstration ? ?
? and his wounds are healed by the older, whom he never ceases to cherish. This conflict which drives a wedge into HCE's heart is a manifestation of the ambiguous guilt-neurosis that has troubled men of the western world since the medieval innovation of romantic love.
The double note of love and war is to become the pervasive theme of Finnegans Wake: key changes and modulations will break the simple state- ments into baffling congeries of dissonance and harmony. Ambiguous the love--ambiguous too will be the war, continually outcropping in the struggles between Shem and Shaun and their shadow extensions Butt and Taff, Mutt and Jute, the historical figures of Wellington and Napoleon, Caesar and Brutus, Sigtrygg and Brian Boru, and those curiously inchoate personages, Buckley and the Russian General. Under many appearances, love and war are the constant life expressions of that polarized energy which propels the universal round.
"North Armorica" suggests North America. The phrase following de- velops this evocation of the New World Beyond the Sea, to which those Irish fled who took refuge from the English plunderer, and where many a canny Irishman has won money and prestige:
nor had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated them- selse to Laurens County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all the time . . .
Oddly enough there is a stream Oconee flowing through Laurens County, Georgia, U. S. A. , and on the banks of this stream stands Dublin, the county seat. Thus an American duplication of Dublin on Liffey is Dublin on Oconee. The word Oconee resembles the Irish exclamation of grief "ochone," undoubtedly uttered by many an Irishman leaving his home for America.
Numerous suggestions resound through this passage: Tom Sawyer, for instance, with his associations of Huck Finn and Mark Twain (Mark the Second). * When men are sawing timber over a saw pit, a top sawyer stands above the log; a pit sawyer stands below. This image carries forward the idea of the opposed brothers: the sawyer on top is the successful one; his "rocks"
? (slang for "money") "exaggerate themselves," that is to say, increase. Also the rocks transform themselves into property in Laurens County, Georgia; the citizens of this area are the "gorgios,"* fruit of Topsawyer's rocks--rocks now meaning "testicles. "
The drift of this dense passage is as follows: A successful son of HCE emigrates from East to West, as his father before him. Settling in America he begets a large progeny and bequeaths to them a decent, even gorgeous prosperity. The idea of procreation and prosperity is carried forward by the expression "doublin their mumper? all the time," which may be read pri- marily as "doubling their number all the time. "
But the passage refers to Ireland, as well as to America, and precisely to Ireland of the time of the Anglo-Norman conquest. The bishop of Dublin, at that time, was Lawrence O'Toole; Dublin County would be Lawrence's County. Furthermore, in honor of his victory under the patronage of St. Lawrence, Sir Almeric Tristram, founder of Howth Castle, changed his family name to Lawrence.
nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuart- peatrick . . .
The primary reference here is to St. Patrick and his Christianizing of Ireland. This saint baptizes (tauftauf) the peat rick, Ireland; taufen is German "to baptize," which reminds us that St. Patrick's spiritual tutor was St. Germanicus. From a fire below comes the voice of the virgin lady of the isle--the goddess Brigit, who became St. Bridget when baptized. "Mishe mishe," she says in her native tongue, "I am, I am," thus affirming her character as the mother-substance of all being, namely, ALP. On the level of spiritual allegory, Patrick is HCE--the perennial invader--this time fructifying Mother Ireland with the gyzm of life eternal. The peat fire refers to the legendary miracle of St. Patrick's Purgatory. He drew a circle on the ground and the earth opened in flame; into this fire the most
? ? * "Gorgio" is a gypsy word meaning "non-gypsy," also "youngster. "
? Other hints rise from this word "mumper": "Mum," a sweet strong beer first brewed in ? ? ? ? , the year of the discovery of America. HCE is identified with beer; he not only con- sumes and serves it in his tavern, he is beer. Finally, "doubling mum" introduces the Superfetation theme, the theme of one world burrowing on another, which is the great key to the dynamism of Finnegans Wake.
? ? * Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) appears frequently in Finnegans Wake. Both he and his hero Huck Finn (Finn in America) were adventurers, rose to a height, and took a fall. Interestingly enough, Samuel Clemens called his wife "Livy. "
? ? A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake ? ? Synopsis and Demonstration ? ?
? zealous of his converts descended. References to "Pat's Purge" occur several times in Finnegans Wake.
not yet, though venissoon after, had a kidscad buttended a bland old isaac. . .
