Finnegans Wake
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| - | {{About|the book|the street ballad after which it is named|Finnegan's Wake}} | ||
| - | {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2011}} | ||
| - | {{Infobox book | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books --> | ||
| - | | name = Finnegans Wake | ||
| - | | title_orig = | ||
| - | | translator = | ||
| - | | image = [[File:Joyce wake.jpg|alt=Simple book cover, unadorned.|200px]] | ||
| - | | author = [[James Joyce]] | ||
| - | | cover_artist = | ||
| - | | country = | ||
| - | | language = English | ||
| - | | genre = ''[[Sui generis]]'' | ||
| - | | publisher = [[Faber and Faber]] | ||
| - | | release_date = 4 May 1939 | ||
| - | | media_type = Print (hardback and paperback) | ||
| - | | pages = | ||
| - | | isbn = 0-14-118126-5 | ||
| - | | congress = PR6019.O9 F5 1999 | ||
| - | | dewey = 823/.912 21 | ||
| - | | oclc = 42692059 | ||
| - | | preceded_by = [[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]] (1922) | ||
| - | | followed_by = | ||
| - | }} | ||
| - | '''''Finnegans Wake''''' is a work of comic prose<ref>While some critics argue for treating ''Finnegans Wake'' as a novel, Tim Conley articulates the current critical consensus on this matter when he states that the ''Wake'' "is not a novel or, at least, it follows none of the traditions of the novel, makes no claims to be a novel, and its author did not refer to it as such." [[#refConley2003|Conley 2003]] [http://books.google.at/books?id=MV6zTbGNcU0C&lpg=PA109&ots=M4OCFEOfAv&dq=tim%20conley%20finnegans%20wake%20novel&hl=de&pg=PA109#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 109]</ref> by [[Irish literature|Irish author]] [[James Joyce]], significant for its experimental style and resulting reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language.<ref>[http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0j-ehka0ZLsC&pg=PA3&dq=finnegans+wake+difficult&client=firefox-a ''Joyce, Joyceans, and the Rhetoric of Citation''], p 3, Eloise Knowlton, University Press of Florida, 1998, ISBN 0-8130-1610-X</ref><ref>[http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hIg80jT5aOIC&pg=RA3-PA245&dq=finnegans+wake+experimental&client=firefox-a ''What Art is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand''], p 245, Louis Torres, Michelle Marder Kamhi, Open Court Publishing, 2000, ISBN 0-8126-9372-8</ref> Written in Paris over a period of seventeen years, and published in 1939, two years before the author's death, ''Finnegans Wake'' was Joyce's final work. The entire book is written in a largely [[idioglossia|idiosyncratic language]], consisting of a mixture of standard English [[lexical item]]s and [[Neologism|neologistic]] [[multilingual]] [[pun]]s and [[portmanteau]] words, which many critics believe attempts to recreate the experience of sleep and dreams.<ref name=mercanton/> Owing to the work's expansive linguistic experiments, [[stream of consciousness writing]] style, [[Allusion|literary allusions]], [[Free association (psychology)|free dream associations]], and its abandonment of the conventions of [[Plot (narrative)|plot]] and character construction, ''Finnegans Wake'' remains largely unread by the general public.<ref>Joyce critic Lee Spinks argues that ''Finnegans Wake'' "has some claim to be the least read major work of Western literature." Spinks, Lee. ''A Critical Guide to James Joyce'', [http://books.google.com/books?id=xznjIaZC3nkC&pg=PA144&dq=shem+joyce&lr=&as_brr=3#v=onepage&q=shem%20joyce&f=false p.127]</ref><ref name="Kitcher 2007">[[#refKitcher2007|Kitcher 2007]]</ref> | ||
| - | Despite these obstacles, readers and commentators have reached a broad consensus about the book's central cast of characters and, to a lesser degree, its plot. However, a number of key details remain elusive.