The Books at The Wake. A Study of Literary Allusions in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake-, by James S. Atherton

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 Joyces Finnegans wake.
Bibliography: p.
1. Joyce, James, 18821941. Finnegans wakeSources.
2. Joyce, James, 18821941Allusions. 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 SciencesPermanence 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
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.
Introduction
'An argument/ollows'
(222.21)
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, <I and it is not impossible that there is a hidden
implication that much of the action is taking place under the hat upon
the head of James J oyee.
But it is true of every work of art that it existed first in the imagination
of its creator, and strong as are the arguments for the solipsistic nature
of Finnegans Wake they fall to nothing before the liveliness of the book
itself. There are too many real--or rather, fully realized-characters
taking part in the action for the book to be anything except a novel of
the naturalistic type. Joyce, who admired Flaubert and claimed to have
read every word of Defoe, created as his hero H.C.E., whose 'vitality
1 Patricia Hutchins, James Joyce's World. London: Methuen, I957, pp. 22023 1
Figures in parentheses indicate the page and line in Finnegans Wake on
which a quotation commences. The pagination of the English edition by
Faber and Faber and the American edition by the Viking Press is identical
in all the reprints which have so far been issued.
James Joyce's World, p. 226.
4. 288.15, and note 5: 'Barcelonas'; 302.1: 'Bolsillos'; 471.12: 'Borsaline';
483.II: 'Borsaiolini's house of hatcraft'; 520.8: 'To pull himself into his soup
and fish and put On his borrowsaloaner'.
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
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
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: <The books I am using for the present
fragment . include Marie Corelli, Swedenborg, St. Thomas, the
Sudanese war, Indian outcasts, Women under English Law, a description of St. Helena, Flammarion's The End of the World, scores of
children's singing games from Germany, France, England and Italy
and so on .. .'1 What is typica1 about this list is the lack of a connecting
thread between its parts. Joyce's reading rauged from the Patrologia
to Comic Cuts; and references to either, or to anything else, are to be
expected in the Wake. And what makes this important is that sometimes
a passage in the Wake is meaningless nntil its literary source has been
tracked down. More often, however, the discovery of the literary source
adds a new and unexpected implication to a passage in which several
meanings have already been perceived. But nntil all the quotations,
allusions and parodies in Finnegans Wake have been elucidated the
complete meaning of the whole work must escape us.
In the attempt which I have made to track down as many as possible
of Joyee's allusions t..~e method I have adopted has been first to search
in Finnegans Wake for what seemed to be a reference to a book, either
by title, author's name, or quotation. Having identified the book the
next thing was to read it, or reread it, and then turn back to Finnegans
Wake to see what Joyce had made of it.
It soon became apparent that Joyce had composed his book with the
idea that it would be read in this way. It is, as has often been saidnotably by Joyce's brother Stanislaus in a B.B.C. programme-a sort
of enormous crossword puzzle. Stanislaus called it 'a crossword
puzzlers' bible,,2 which is accurate in its way for the Wake is intended
as something benveen a bible and a crossword puzzle. But it is a puzzle
to which the keys are provided; in fact M. J. C. Hodgart has suggested3
that the words <The keys to. Given!' preceding the sentence which
begins and ends the Wake are telling us that all the keys needed to
understand the book have been given to its readers. And numerous
as are the quotations which Joyce makes he seems to have tried to
acknowledge each one by including the name of its author in his book.
There are certain exceptions to this, however. The French Symbolists,
for example, are quoted but never named. But when one reflectS that
1 Letters, p. 302. Letter dated '4 March 1931'.
B.RC. Third Programme, May lIth, 1949.
'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
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
THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS
The Structural Books

'The aximones' (285.29)
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.
27
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.
28

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 <by a com~
modius viens of recirculation' (3.2) in that sentence which puts Vieo's
theory into practice by joining the beginning and end of the book to~
gether. It is probable that Joyce read Vico in the original, but all my
references are to translations, and mainly to the only English translation (which was not published until after Joyce's deatb).2
An Exagmination, p. 3.
Thomas Goddard Bergin and Marc Harold Fisch, The New Science of
Giambattista Vico, translated from the third edition (1744). Ithaca, N.Y.,
Cornell University Press, 1948.
1
29

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.