This brings us back to the Old Testament brother battle of Jacob and Esau, in which Father Isaac, wishing to bless the elder son, becomes the butt of the cadet's (younger son's) cunning. The passage may be read: Not yet, though very soon after, Jacob, disguised in the kidskin, duped his blind old father. There is also a local Irish suggestion in the juxtaposition of the words "butt" and "isaac. " Isaac Butt, in ? ? ? ? , was ousted from lead- ership of the Irish Nationalist party through the machinations of the younger Parnell, who himself then moved into command.
The word "venissoon" not only signifies the goat venison of the Biblical story, but points forward to the Swift-Vanessa theme, struck in the statement following:
not yet, though all's fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. . .
"Nathandjoe" is an anagram for Jonathan (Dean Jonathan Swift) split in two and turned head over heels by his two young-girl loves, Stella and Vanessa. Not yet, though all's fair in the vain game of love, were these 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. )
"Sosie sesthers wroth" is also a transformation of the names of Susannah, Esther, and Ruth, the heroines of three Biblical tales involving the loves of old men for young girls. "In vanessy" suggests Inverness, the name of the castle of Macbeth: Macbeth was seduced by the wiles of the Three Weird Sisters.
Rot a peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight . . .
One thinks of the moment after the ark had come to rest on Ararat, when Noah began to till the ground and plant a vineyard. Drinking of the wine, he became drunk and was seen naked by his son Ham. But Shem and Japheth, the other two sons, put a cloak on their shoulders, and going back- ward covered their father's nakedness. This passage should be construed in
? terms of the Father-castration theme and the superseding of the father by the sons. The three names, Shem, Japheth, and Ham, are telescoped to com- prise the Shem and Shaun duality of the Earwicker household. Instead of wine the intoxicant is beer, in keeping with the Germano-Celtic pattern.
and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface . . .
And toward the orient (rory end to) the rainbow was to be seen cast- ing its reflection on the face of the waters. This rainbow, the sign of God's promise and man's hope, with its seven hues of beauty, is one of the dom- inant images of Finnegans Wake. It balances the thunderclap, the signal of God's wrath and man's fear.
"Rory" connotes Rory O'Connor who was High King of Ireland when the royal brow of the conqueror, Henry II, came up over the eastern hori- zon. This brow was the coming of a new age, as was the rainbow in the time of Noah.
The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner- ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk! ) . . .
"The fall," and the strange polysyllable following it, introduce us to the propelling impulse of Finnegans Wake. The noise made by the thumping of Finnegan's body tumbling down the ladder is identical with the Viconian thunderclap, the voice of God's wrath, which terminates the old aeon and starts the cycle of history anew.
of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy. . . .
"Old Parr" was the nickname of Thomas Parr (? ? ? ? -? ? ? ? ! ), of Shropshire, who lived to be one hundred and fifty-two years old. "Parr" and "wallstrait" are also plays on the rise and fall of stockmarket values in the modern world. The fall of this Old Parr is the fall of Adam in the gar- den, Finnegan from the wall, HCE in Phoenix Park.
The great fall of the offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute* of Finnegan, erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of
? ? * "Pftjschute" suggests "chute," also the hissing rush of a falling meteor--Lucifer falling into Hell.
? ? A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake ? ? Synopsis and Demonstration ? ?
? humself prumptly sends an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes . .
Chapter ? : Bride-Ship and Gulls (pp. ? ? ? -? ? )
HCE, dreaming on the floor, sees himself as King Mark, cuckolded by young Tristram, who sails away with Iseult. The honeymoon boat is cir- cled by gulls, i. e. , the Four Old Men, who regard the vivid event from their four directions. HCE, broken and exhausted, is no better now than they.
Book III: The Book of the People
Chapter ? : Shaun before the People (pp. ? ? ? -? ? )
HCE has gathered himself up to bed with his wife. His dream vision of the future unfolds. Shaun the Post is seen to stand before the people recom- mending himself to their votes, and abusing his rival, Shem. To illustrate the brother contrast Shaun recounts the Aesopian fable of "The Ondt and the Gracehoper" (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ). His principal point against Shem is that his language is beyond the pale of human propriety. The vision fades and a keen is lifted for the departed hero.
? Chapter ? : Jaun before St. Bride's (pp. ? ? ? -? ? )
Shaun, now called Jaun (Don Juan), appears before the little girls of St. Bride's Academy, Iseult and her twenty-eight playmates. To them he de- livers a long farewell sermon, shrewdly prudential and practical, cynical and sentimental, and prurient. He is about to depart on a great mission.
