FINNEGANS WAKE: THE AGENCY OF THE - Cornell University

655 Pages·2008·2.64 MB·English

FINNEGANS WAKE: THE AGENCY OF THE LETTER IN THE CONSCIOUS
Volume I

A Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School
of Cornell University
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

by
Jonathan Warren Pickett
May 2008
© 2008 Jonathan Warren Pickett
FINNEGANS WAKE: THE AGENCY OF THE LETTER IN THE CONSCIOUS
Jonathan Warren Pickett, Ph.D
Cornell University 2008

When the most conspicuous and best-recognized architectonic gestures of the
text of Finnegans Wake are taken with the history of its composition, they strongly
indicate a structural and semantic convergence on the action of a central chapter.
The climax of the Wake becomes the writing of what is genetically and narratively its
first and most crucial parody of the thunder so prominent in the thought of
Giambattista Vico, where the thunder functions as the origin of human history and
language in the voice and name of God the Father. Joyce reconstructs this thunder
not as voice but as writing, and as the Name not of the Father but of a Mother revealed
as an archetype of the alphabetical letter. Per the pun, the thunder-scheme is thus
assimilated to the Wake’s well-known trope of writing per se, the letter written by
Anna Livia Plurabelle; but Joyce himself casts the switch from Father to Mother in a
deliberately psychoanalytic light.
After a discussion of the question of centrality in a critical approach, my
introduction reviews the ways Joyce's previous fictions anticipate various elements
present in the Wake's own center before moving on to a close but provisional reading
of that center. Chapter I reviews the notion of centrality in extant studies of the
Wake, with particular attention to Clive Hart's useful meditation on the dialogues.
Chapter II notes that a system analogous to Hart's governs the disposition of the
thunders, and explores their provenance in Vico. III explores Joyce's resolve,
apparent from the first, to center his last work on the question of the Name, and traces
the consequences through the thunder-scheme and other sustained motifs.
IV describes the provisional convergence of these motifs in the Wake's chapter
II.3, which stages the murder of the Father and the destruction of his Name, before
moving on to the genetic and textual evidence for Joyce's incorporation of the
Freudian primal scene into that tableau and its narrative anticipations. V begins the
examination of the oedipal themes proleptic in the earlier fictions, including their
imbrication with questions of economic and imperial power. VI brings this proleptic
movement to a head while examining the powerful change in subject and language-use
effected by its apotheosis in Portrait. VII returns to a closer examination of the
Wake's central gesture in II.2, and notes the way in which that gesture synthesizes the
structural and semantic elements of the text as a whole.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Jonathan Pickett attended Reed College, the University of Oregon and Oregon
State University before receiving his Bachelor of Arts in English from Oregon State
University and moving onto graduate work at Cornell. Other than teaching and a brief
stint in radio his chief work has been with groups dedicated to changes in
environmental policy. His sporadic forays into professional music have convinced
him that he is an amateur.

iii
For my Father

iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I'd like to thank all of the members of my committee for their patience and
encouragement. Jonathan Culler has been quick, perceptive and sympathetic. To
Daniel Schwarz I owe the insight that texts themselves are eager to tell us how to read
them. Molly Hite's ideas on the esthetics of space and time have implicitly informed
my methodology more than she may recognize.
Over the years I've also been sustained by a crew of interested and interesting
interlocutors. Mario Hernandez heard these ideas in germ; his enthusiasm meant a
great deal. John Frankel of the Cornell University Library consistently recommended
himself at once by virtue of his wide erudition and his convenient station on the third
floor. Laura Linke of the Cornell University Library consistently recommended
herself at once by virtue of her confident navigation of archival materials and her
whimsy. Some day David Weiss will be inadequately thanked for his legion
kindnesses by the fuller development of his true and useful insight that in Finnegans
Wake Joyce has rebuilt the Temple.
Teaching has been for me often as instant in its edifications as in its gratifications.
I've been blessed with many exceptional students but would particularly like to thank
the dark twins: Lennox Debra and Diana Carsons.
My friend Glenn Altschuler of the American Studies department deserves more
thanks than I can give him here.
I'd also like to thank Amy for her love, and Ariel for listening to me in the car.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Volume I

Biographical Sketch p. iii
Dedication p. iv
Acknowledgments p. v
List of Figures p. vii
Introduction p. 1

Chapter I p. 85
Chapter II p. 146
Chapter III p. 198

Volume II

Chapter IV p. 292
Chapter V p. 393
Chapter VI p. 488
Chapter VII p. 565

Bibliography p. 644
vi
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure I.1: The diagram of Finnegans Wake. p. 9
Figure 1.1: The disposition of the Wake's major textual units. p. 94
Figure 2.1: The Disposition of the Thunders p. 148
Figure 2.2: Major textual units. p. 178
Figure 2.3: Quadripartite rearrangement of major textual units. p. 178
Figure 2.4: Hart's mandala centered on "eternal" Book IV. p. 183
Figure 2.5: Disposition of Thunders in the quadripartite scheme. p. 187
Figure 2.6: The quadripartite disposition of Thunders in Hart's mandala. p. 188
Figure 2.7: The Dialogues. p. 195
Figure 2.8: The Thunders with the temporal reversal of Book III. p. 196
vii
INTRODUCTION

I

The Mountain

This study purports that extant critical surveys have already begun to sketch the
outlines of a map which, held the right way and read in the light of a careful
reassessment of Finnegans Wake, brings us to a sort of peak in Darien.
Joyce himself has carefully plotted the path up this mountain, and the view from its
summit decisively reorients the terrain not just of the text in which it appears but of all
of Joyce's work. The climactic moment is an apotheosis of the very first aesthetic
ambition of the artist as a young man of which we have record. This ambition, though
the key to unrivalled semantic power, is so radical and comprehensive that its
consummation is wisely postponed until the evening of Joyce's life.
But this and many another wild yet justified surmise are best deferred until our
climb is over. For the climb even to begin we must be brought to the mountain and
recognize it, and there we encounter our first difficulty. Though in some ways it
looms in almost too plain a sight – indeed a certain paradoxically obfuscating
superabundance of evidence makes it resemble, with sometimes evocative precision, a
purloined letter – our mountain is surrounded and perhaps compounded by reflection
to such a degree that to date it has been but half-apprehended, dismissed as a mirage or
ignored entirely.
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