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
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'.
32

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
33
3

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
34

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
35

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.
36

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' (35.15). This is Il Spaccio di
Bestia Trion/ante, 'The Expulsion ofthe Triumphant Beast', but none
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.
37

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: <You have
Kane and Magalaner, p. 228.
zAn Exagmination, p. I82.
'Yung and easily freudened' (lIS.22); 'his freudzay' (337.7); 'lungf'raud's
Messongebook' (460.20).
4 Two Decades, p. 401. The dream is connected with 'Irmages' (486.34).
Cf. The Interpretation of Dreams, Chapter 7.
Ii Two Decades, p. 402.
6 Cad G. lung, 'Ulysses-ein Monolog', Europaische Revue, Vol. VIII, 1932,
pp. 547-68. English translation, 'Ulysses-A Monologue', Nimbus, Vol. II,
June I953, pp. 7-20
7 Harry Levin, James Joyce, p. II3.
Herbert Gorman, James Joyce, a Definitive Biography. London: John Lane,
The Bodley Head, I94I, pp. 235-6 and 261.
1
38

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
39

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).

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
41
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
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.
43

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

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

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

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
47

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.
48

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

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.
50

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

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

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

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

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
The Manuscripts
'the Haunted InkbottZe' (182.30)
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
59

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

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
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' (49.27). 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
St. Patrick with other

1887, p. 99.

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
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
James Joyce, Ulysses. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, I947, p. 494.
'Dublin's Joyce, p. 327.

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

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
<Iarland' (515.25) includes a reference to Ireland, the man, and 'Mister
Ireland' (608.14) probably does; but there are so many references to
the country that it is impossible to be sure. Lewis Theobald, who was
twice in trouble about stolen or forged plays, may appear in the Wake.
1 M. J. C. Hodgan, 'Shakespeare and "Finnegans Wake"', The Cambridge
Journal, VI, I2, Sept. 1953, p. 738.

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
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' (55.24).
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
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 flad,
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
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<?).O(<I~OLO 80(A<iC!cr'tj~
'the loud-resounding sea', which Homer often uses; and 'Hemoptysia
diadumenos' (174.19), the blood-dripper, crowned with a fillet-which
describes the shade covering his own eye in a phrase based on the term
for the fillet which was the special ornament of Apollo as the God of
Poetry. But his Greek was always writren in Roman letters. The only
Greek letters in the Wake are simply a French schoolboys' joke
oux a=AO:POV 'l'Co).w (269 margin) reading: Ou qu'est la bonne Pauline?something like our English Caesar adsum jam forte, with the extra joke
for Joyce that his friends would take it seriously and try to translate it.
Joyce's interest in Homer is said by W. B. Stanford, in an article in a
Dublin journal,3 to date from his boyhood when he studied Lamb's
The Adventures of Ulysses at Belvedere College. Stanford also points out
that 'twice in letters to his aunt Josephine ... he told her that the best
introduction to Ulysses was Lamb's Adventures of Ulysses'. The way in
which the Odyssey was used as a ground plan for Ulysses is well known
and has been thoroughly explained. No single book serves the same
purpose in Finnegans Wake; perhaps the Bible comes nearest to it, but
it is Joyce's bible, as seen from a Viconian standpoint, and dozens of
other books are used. References to books are made for all kinds of
reasons; but the references to the major classics are probably made
because the classics are major landmarks in the history of human
endeavour that Joyce was writing.
Homer's works, as major classics, may-like Shakespeare's-be mentioned at any point in the Wake. Homer's name occurs four times,
twice with a pun on homing pigeons, for Joyce-like Shakespearecould never resist a pun. He says of H.C.E. that 'seven dovecotes
cooclaim to have been pigeonheim to tlris homer' (129.22), bringing in a
reference to the Pigeonhouse in Dublin which elsewhere has to share a
word withEt Dukkehjem, the original title ofIbsen's The Doll's House. In
another section a mention of 'this epic struggle' is followed by 'these
1 H.e had copies of the following: The Iliad of Homer, translated by Andrew
Lang, Walter Leaf, and Ernest Myers, London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd.
(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

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..
75

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
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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

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 Fnnegans 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
79

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

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.
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

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' (34.27), 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' (34.31), 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
E. T. Bell, Men of Mathematics, Pelican Books, I9S3, Vol. I, p. 93.

British Museum, Add. MS. 47482 A, p. I.
85

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.

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)
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; 52015.