Jaun is an imperial-salesman parodist of the Christ of the Last Supper, leaving advice to the little people of his Church. He introduces Shem, his brother, the Paraclete who will serve his bride while he is gone. Sped with pretty litanies, he departs--celebrated Misdeliverer of the Word.
Chapter ? : Yawn under Inquest (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ? )
Shaun (now Yawn) lies sprawled atop a ridge in the center of Ireland. The Four Old Men and their Ass arrive to hold an inquest. Ruthlessly they question the prostrate hulk, and it gradually disintegrates. Voices break from it, out of deeper and deeper stratifications. Shaun is revealed as the Gargantuan representative of the last and uttermost implications of HCE.
As the examination proceeds, it becomes more than the four old in- vestigators can handle. The complaints of raped India and Ireland, the garbled reports of self-contradictory witnesses and juries, wild, fragmentary outcries of subliminal voices long forgotten, the primeval scene of Finnegans Wake itself, come forth from the expiring titan. A group of young Brain Trusters takes over, to press the inquest to conclusion. Their sheafs of questionnaires quickly co-ordinate the evidence. They summon Kate, the widow of earliest times, and finally evoke the father presence himself. The voice of HCE pours forth in a vastly welling, all-subsuming tide, and the entire scene is dissolved in the primordial substance of HCE.
Chapter ? : HCE and ALP--Their Bed of Trial (pp. ? ? ? -? ? )
The Four Old Inquisitors now are sitting around the parental bed. They are the posts of the four-poster. The long night is yielding to dawn; the dream figments are dissolving back into the furnishings of the room. Everybody is asleep. A little cry is heard from Jerry (Shem) who has been having a nasty dream (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ).
The anxious mother leaps from bed, seizes the lamp, and, followed by her husband, hastens upstairs to the child's room. Child comforted,
? ? A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake ? ? Synopsis and Demonstration ? ?
? mother and father return downstairs to bed (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ). Their shadows on the windowblind flash far and wide the copulation of HCE and ALP. The cock crows; it is dawn (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ). The male and female relax for an early-morning nap.
Book IV: RICORSO
Angelic voices herald the day. The sleeper has rolled over; a beam of light troubles the back of his neck. The world awaits the shining hero of the new days (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ? ).
Issuant from the lake of night and celebrated by girly voices, arises the form of innocent St. Kevin. The idyllic moment is suggestive of Ireland's lovely Christian dawn of the fifth century (pp. ? ? ? -? ).
Day is gaining. The sleepers are passing from sleep. The ambiguities of night will soon be dispelled (pp. ? ? ? -? ).
The moment of the triumph of wakefulness over deep mythological dream is represented as the arrival of St. Patrick (ca. a. d. ? ? ? ) and his refu- tation of mystical Druidism. All thereafter moves toward enlightenment. Yet things are not essentially changed, only refreshed (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ).
The morning paper and ALP's letter in the mail will tell you all the news of the night just past (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ).
The woman, during the morning sleep, has felt her husband turn away from her. Time has passed them both; their hopes are now in their chil- dren. HCE is the broken shell of Humpty Dumpty, ALP the life-soiled last race of the river as it passes back to sea. The mighty sweep of her longing for release from the pressing shores and for reunion with the boundless ocean swells into a magnificent monologue (pp. ? ? ? -? ? ). Anna Liffey re- turns to the vast triton-father; at which moment the eyes open, the dream breaks, and the cycle is ready to start anew.
Demonstration
The First Four Paragraphs of Finnegans Wake
The first page and a half of Finnegans Wake hold in suspension the seed energies of all the characters and plot motifs of the book. Here the Joycean volcano in full eruption vomits forth raw lumps of energy-containing lava, a mythogenetic river still aflame as it floods across the page. The first
? impression is one of chaos, unrelieved by any landmark of meaning or recognition. Unless James Joyce could be trusted as a wielder of the most disciplined logic known to modern letters, there would be little hope that these hurtling igneous blocks would eventually respond to the solvent of analysis. The fact is, however, that these opening paragraphs are choked with nutrient materials of sense and sustenance. The themes here darkly announced are developed later with such organic inevitability that the reader, having finished the book, gazes back with amazement at the prophetic con- tent and germinal energy of the first page.
