Still
Life with Globe, Musical Instruments, Books and Sketch in Red Chalk
(RFW 011.17–011.20)
These four lines of Finnegans Wake grew out of four words, which originally served to introduce the subsequent annals:
The Annals tell how (Hayman 53-54)
In the final draft, the gist of this brief paragraph is that the annals are a record of the Viconian cycles that make up all of human history: timing the cycles of events grand and national. Joyce made clear the importance of this cyclical view of history, which he owed to Hegel as well as to Vico. In reference to a sketch he sent to his patron Harriet Shaw Weaver describing an encounter between St Patrick and the Irish philosopher George Berkeley (St Patrick and the Druid, RFW 475-480), he wrote:
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 four eminent annalists who even now are treading the typepress in sorrow will explain part of my meaning. I work as much as I can because these are not fragments but active elements and when they are more and a little older they will begin to fuse of themselves. (Letters I, 9 October 1923)
A few years later, however, Joyce warned Weaver against taking Vico’s theories too literally:
I do not know if Vico has been translated. I would not pay overmuch attention to these theories, beyond using them for all they are worth, but they have gradually forced themselves on me through circumstances of my own life. (Letters I, 21 May 1926)
Idlers’ Wind
In one of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake notebooks, the following entry occurs:
wind turns over pages (FW VI.B.14.18)
The reference is to a passage Joyce read in Les Grandes Légendes de France [The Great Legends of France] by Édouard Schuré. The legend in question concerns an apparition of the Archangel Michael to Saint Aubert, the 8th-century monk who is alleged to have founded Mont St-Michel:
L’apparition tourna vers lui son épée et Aubert eut peur. Il pencha la tête vers les saintes écritures ouvertes sur ses genoux. Aussitôt un ouragan passa sur le livre et en froissa toutes les feuilles. Il resta ouvert au XII<sup>e</sup> chapitre de l’Apocalypse. La pointe de l’épée s’arrêta sur un passage, et Aubert lut à la lumière de l’ange: «Alors il y eut un combat dans le ciel, Michel et ses anges combattaient contre le dragon et le dragon combattait contre eux avec ses anges ...
The apparition turned his sword towards him and Aubert was afraid. He bent over the Holy Scriptures, which were open upon his knees. Immediately a hurricane passed over the book and crumpled all the leaves. It remained open at the 12th chapter of the Apocalypse. The point of the sword stopped at a passage, and Aubert read by the light of the angel: “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels ...” (Schuré 162)
You may recall that this Bible verse is the very one that is illustrated by the picture above the fireplace in HCE’s bedroom (RFW 435.14-15)—although, as we have seen, it’s possible that the image depicted is actually of St George and the Dragon.
The Idler was a series of essays written primarily by Samuel Johnson and published weekly in a London journal, The Universal Chronicle between 1758 and 1760. Of the 103 essays, 91 were penned by Johnson. Is this relevant? The name of the journal is certainly appropriate in the context of annals that chronicle universal history.
Apparition
of St Michael the Archangel to St Aubert
Pope and Antipope
Pope Innocent II (1130-43) was opposed by the antipope Anacletus II (1130-38). Significantly, their rival Papacies included the fateful year of 1132, the importance of which in Finnegans Wake need hardly be repeated. Although Anacletus is remembered by the Catholic Church as the Antipope, he was actually elected by a majority of cardinals. After his death in 1138, he was succeeded by Antipope Victor IV, who ironically admitted defeat and acknowledged Innocent as the rightful Pope.
The
End of the Schism of
Anacletus: Victor IV
Kneels before Innocent II
This game of Papal musical chairs is ridiculed by the allusions to the cartoon characters Popeye and Pop (Glasheen 237). As we saw in an earlier article—Pop and the Birth of HCE—Pop was one of the initial inspirations for the character of HCE.
The Book of the Dead
The annals are now identified with the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, a collection of mortuary spells and funerary texts written on sheets of papyrus. These were placed with the dead in order to help them pass through the dangers of the underworld and attain an afterlife of bliss in the Field of Reeds. Some of the texts and vignettes are also found on the walls of tombs and on coffins, or written on strips of linen or vellum. James Atherton considered this one of the key texts for the better understanding of Finnegans Wake:
Joyce ... wrote to Miss Weaver, ‘To succeed O [Joyce’s symbol for An Exagmination round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress, which, in his imagination, was penned by the Twelve] 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 edition of the Book of the Dead, bequeathed to him by his uncle) the subjects to be the treatment of night (of B of D, S. John of the Cross Dark Night of the Soul), 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...’ 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. 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. (Atherton 191-192)There is also an allusion here to the related Islamic concept of a Book of Deeds, a record of one’s acts, according to which one will be judged in the afterlife. In Christian theology, such records are compiled by recording angels. In Islam, there are two recording angels, Raqib and Atid, collectively known as the Kiraman Katibin.
Why is book spelt boke? This is a Middle English spelling for book, but I suspect there is more to it than that.
Annals of Themselves
This phrase alludes to the fact that as the Irish annals were compiled by churchmen, they deal primarily with churchmen:
Nobody has yet discussed the problems arising out of the extensive genealogies of the Irish Saints which have come down to us. The principal reason for this is the absence of a printed collection of them. The highest importance is accorded them in our ancient manuscripts. Readers will have noticed in the annal entries that ecclesiastics and men of learning generally get the leading mention. Something similar is to be observed in the genealogical treatises to which Dr. MacNeill so properly draws attention. (Walsh 190)
Annals
of the Four Masters
(CE 432)
Events Grand and National
This phrase evokes the Grand National, a famous horse race run annually at Aintree, near Liverpool. The Irish equivalent takes place at Fairyhouse, County Meath. Both races are steeplechases and take place in spring, the Irish Grand National traditionally being run on Easter Monday.
Fassilwise
The final phrase tells us that the annals bring to pass certain events. One would have thought that it was the other way round: it is the events that cause the annals to be compiled. In the original draft, Joyce wrote the unproblematic: The Annals tell how. Now the events are predetermined and fated to occur because they have been prescribed by the annals. Only in a cyclical world, where history repeats itself over and over again, does this make any sense.
The strange word fassilwise echoes the German: fassweise, by the barrel. In Book III, Shaun the Post’s progress backward through time, as he searches for his dead father in order to deliver ALP’s Letter to him, was described by Joyce thus:
... the copying out of Shawn which is a description of a postman travelling backwards in the night through the events already narrated. It is written in the form of a via crucis [Way of the Cross] of 14 stations but in reality it is only a barrel rolling down the river Liffey. (Letters I, 24 May 1924)
As these events have happened before, they are indeed fossils of the past.
It is just possible that pass how contains a deliberate echo of Passau, the Bavarian town near which the German National Epic the Nibelungenlied is thought to have been written.
The Nibelungenlied was one of the principal sources for Richard Wagner’s operatic tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen, a work that also depicts the endless cycle of human history. That Joyce was influenced by Wagner in the writing of Finnegans Wake cannot be gainsaid. Both works are cycles in four parts, and both culminate in a Deluge caused by the flooding of a primeval river, which purifies the landscape. The relevant article in the Eleventh Edition of The Encyclopædia Britannica, of which Joyce possessed a copy, says that the poem was first written down at the command of Bishop Pilgrim of Passau (Chisholm 639, 640).
We may also have the German: Passah, Passover, a Jewish holiday which takes place around the same time as the running of the Irish Grand National. Is it too far of a stretch to read into this an allusion to the drowning of Pharaoh’s cavalry in the Red Sea during the Exodus, an event that followed the first Passover and was symbolically a reenactment of the original Deluge?
This is one of the joys of Finnegans Wake. The more you ruminate a passage, the more allusions and associations you discover:
The Egyptian paradise in the Book of the Dead is called the Field of Reeds.
The Sea of Passage in the Book of Exodus is called Yam Suph, which means Sea of Reeds according to one common interpretation.
Popeye’s catchphrase is I yam what I yam.
At the burning bush, God identifies himself to Moses by saying: I am that I am (Exodus 3:14).
But was Joyce aware of any of these connections?
And that’s as good a place as any to beach the bark of our tale.
References
James S Atherton, The Books at the Wake: A Study of the Literary Allusions in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, The Viking Press, New York (1960)
Hugh Chisholm (editor), The Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, Volume 19, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1911)
Adaline Glasheen, Third Census of Finnegans Wake, University of California Press, Berkeley, California (1977)
David Hayman, A First-Draft Version of Finnegans Wake, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas (1963)
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, Faber & Faber Limited, London (1939, 1949)
James Joyce, James Joyce: The Complete Works, Pynch (editor), Online (2013)
James Joyce, Stuart Gilbert (editor) & Richard Ellmann (editor), The Letters of James Joyce, Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Viking Press, New York
John O’Donovan (translator, editor), Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, Volume 1, The Four Masters, Hodges, Smith, and Co, Dublin (1856)
Danis Rose, John O’Hanlon, The Restored Finnegans Wake, Penguin Classics, London (2012)
Édouard Schuré, Les Grandes Légendes de France, Perrin et Compagnie, Paris (1892)
Giambattista Vico, Goddard Bergin (translator), Max Harold Fisch (translator), The New Science of Giambattista Vico, Third Edition (1744), Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY (1948)
Paul Walsh, Comments on the Foregoing Article, No I, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Volume 13, Number 50, Pages 189-191, The Educational Company of Ireland, Dublin (1924)
Image Credits
Still Life with Globe, Musical Instruments, Books and Sketch in Red Chalk: Jan Vermeulen (artist), Mauritshuis, The Hague, Netherlands, Public Domain
Giambattista Vico: Francesco Solimena (artist), Public Domain
Apparition of St Michael the Archangel to St Aubert: The Dream of St Aubert, Jean-Baptiste Barré (sculptor), Abbey of Mont St-Michel, Normandy, Photograph © Tango7174, Creative Commons License
The End of the Schism of Anacletus: Victor IV Kneels before Innocent II: Pietro da Pietri (artist), Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Public Domain
Pop: John Millar Watt (artist), The Daily Sketch, Public Domain
The Book of the Dead: Hunefer (scribe), Papyrus of Hunefer, Sheet 3, British Museum, London, Public Domain
Annals of the Four Masters (CE 432): The Four Masters (scribes), Royal Irish Academy, MS C iii 3, f.218v, Public Domain
The 1928 Grand National: The eventual Winner Tipperary Tim Jumps the Final Fence, Popperfoto Collection, © Getty Images, Fair Use
Useful Resources
No comments:
Post a Comment