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

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 <Henricus Rex' which
Joyce renders: 'Enwreak us wrecks' (545.23). But his version of the
rest of the paragraph Ciffers remarkably little from the original apart
from a reversal of Bristol into 'Tolbris' and so there is no point :in
quoting it here.
Probably Joyce's main source for details of Irish history was none
of the historians who have been mentioned but the 'Dublin Annals',
a chronologica1list of the main events in the city's history from A.D. 140
onwards which is annually reprinted at the end of Thom's Dublin
Directory. There is one passage in a letter to Miss Weaver where Joyce
gives the impression that he had set himself the task of fitting all the
'Annals' into his book. He wrote: '1 have woven into the printed text
1 This identification was made in A Skeleton Ke:r, p. 127.
2 P. S. O'Hegany, The 7ictory of Sinn Fein. Dublin: The Talbot Press, Ltd.,
1924
a Ibid., p. 120.
4 Lewis Carroll and Finnegans Wake', English Studies, 33, 1st Feb. I 952, p. 4.
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
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

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 <a woman of no appearance' (I58.25) and then 'a woman to all
important' (158.32). 'Vjeras Vjenaskayas' (348.23) is Vera, from The
Nihilist, in a Rnssian dress.
GOLDSMITH
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

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

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

'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' (57.26).
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
103

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.
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,
PP3 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
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
Lerrers, p. 400, Letter dated' 4 September, !938'.
Travellers' Library Edition, Jonathan Cape, I948, p.

James Joyce, A Critical Introduction, p. 62.
][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

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

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,

P24
S A Census, p. 73.
3 See Appendix, p. 290.
4 See Letters, p. 288.
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.
!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

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.
II7

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

(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 Blndness 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 (14.26)
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

'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' (31.29).
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

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

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
122

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
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.
124
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
125

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.
sP34
!26

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.

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' (17.23). 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.
128

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

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' (27.26), 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.

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

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
p. I64.
See below, pp,
191-200,

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

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 escapedfrom 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.
134

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

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)
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
137

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
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

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
I45
IO

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.

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.
I48
2I4.
CHAPTER 7
'The World's a Stage'
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 twinfreer types are billed to "make their
reupprearance' (162.9) as two members ofthe troupe. All A.L.P.'s children are 'juvenile leads and ingenuinas' (209.32), and there are dozens
of other instances of the same kind. It has been described as the creation
of a dramatic 'level' in the Wake, but it seems more probable that Joyce
149

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.

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,
PP575-90.
1
Letters, p. 51. Letter dated 'March 190r'.

152

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

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
I54

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 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 harpermaster'
(358.18); 'That was when he had dizzy spells' 1373.27); 'How you fell
from story to story like a sagas and to lie' (374.36); 'How our myterbilder his fullen
(377.26). Dozens of other examples could be
from every other part of the Wake, right on till the last monologue
when AL.P. tells him that he is 'not so giddy any more' (624.I2).
This last phrase has already been quoted but I will repeat the entire
passage here for it is vitally important: 'Amidst the soleness. Tilltop,
bigmaster! Scale t...~e summit! You're not so giddy any more' (624.n).
It illustrates the basic difference between Joyce's philosophy and
Ibsen's. For Bygmester Solness fell from the tower to his destruction,
lured on by a woman's praise; Joyce's multi-personed hero succeeds.
156

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-
I57

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

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' (44.16); 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?'
(48.30). 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

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 filSt. 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

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 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