<ref>James Atherton states that despite the amount of critical work "explaining [the book's] profundities from various viewpoints and in varying ways [...] agreement has still not been reached on many fundamental points" [[#refAtherton2009|Atherton 2009]], [http://books.google.com/books?id=78FSxwqvD8wC&lpg=PP1&dq=the%20books%20at%20the%20wake&pg=PR2#v=onepage&q=&f=false p. ii]; Vincent Cheng similarly argues that "through the efforts of a dedicated handful of scholars, we are approaching a grasp of the ''Wake''. Much of ''Finnegans Wake'', however, remains a literary outland that is still barely mapped out." [[#refCheng1984|Cheng 1984]], p.2</ref><ref>[http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OjX8IGVydoYC&pg=PA98&dq=finnegans+wake++consensus+character&lr=&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a ''The Cambridge Introduction to James Joyce''], p 98, Eric Bulson, Cambridge University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-521-84037-6</ref> The book treats, in an unorthodox fashion, the Earwicker family, composed of the father HCE, the mother ALP, and their three children Shem the Penman, Shaun the Postman, and Issy. Following an unspecified rumour about HCE, the book, in a [[nonlinear narrative|nonlinear]] dream narrative,<ref>[http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LoKjFMAhNI0C&pg=PA74&dq=finnegans+wake++nonlinear+dream+narrative&lr=&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a ''James Joyce A to Z''], p 74, A. Nicholas Fargnoli, Oxford University Press US, 1996, ISBN 0-19-511029-3</ref> follows his wife's attempts to exonerate him with a letter, his sons' struggle to replace him, Shaun's rise to prominence, and a final monologue by ALP at the break of dawn. The opening line of the book is a sentence fragment which continues from the book's unfinished closing line, making the work a never-ending cycle.<ref>[http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0MBZlQseR-AC&pg=PA29&dq=finnegans+wake++never-ending+cycle&lr=&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a ''Chaucer's Open Books''], p 29, Rosemarie P McGerr, University Press of Florida, 1998, ISBN 0-8130-1572-3</ref> Many noted Joycean scholars such as [[Samuel Beckett]]<ref>via Beckett's signal contribution to ''[[Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress]]'' ("Dante . . . Bruno . Vico . . Joyce")</ref> and Donald Phillip Verene<ref>Giambattista Vico article in [http://web.archive.org/web/20020520204450/http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/giambattista_vico.html ''The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism'' ]</ref> link this cyclical structure to [[Giambattista Vico]]'s seminal text ''La Scienza Nuova'' ("The New Science"), upon which they argue ''Finnegans Wake'' is structured. | + | '''''Finnegans Wake''''' is a work of [[comic prose]] by [[Irish literature|Irish author]] [[James Joyce]], significant for its experimental style and resulting reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language. Written in Paris over a period of seventeen years, and published in 1939, two years before the author's death, ''Finnegans Wake'' was Joyce's final work. The entire book is written in a largely [[idioglossia|idiosyncratic language]], consisting of a mixture of standard English [[lexical item]]s and [[Neologism|neologistic]] [[multilingual]] [[pun]]s and [[portmanteau]] words, which many critics believe attempts to recreate the experience of sleep and dreams. Owing to the work's expansive linguistic experiments, [[stream of consciousness writing]] style, [[Allusion|literary allusions]], [[Free association (psychology)|free dream associations]], and its abandonment of the conventions of [[Plot (narrative)|plot]] and character construction, ''Finnegans Wake'' remains largely unread by the general public. |
| - | Joyce began working on ''Finnegans Wake'' shortly after the 1922 publication of ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]''. By 1924 installments of Joyce's new [[avant-garde]] work began to appear, in serialized form, in Parisian literary journals ''[[transatlantic review]]'' and ''[[transition (literary journal)|transition]]'', under the title "fragments from ''Work in Progress''". The actual title of the work remained a secret until the book was published in its entirety, on 4 May 1939.