The first four paragraphs of Finnegans Wake remotely suggest the first verses of the Book of Genesis. On a darkened stage, and against a cosmic backdrop, terrestrial scenes and characters begin to emerge in a drama of creation. The landscape itself gropes its way into action, and in the primeval dawn we dimly descry a river and a mountain.
riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
Appropriately, the first word of Finnegans Wake is "riverrun. " Opening with a small letter, it starts the book in the middle of a sentence. "Riverrun," however, is not a beginning, but a continuation--a continua- tion among other things of the ecstatic, swiftly slipping, and abruptly in- terrupted sentence with which the volume ends. For the book is composed in a circle; the last word flows into the first, Omega merges into Alpha, and the rosary of history begins all over again.
"Riverrun" is more than a clue to the circling plan of Finnegans Wake; it characterizes the essence of the book itself. For in this work, both space and time are fluid; meanings, characters, and vocabulary deliquesce in con- stant fluxion. The hero is everywhere: in the elm that shades the salmon pool, in the shadow that falls upon the stream, in the salmon beneath the ripples, in the sunlight on the ripples, in the sun itself. Three men looking at you through one pair of eyes are not men at all, but a clump of shrubs; not shrubs either, but your own conscience; and finally, not your private conscience, but an incubus of the universal nightmare from which the sub- lime dreamer of cosmic history will awaken, only to dream once more.
Alive to the depthless metaphor in which we are moving, let us begin
? ?
A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake ? ? Synopsis and Demonstration ? ?
? by bringing into focus the composition of place indicated in the first sen- tence of Finnegans Wake. Specifically, "riverrun" refers to Dublin's River Liffey, flowing past a Franciscan church called by Dubliners "Adam and Eve's," which is situated on its banks. As Adam and Eve stand at the be- ginning of human history, so they stand at the beginning of our book, sug- gesting Eden, sexual polarity, the fall of man, and the promise of redemption. "Riverrun" suggests, too, the river of time, on which these world events are borne.
from swerve of shore to bend of bay . . .
We follow the topography of the Irish shoreline from the mouth of River Liffey northward to a deep bend where the waters of Dublin Bay pound the Hill of Howth. The swerve of shore is the coy gesture of the pretty isle herself which invites the assault of the bay waters, thus hinting at a Seduction theme which will later emerge full of import. Again, the waters of Dublin Bay continually pounding the Head of Howth represent, on an elemental level, the perennial invaders of Ireland continually pum- meling the head of the defender.
brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation. . .
Joyce here announces in the word "recirculation" the Viconian ricorso theme, the metaphysical pivot on which the Finnegan cycle turns. The cunning key word, "vicus," means street or highway, but is at the same time the Latin form of the Italian Vico. "Commodius" sweeps the mind back to the Rome which showed its first severe symptoms of decay in the time of the emperor Commodus. It also suggests the broad and easy path that leads our present civilization to destruction. [[It may also suggest Dante's Commedia. --ELE]]
back to Howth Castle and Environs . . .
The Dublin landmark (note the initials HCE peeping through the name) is a high headland crowned by a castle and guarding Dublin Bay. It is popularly regarded as the cranium of a recumbent giant whose belly is the city of Dublin and whose feet turn up amidst the hillocks of Phoenix Park. If the River Liffey is the heroine, this sleeping landscape giant is the hero. Historical associations crowd around his recumbent form. On this headland the sentinels of Finn MacCool stood guard against invaders
? from the sea. Centuries later, when the Anglo-Norman king Henry II sub- jugated the island, the present castle was founded by one of the invading company, Sir Almeric Tristram. That was in the century of the flowering of the Arthurian romances, with which are inseparably woven the names of Tristram and Iseult.
So now we read:
Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passencore re- arrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war . . .
The basic sense is this: Sir Tristram, musician of love, from across Saint George's Channel,* had not yet rearrived? from North Brittany, which is on Ireland's side of rugged Europe,? to wage again his war. The war is des- ignated "penisolate," which suggests "late, or recent war of the penis," a designation not inappropriate to the gest of a Tristram. But the word may also be read "pen-isolate," whereupon it suggests a war waged with the pen, not by a robust extrovert, but by an isolated, introverted man of letters. The Tristram figure will later split into such antipodal characters, giving battle to each other. Finally, if we read "Peninsular War," we shall be re- minded of the Anglo-Irish Dubliner, Arthur Wellesley, first duke of Wellington, who in the Peninsular War waged his first great battles against Napoleon.