contest was his inability to find an audience able to appreciate his work.
This is the most plausible meaning of: <By earth and the cloudy but I
badly 'Want a brandne'W bankside, bedamp and I do, and a plumper at
that!' (201.5). The obvious flippancy can be ignored. What Joyce is
saying is that he wishes the Liffey had a South Bank where literature
was appreciated as it ,vas by Shakespeare's Thames. For himself, like
his Shem, he was-as he says with his own apologies-'would anyone,
short of a madhouse, believe it? ... he was avoopf (parnme 1) aware of
no other shaggspick, other Shakhisbeard ...' (177.31). And 'if reams
stood to reason and his lankalivline lasted he would wipe alley english
spooker, multaphoniaksically spuking, off the face of the erse' (178.5).
But there is no doubt about Joyce's respect for Shakespeare whom he
calls once 'Great Shapesphere' (295-4), so what he probably means is
that he considers himself the nearest approach to Shakespeare in these
times.
Anyone who has read this book so far will have a pretty fair idea of the
way in which Joyce uses Shakespeare's works. Quotations from almost
every play are woven into the text at various parts of the Wake. The
names of most of the plays are mentioned. Nearly all the main characters
are named and suitable parts from the plays are provided for the various
members of the Earwicker family. All this has been described so many
times in various publications that I do not think there is any need to
repeat it here. The references to Shakespeare begin on the first page
with 'all's fair in vanessy' (3.II). 'In vanessy'=Inverness as well as
Vanessa, and brings in Macbeth for 'fair is foul and foul is fair' becomes
by the Wake's logic 'all's fair'. It could, of course, equally well become
'all's foul', but that would have produced a different book. But the
most noticeable thing about the quotation is the care with which it is
hidden. Joyce is so busy saying several things at once that a very small
fraction of a Shakespearian tag has to serve to draw it to the attention
of his readers. His characters pick up such fragmentary allusions very
quickly. For example, when someone says, 'Now eats the vintner over
these contents' (318.20) he is recognize.d as 'Reacher the Thaurd'
(319.20), for he has quoted the first line of that play: 'Enter Richard
Duke of Gloster solus. Now is the winter of our discontent .. .' This
shows him to be H.C.E. in the part of the Norwegian Captain, for both
of these are hump-backed. The usefulness of such aids to the recognition
of the characters would be greater if the tags did not always seem to
bring lesser tags along with them. In this case the garbled line from
Richard I II leads to a mention of 'backonham' which conceals the name
of the unfortunate Buckingham, as well as being a joke about the
163

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.

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'.
See Appendix, p. 242, Coleridge.
r65
Part III
THE SACRED BOOK.S
CHAPTER 8
The Old Testament

'Old dustamount' (359.II)
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' (33.15 ... 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.
I79
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.
37,563.
163,391.
242,39 0
38 ,5 I 4
344
With Issy?
229, 572, 537.
100.
Ezekiel
27,37.
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.
180
CHAPTER 9
The New Testament
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
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'.
183
CHAPTER
10
The Liturgy
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.
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' (14.2) 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
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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' (39.1).
1
Letters, p. 263. Letter dated '8 August 1928'.
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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
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
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
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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.
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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
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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.
194
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
196

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' (24.21) 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
THE SACRED BOOKS
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.