<ref>[http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vDsAaXKLGvYC&pg=PA193&dq=finnegans+wake++title+secret&lr=&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a ''The Oxford companion to Irish literature''], p 193, Robert Welch, Oxford University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-19-866158-4</ref> Initial reaction to ''Finnegans Wake'', both in its serialized and final published form, was largely negative, ranging from bafflement at its radical reworking of the English language to open hostility towards its lack of respect for the conventions of the novel. | + | Despite these obstacles, readers and commentators have reached a broad consensus about the book's central cast of characters and, to a lesser degree, its plot. However, a number of key details remain elusive. The book treats, in an unorthodox fashion, the Earwicker family, composed of the father HCE, the mother ALP, and their three children Shem the Penman, Shaun the Postman, and Issy. Following an unspecified rumour about HCE, the book, in a [[nonlinear narrative|nonlinear]] dream narrative, follows his wife's attempts to exonerate him with a letter, his sons' struggle to replace him, Shaun's rise to prominence, and a final monologue by ALP at the break of dawn. The opening line of the book is a sentence fragment which continues from the book's unfinished closing line, making the work a never-ending cycle. Many noted Joycean scholars such as [[Samuel Beckett]] and Donald Phillip Verene link this cyclical structure to [[Giambattista Vico]]'s seminal text ''La Scienza Nuova'' ("The New Science"), upon which they argue ''Finnegans Wake'' is structured. |
| - | The work has since come to assume a preeminent place in [[English literature]], despite its numerous detractors. [[Anthony Burgess]] has praised the book as "a great comic vision, one of the few books of the world that can make us laugh aloud on nearly every page."<ref name=bloom/> [[Harold Bloom]] called the book "Joyce's masterpiece", and wrote that "[if] aesthetic merit were ever again to center the canon [''Finnegans Wake''] would be as close as our chaos could come to the heights of [[Shakespeare]] and [[Dante]]."<ref name=bloom>{{cite web | url = http://www.itsaboutwomen.com/finneganswake.html | title = Putting It Into Words ~ Finnegans Wake | publisher = It's About Women}}</ref> In 1998, the [[Modern Library]] ranked ''Finnegans Wake'' 77th on its list of the [[Modern Library 100 Best Novels|100 best English-language novels of the 20th century]]. | + | Joyce began working on ''Finnegans Wake'' shortly after the 1922 publication of ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]''. By 1924 installments of Joyce's new [[avant-garde]] work began to appear, in serialized form, in Parisian literary journals ''[[transatlantic review]]'' and ''[[transition (literary journal)|transition]]'', under the title "fragments from ''Work in Progress''". The actual title of the work remained a secret until the book was published in its entirety, on 4 May 1939. Initial reaction to ''Finnegans Wake'', both in its serialized and final published form, was largely negative, ranging from bafflement at its radical reworking of the English language to open hostility towards its lack of respect for the conventions of the novel. |
| + | |||
| + | The work has since come to assume a preeminent place in [[English literature]], despite its numerous detractors. [[Anthony Burgess]] has praised the book as "a great comic vision, one of the few books of the world that can make us laugh aloud on nearly every page." [[Harold Bloom]] called the book "Joyce's masterpiece", and wrote that "[if] aesthetic merit were ever again to center the canon [''Finnegans Wake''] would be as close as our chaos could come to the heights of [[Shakespeare]] and [[Dante]]." In 1998, the [[Modern Library]] ranked ''Finnegans Wake'' 77th on its list of the [[Modern Library 100 Best Novels|100 best English-language novels of the 20th century]]. | ||
| ==Cultural impact== | ==Cultural impact== | ||
| - | ''Finnegans Wake'' is a difficult text, and it has been noted that Joyce would not have aimed it at the general reader;<ref>''Who Reads Ulysses?'', Julie Sloan Brannon, Routledge, 2003, ISBN 0-415-94206-3 [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XhcrGoqyo9wC&pg=PA26&dq=general+public+finnegans+wake&as_brr=3&ei=cDuQSZ_tMqasNfKg5LAF#PPA26,M1 p26]</ref> however, certain aspects of the work have made an impact on popular culture beyond the awareness of it being difficult.<ref>For a list of some references to ''Finnegans Wake'' in film and television, see {{cite web | + | ''Finnegans Wake'' is a difficult text, and it has been noted that Joyce would not have aimed it at the general reader; however, certain aspects of the work have made an impact on popular culture beyond the awareness of it being difficult. |
| - | | last = Ruch | + | |
| - | | first = Allen B. | + | In the academic field, [[physicist]] [[Murray Gell-Mann]] named a type of [[subatomic particle]] as a ''[[quark]]'', after the phrase "Three quarks for Muster Mark" on page 383 of ''Finnegans Wake'', as he already had the sound "kwork". was taken from a passage in ''Finnegans Wake''. According to the official company history of the popular blogging tool [[WordPress]], their name was invented by Christine Selleck in March 2003, whereas James Joyce first uses this word in ''Finnegans Wake'' p. 20, l. 9. The work of [[Marshall McLuhan]] was greatly inspired by James Joyce, especially referencing ''Finnegans Wake'' throughout the collage book ''[[War and Peace in the Global Village]]''. |
| - | | title = The Last Word in Stolentelling: References to ''Finnegans Wake'' in Film & TV | + | |
| - | | publisher = The Brazen Head | + | |
| - | | date = 31 October 2003 | + | |
| - | | url = http://www.themodernword.com/joyce/joyce_influence_film.html | + | |
| - | | accessdate =13 February 2009}}</ref> | + | |
| - | In the academic field, [[physicist]] [[Murray Gell-Mann]] named a type of [[subatomic particle]] as a ''[[quark]]'', after the phrase "Three quarks for Muster Mark" on page 383 of ''Finnegans Wake'',<ref>{{cite journal | author= M. Gell-Mann | title=A schematic model of baryons and mesons | journal=Phys. Lett.| year=1964 | volume=8 | pages=214–215 | doi=10.1016/S0031-9163(64)92001-3 | bibcode=1964PhL.....8..214G | issue= 3}}</ref> as he already had the sound "kwork".<ref name="Murray"> | + | |
| - | {{cite book | + | |
| - | |author=M. Gell-Mann | + | |
| - | |title=The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex | + | |
| - | |publisher=[[Owl Books]] | + | |
| - | |year=1995 | + | |
| - | |page=180 | + | |
| - | |isbn=978-0-8050-7253-2 | + | |
| - | }}</ref> Similarly, the [[comparative mythology]] term ''[[monomyth]]'', as described by [[Joseph Campbell]] in his book ''[[The Hero with a Thousand Faces]]'',<ref>[http://ias.berkeley.edu/orias/hero/ Monomyth website] accessed 28 November 2006.</ref> was taken from a passage in ''Finnegans Wake''.<ref>Campbell, Joseph. ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949. p. 30, n35. Campbell cites [[#refJoyce1939|Joyce 1939]], [http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-581.htm p. 581, line 24]</ref> According to the official company history<ref>{{cite web|title=The History of the WordPress Name|url=http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Semantics|work=WordPress Semantics|publisher=WordPress.org|accessdate=9 April 2013}}</ref> of the popular blogging tool [[WordPress]], their name was invented by Christine Selleck<ref>{{cite web|last=Selleck|first=Christine|title=Next, I Save the World …|url=http://www.bigpinkcookie.com/next-i-save-the-world/|accessdate=9 April 2013}}</ref> in March 2003, whereas James Joyce first uses this word in ''Finnegans Wake'' p. 20, l. 9.<ref>http://propagandum.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/inventing-the-future-the-earliest-mention-of-the-word-wordpress/</ref> The work of [[Marshall McLuhan]] was greatly inspired by James Joyce, especially referencing ''Finnegans Wake'' throughout the collage book ''[[War and Peace in the Global Village]]''.<ref>{{Cite book | + | |
| - | |title=Snap to Grid: A User's Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures | + | |
| - | |author=Peter Lunenfeld | + | |
| - | |year=2000 | + | |
| - | |publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press | + | |
| - | |location=Cambridge, Mass. | + | |
| - | |isbn=978-0-262-62158-8 | + | |
| - | |page=206 n. 31 | + | |
| - | |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=wqvHWq8FXnUC&pg=PA206 | + | |
| - | |accessdate=2 December 2011 | + | |
| - | }}</ref> The novel also was the source of the title of [[Clay Shirky]]'s book ''[[Here Comes Everybody]]''.<ref name="Shirky">{{cite news | + | |
| - | |author=Glenn Fleishman | + | |
| - | |title=Author sees profit in empowering Web users | + | |
| - | |newspaper=Seattle Times | + | |
| - | |date=17 March 2008 | + | |
| - | |url=http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004286876_btshirky17.html | + | |
| - | |accessdate=5 March 2010}}</ref> | + | |
| {{GFDL}} | {{GFDL}} | ||
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Finnegans Wake is a work of comic prose by Irish author James Joyce, significant for its experimental style and resulting reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language. Written in Paris over a period of seventeen years, and published in 1939, two years before the author's death, Finnegans Wake was Joyce's final work. The entire book is written in a largely idiosyncratic language, consisting of a mixture of standard English lexical items and neologistic multilingual puns and portmanteau words, which many critics believe attempts to recreate the experience of sleep and dreams. Owing to the work's expansive linguistic experiments, stream of consciousness writing style, literary allusions, free dream associations, and its abandonment of the conventions of plot and character construction, Finnegans Wake remains largely unread by the general public.
Despite these obstacles, readers and commentators have reached a broad consensus about the book's central cast of characters and, to a lesser degree, its plot. However, a number of key details remain elusive. The book treats, in an unorthodox fashion, the Earwicker family, composed of the father HCE, the mother ALP, and their three children Shem the Penman, Shaun the Postman, and Issy. Following an unspecified rumour about HCE, the book, in a nonlinear dream narrative, follows his wife's attempts to exonerate him with a letter, his sons' struggle to replace him, Shaun's rise to prominence, and a final monologue by ALP at the break of dawn. The opening line of the book is a sentence fragment which continues from the book's unfinished closing line, making the work a never-ending cycle. Many noted Joycean scholars such as Samuel Beckett and Donald Phillip Verene link this cyclical structure to Giambattista Vico's seminal text La Scienza Nuova ("The New Science"), upon which they argue Finnegans Wake is structured.
Joyce began working on Finnegans Wake shortly after the 1922 publication of Ulysses. By 1924 installments of Joyce's new avant-garde work began to appear, in serialized form, in Parisian literary journals transatlantic review and transition, under the title "fragments from Work in Progress". The actual title of the work remained a secret until the book was published in its entirety, on 4 May 1939. Initial reaction to Finnegans Wake, both in its serialized and final published form, was largely negative, ranging from bafflement at its radical reworking of the English language to open hostility towards its lack of respect for the conventions of the novel.
The work has since come to assume a preeminent place in English literature, despite its numerous detractors. Anthony Burgess has praised the book as "a great comic vision, one of the few books of the world that can make us laugh aloud on nearly every page." Harold Bloom called the book "Joyce's masterpiece", and wrote that "[if] aesthetic merit were ever again to center the canon [Finnegans Wake] would be as close as our chaos could come to the heights of Shakespeare and Dante." In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Finnegans Wake 77th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
Cultural impact
Finnegans Wake is a difficult text, and it has been noted that Joyce would not have aimed it at the general reader; however, certain aspects of the work have made an impact on popular culture beyond the awareness of it being difficult.
In the academic field, physicist Murray Gell-Mann named a type of subatomic particle as a quark, after the phrase "Three quarks for Muster Mark" on page 383 of Finnegans Wake, as he already had the sound "kwork". was taken from a passage in Finnegans Wake. According to the official company history of the popular blogging tool WordPress, their name was invented by Christine Selleck in March 2003, whereas James Joyce first uses this word in Finnegans Wake p. 20, l. 9. The work of Marshall McLuhan was greatly inspired by James Joyce, especially referencing Finnegans Wake throughout the collage book War and Peace in the Global Village.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Finnegans Wake" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