With this sounding of the Tristram motif of guilty love, Joyce boldly strikes some of the major chords of Finnegans Wake. The legend of Tristram and the two Iseults is well known; its mold fits perfectly over HCE. He has a bewitching daughter whom he compares to the second Iseult, her of Brittany, whereas his wife in some of her transformations is identical with Iseult of Ireland. Torn between the two, the man is tempted and destroyed by the representatives of the younger, but he is gathered up
? ? * Tristram first arrived in Ireland by coracle from Cornwall, over the same sea crossed by the historical Sir Almeric Tristram, founder of Howth Castle.
? Note the curious implication of "rearrived. " Joyce intends to indicate that in the courses of the Viconian cycle all has happened before and is on the point of happening again.
? North Armorica is North Brittany, the scene of the love-death of Tristram and Iseult of Ireland. It was the scene also of Tristram's morbid, unconsummated marriage with the second and younger Iseult, Iseult of Brittany.
? ? A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake ? ? Synopsis and Demonstration ? ?
? and his wounds are healed by the older, whom he never ceases to cherish. This conflict which drives a wedge into HCE's heart is a manifestation of the ambiguous guilt-neurosis that has troubled men of the western world since the medieval innovation of romantic love.
The double note of love and war is to become the pervasive theme of Finnegans Wake: key changes and modulations will break the simple state- ments into baffling congeries of dissonance and harmony. Ambiguous the love--ambiguous too will be the war, continually outcropping in the struggles between Shem and Shaun and their shadow extensions Butt and Taff, Mutt and Jute, the historical figures of Wellington and Napoleon, Caesar and Brutus, Sigtrygg and Brian Boru, and those curiously inchoate personages, Buckley and the Russian General. Under many appearances, love and war are the constant life expressions of that polarized energy which propels the universal round.
"North Armorica" suggests North America. The phrase following de- velops this evocation of the New World Beyond the Sea, to which those Irish fled who took refuge from the English plunderer, and where many a canny Irishman has won money and prestige:
nor had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated them- selse to Laurens County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all the time . . .
Oddly enough there is a stream Oconee flowing through Laurens County, Georgia, U. S. A. , and on the banks of this stream stands Dublin, the county seat. Thus an American duplication of Dublin on Liffey is Dublin on Oconee. The word Oconee resembles the Irish exclamation of grief "ochone," undoubtedly uttered by many an Irishman leaving his home for America.
Numerous suggestions resound through this passage: Tom Sawyer, for instance, with his associations of Huck Finn and Mark Twain (Mark the Second). * When men are sawing timber over a saw pit, a top sawyer stands above the log; a pit sawyer stands below. This image carries forward the idea of the opposed brothers: the sawyer on top is the successful one; his "rocks"
? (slang for "money") "exaggerate themselves," that is to say, increase. Also the rocks transform themselves into property in Laurens County, Georgia; the citizens of this area are the "gorgios,"* fruit of Topsawyer's rocks--rocks now meaning "testicles. "
The drift of this dense passage is as follows: A successful son of HCE emigrates from East to West, as his father before him. Settling in America he begets a large progeny and bequeaths to them a decent, even gorgeous prosperity. The idea of procreation and prosperity is carried forward by the expression "doublin their mumper? all the time," which may be read pri- marily as "doubling their number all the time. "
But the passage refers to Ireland, as well as to America, and precisely to Ireland of the time of the Anglo-Norman conquest. The bishop of Dublin, at that time, was Lawrence O'Toole; Dublin County would be Lawrence's County. Furthermore, in honor of his victory under the patronage of St. Lawrence, Sir Almeric Tristram, founder of Howth Castle, changed his family name to Lawrence.
nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuart- peatrick . . .
The primary reference here is to St. Patrick and his Christianizing of Ireland. This saint baptizes (tauftauf) the peat rick, Ireland; taufen is German "to baptize," which reminds us that St. Patrick's spiritual tutor was St. Germanicus. From a fire below comes the voice of the virgin lady of the isle--the goddess Brigit, who became St. Bridget when baptized. "Mishe mishe," she says in her native tongue, "I am, I am," thus affirming her character as the mother-substance of all being, namely, ALP. On the level of spiritual allegory, Patrick is HCE--the perennial invader--this time fructifying Mother Ireland with the gyzm of life eternal. The peat fire refers to the legendary miracle of St. Patrick's Purgatory. He drew a circle on the ground and the earth opened in flame; into this fire the most
? ? * "Gorgio" is a gypsy word meaning "non-gypsy," also "youngster. "
? Other hints rise from this word "mumper": "Mum," a sweet strong beer first brewed in ? ? ? ? , the year of the discovery of America. HCE is identified with beer; he not only con- sumes and serves it in his tavern, he is beer. Finally, "doubling mum" introduces the Superfetation theme, the theme of one world burrowing on another, which is the great key to the dynamism of Finnegans Wake.
? ? * Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) appears frequently in Finnegans Wake. Both he and his hero Huck Finn (Finn in America) were adventurers, rose to a height, and took a fall. Interestingly enough, Samuel Clemens called his wife "Livy. "
? ? A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake ? ? Synopsis and Demonstration ? ?
? zealous of his converts descended. References to "Pat's Purge" occur several times in Finnegans Wake.
not yet, though venissoon after, had a kidscad buttended a bland old isaac. . .
This brings us back to the Old Testament brother battle of Jacob and Esau, in which Father Isaac, wishing to bless the elder son, becomes the butt of the cadet's (younger son's) cunning. The passage may be read: Not yet, though very soon after, Jacob, disguised in the kidskin, duped his blind old father. There is also a local Irish suggestion in the juxtaposition of the words "butt" and "isaac. " Isaac Butt, in ? ? ? ? , was ousted from lead- ership of the Irish Nationalist party through the machinations of the younger Parnell, who himself then moved into command.
The word "venissoon" not only signifies the goat venison of the Biblical story, but points forward to the Swift-Vanessa theme, struck in the statement following:
not yet, though all's fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. . .
"Nathandjoe" is an anagram for Jonathan (Dean Jonathan Swift) split in two and turned head over heels by his two young-girl loves, Stella and Vanessa. Not yet, though all's fair in the vain game of love, were these 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. )
"Sosie sesthers wroth" is also a transformation of the names of Susannah, Esther, and Ruth, the heroines of three Biblical tales involving the loves of old men for young girls. "In vanessy" suggests Inverness, the name of the castle of Macbeth: Macbeth was seduced by the wiles of the Three Weird Sisters.
Rot a peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight . . .
One thinks of the moment after the ark had come to rest on Ararat, when Noah began to till the ground and plant a vineyard. Drinking of the wine, he became drunk and was seen naked by his son Ham. But Shem and Japheth, the other two sons, put a cloak on their shoulders, and going back- ward covered their father's nakedness. This passage should be construed in
? terms of the Father-castration theme and the superseding of the father by the sons. The three names, Shem, Japheth, and Ham, are telescoped to com- prise the Shem and Shaun duality of the Earwicker household. Instead of wine the intoxicant is beer, in keeping with the Germano-Celtic pattern.
and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface . . .
And toward the orient (rory end to) the rainbow was to be seen cast- ing its reflection on the face of the waters. This rainbow, the sign of God's promise and man's hope, with its seven hues of beauty, is one of the dom- inant images of Finnegans Wake. It balances the thunderclap, the signal of God's wrath and man's fear.
"Rory" connotes Rory O'Connor who was High King of Ireland when the royal brow of the conqueror, Henry II, came up over the eastern hori- zon. This brow was the coming of a new age, as was the rainbow in the time of Noah.
The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner- ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk! ) . . .
"The fall," and the strange polysyllable following it, introduce us to the propelling impulse of Finnegans Wake. The noise made by the thumping of Finnegan's body tumbling down the ladder is identical with the Viconian thunderclap, the voice of God's wrath, which terminates the old aeon and starts the cycle of history anew.
of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy. . . .
"Old Parr" was the nickname of Thomas Parr (? ? ? ? -? ? ? ? ! ), of Shropshire, who lived to be one hundred and fifty-two years old. "Parr" and "wallstrait" are also plays on the rise and fall of stockmarket values in the modern world. The fall of this Old Parr is the fall of Adam in the gar- den, Finnegan from the wall, HCE in Phoenix Park.
The great fall of the offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute* of Finnegan, erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of
? ? * "Pftjschute" suggests "chute," also the hissing rush of a falling meteor--Lucifer falling into Hell.
? ? A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake ? ? Synopsis and Demonstration ? ?
? humself prumptly sends an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes . .