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
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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)
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
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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. <Ablution', which must
precede such prayer, is mentioned next. Then the prayer begins and
we are told: 'Their orison arises misquewhite [Arabic, masquid, a
mosque] as Osman glory, ebbing wasteward, leaves to the soul of light
its fading silence (alla-1ah-Iahlah lah!), a turquewashed sky.' The phrase
in parentheses is an echo of the Muslim call to prayer: La ilaha t1l-Allah,
'There is no god but God.' The titles of several other suras are woven
into the same passage. 'The Messenger' is sura 77, and Naba is the
Arabic title of sura 78. <Light' is sura 24; its Arabic title NUT is used by
Joyce elsewhere, together with an allusion to the contents of this sura,
in which it is written that God's light is like a lamp encased in glass.
No doubt this was a rich and shining image to the Arabs of the seventh
century, but it reminds Joyce of an electric light bulb: 'a 1ur of Nur,
immerges a mirage in a merror, for it is where by muzzinmessed for one
watthour .. bottlefilled' (310.24). It will. be noticed that there is an
error in the mirror, for the Koran is quoted only to be confuted.
Joyce's hostility to the Koran is shown in his reference to sura III,
Abu Lahab, or 'Flame'. This sura, one of the shortest, consists entirely
of a declaration that Abu Lahab shall be burned and his wife laden with
the wood for his pyre. Joyce gives the name and number of the sura
in his reply: 'and a hundred and eleven other things ... I will. commission to the flames' (425.31), and it may be significant to note that
Joyce quotes the titles of exactly one hundred and eleven of the hundred
and fourteen suras.
The passages of the Wake in which the suratie titles come thickest
al,o contain examples of Arabic or Turkish words-more often Turkish
than Arabic, perhaps because there was no dictionary of Arabic in our
alphabet and Joyce was restricted to the words he could find transliterated in his books of reference. A small group of Turkish words
comes at the end of the first chapter: shebi, likeness; adi, ordinary;
batin, belly; and 'hamissim' (29.33) which includes hamisen, fifthly.
Several more come in the pages just before the momentary appearance
ofLokman. 'Villayets' (365.I6) is vilayet, a province. Tara/means ends
or limits. 'A bad of wind and a barran of rain' (365-18) is an example of
a trope which Joyce sometimes employs with foreign words by which
the first word is translated by the second and also forms a part of a
phrase with a different meaning. Thus bad means wind, and baran
203
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 (25.31), 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
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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)
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.
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.
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: . : (54.16).
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' (55.7), 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)
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!' (33.13) 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; 27.25: 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; 17.22: giaours; 35.3:
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-42529: 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;
54.27 ... 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 59.19: 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. 481-50.) 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. <Bygone spirits' =Dead
Souls).
GOLDSMITH, Oliver: The Deserted Village. She Stoops to Conquer.
N-(with Sheridan) 256.12: sherrigoldies. Q-13.26: An auburn
mayde . . . desarted; 174.31: Auborne-to-Auborne; 265.6 ... 28:
Sweetsome Auburn . . . Distorted mirage, alooliest of the plain;
381.4: Hauburnea's liveliest vinnage on the brain; 617.36: Swees
Aubumn. QT-17o.14: when lovely woman stoops to conk him
(Quotation of song from The Vicar of Wakefield-and T. S. Eliotand the title of She Stoops to Conquer. See PORTER, F. T., and ELIOT,
T. S. Joyce is combining a number of allusions); 323.32 ... 324.1. .. 13:
Toni Lampi ... Trollderoll ... lumpenpack; 56.3: Melancholy
Slow (See main text: <Irish Writers').
GONCOURT, E. L. A. H. de and J. A. H. de: Journal des Goncourt.
Q-88.5: as to whether he was one of those lucky cocks for whom the
audible-visible-gnosible-edible-world existed (But Joyce is probably
251
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; 33.13: 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: <The Structural Books').
HOLMES, Oliver Wendell: The Professor at the Breakfast Table. The
Auwcrat at the Breakfast Table.
NT-458.23: Homesworth breakfast tablotts (With Harmsworth).
T-434.3!: the autocart of the bringfast cable; 124.9: a grave
Brofesor; ath e's Brek-fast-table. (See MUGGLETON for quotations.)
HOME, John: Douglas.
N-627.24: You're but a puny. Home! Q-S69.35: My name is
novel and on the Granby in hills; 57o.I: Mine name's Apllorval and
o'er the Grandbeyond Mountains (Joyce's favourite
of a
bad writer).
255
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; 67.30: 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; 55.16: 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 -15.22: 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; 45.17: 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!
48.31: 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; 37.22: 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. 67.10: 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). N63.28: 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,
PP40-52
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,
PPI9-3 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,
PP7 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, 14, 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
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 literature,

great and small, sacred and profane, 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 aspects of Joyces
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
surveys 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

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the Books at the Wake

A Study of Literary Allusions in

THE BOOI(S AT THE WAKE

James Joyci's Finnegans Wake

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright 1959, 2009 by James S. Atherton

PART 1. THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

PART II. THE LITERARY SOURCES

2. Some typical books

3. The Irish writers

PART III. THE SACRED BOOKS

PART IV. APPENDIX AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES

erhaps-this must be the first word on such a subject-a final

The lengthened shadnw of a man

Letters, p. 204. Letter dated '9 October 1923'.

'Shakespeare in Finnega1l$ Wake', p. 735.

James Joyce's World, p. 168.

CoDnolly, pp. 42-7.

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

The Structural Books

he books which Joyce used when he was writing Finnegans

p. 241. Letter dated '21 May, 1926'.

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

The New Science of Giambattista Vico, p. 378.

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

Wake. I. History is a cyclic process repeating eternally certain typical

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

This is by no means a new idea. Nicholas of Cusa himself connected

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

Bruno and Nicholas of Cusa alike believed in the coincidence of

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

of the axioms that I have quoted is taken from this book.

Even more discussed than Bruno's influence on the Wake is the

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

To oppose the identity of opposites which causes a fusion of opposed

Green and Co., 1906.

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

mania for puns, so does Dublin's. H.C.E. is 'The dibble's

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

The plurality of characters, however, ties up with another aspect of

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

Joyce had, undoubtedly, many strange superstitions. He no longer

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

Details and methods from dozens of books about spiritualism are

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

It is to be expected that Joyce would be interested in the occult for

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

An Exagmination, p. 14 (Beckett'S italics).

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS

89: 'Language is being born anew before

Wrote English', The Critic, Spring, 1947, p. 12.

THE STRUCTURAL BOOKS