**~ [Finnegans Wake – A Prescriptive Guide](https://steemit.com/literature/@harlotscurse/finnegans-wake-a-prescriptive-guide-1) ~** https://i.imgur.com/DdIqOQA.jpg**Dante Alighieri, Giambattista Vico and Giordano Bruno** I have already devoted fourteen articles in this series to the first four paragraphs of James Joyce’s _Finnegans Wake_. This might seem like overkill, but one cannot be too familiar with the opening pages of this obscure book. And we are not quite finished with them yet. These are probably the most _befarced_ paragraphs in the book. The amount of information that Joyce has packed into these thirty-seven lines beggars the imagination. In the third of those fourteen articles I identified three Italian thinkers—poets and philosophers—as the Three Patron Saints of _Finnegans Wake_: * [Dante Alighieri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri), whose theory of the [polysemous](https://archive.org/stream/epistolaeletters00dantuoft#page/199/mode/1up) nature of literature underpins the multilayered structure of _Finnegans Wake_. * [Giambattista Vico](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giambattista_Vico), whose cyclic philosophy of history provided Joyce with a framework around which he wrought the cycling wheel of _Finnegans Wake_. * [Giordano Bruno](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno), whose philosophy of the coincidence of opposites—_coincidentia oppositorum_—provided Joyce with an engine to keep that wheel turning. I also suggested that Joyce had slipped some subtle allusions to these individuals into the first paragraph of the book. Take the phrase **commodious vicus**, for example. These two words alone allude to all three men: * **Dante Alighieri:** _commodious_ echoes the Italian word _Commedia_, the name by which Dante referred to his masterpiece _The Divine Comedy_. * **Giordano Bruno** _commodious_ also alludes to the commode in the master bedroom of the Mullingar House. A commode is a chair fitted with a chamber pot. A jordan is a chamber pot : _ergo_ Giordano Bruno, whose name means Brown Jordan. (Giambattista means John the Baptist, another link between Bruno and Vico.) * **Giambattista Vico** _vicus_ obviously refers to Giambattista Vico. In his masterpiece, _The New Science_, Vico’s principal interest is Roman history, so even _commodious_—as a reference to the Roman Emperor Commodus—could be understood as an allusion to Vico, though Commodus is not actually mentioned in _The New Science_. We could go further: * **riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s** In Dante’s _Purgatorio_, the rivers Lethe (“Oblivion”) and Eunoë (“Good Remembrance”) flow around Adam and Eve’s Earthly Paradise at the summit of Mount Purgatory. _riverrun_ can also be glossed as _Erinnerung_, the German for _memory_, which makes the connection with Dante’s rivers even stronger. (Memory is also an important concept in the works of Vico and Bruno.) * **from swerve of shore to bend of bay** These two expressions describe the curving shoreline of Dublin Bay as seen by the embattled native on the shore and the foreign invader (or returning exile) at sea respectively. The phrase, then, exemplifies Giordano Bruno’s _coincidentia oppositorum_, or _identity of opposites_. * **brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle & Environs** This is Giambattista Vico’s _corso_ and _recorso_ [_course_ and _recurrence_]: “This is the Course of Nations ... And having arrived finally at the foot of the statue of Homer, they begin a Recurrence in the same order (Vico §41). The _statue of Homer_ refers to the allegorical frontispiece (_depintura_) of _The New Science_. https://i.imgur.com/QbnZ0OO.jpg**The Allegorical Frontispiece of Vico’s _New Science_** Each of these Italian thinkers informs one of the following three paragraphs, as we shall now see. https://i.imgur.com/lfVqTgr.jpgDante and His Poem (Domenico di Michelino) # Dante Alighieri # In the fifteenth canto of the _Paradiso_, the concluding part of Dante’s _Divine Comedy_ Dante meets his great-great-grandfather Cacciaguida, who flourished in the first half of the 12th century. Dante’s translator Dorothy L Sayers writes of this moment: >In the _story_, this encounter between Dante and his illustrious ancestor is one of the most poignant and climactic moments in the poem. Of all the souls with whom he has conversed in Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, this is the one from whom his life-blood flows ... From Cacciaguida to Dante flows not only the blood of illustrious forebears but also the past events of Florence, the history of Christendom, the inheritance of sin and of redemption, the burden and the glory of the cross. (Sayers 1984:190) These words could just as easily be applied to _Finnegans Wake_, which also celebrates the unending flow of blood and history that links us all. But what is of immediate interest to us is the short passage in which Cacciaguida describes 12th-century Florence:

https://i.imgur.com/nKXxs5E.jpg

>Florence, within her ancient walls embraced, >Whence nones and terce ring still to all the town, >Abode aforetime, peaceful, temperate, chaste. > >No glittering chain she wore, she wore no crown; >There went no dames bedizened, no bright girdle >To catch the eye and shine the wearer down; > >Nor at a daughter’s birth did terror curdle >The father’s blood, for date and dower between >Due limits kept both ways, nor leaped the hurdle. > >No empty houses in her streets were seen; >Sardanapalus had not come, to show >What chambering and wantonness might mean. > >Neither did your Uccellatoi’ outgo >Yet Montemalo, which, as in late days >It rose above, so shall it fall below. > >(Sayers 1984:188-189) I do not know who was the first to notice the similarity between this passage and the second paragraph of _Finnegans Wake_ with its succession of _nor ... nor ... not yet ... not yet_. I was first made aware of it by Raphael Slepon, whose encyclopaedic site [FWEET](http://www.fweet.org/pages/fw_srch.php) is probably the Internet’s best website dedicated to _Finnegans Wake_. In his glosses for this paragraph he notes parenthetically: >the structure of this paragraph bears some resemblance to Dante: Paradiso XV.100-111 As we have seen, the second paragraph of _Finnegans Wake_ has a clear sevenfold structure that evokes the rainbow of Genesis 9. Earlier in the _Commedia_, in _Purgatorio_ 29, Dante too evokes the rainbow (and the moonbow of [Delia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delia), which may be even more appropriate for a book of the night like _Finnegans Wake_) during the _Pageant of the Sacrament_:

https://i.imgur.com/8ZFqSBo.jpg

>The beauteous pageantry flamed forth on high >Far brighter than the brightest moon could shine >At her mid-month in a clear midnight sky ... > >And [I] saw the flames advance, leaving the air >Behind them as it had been painted on; >They looked like pictured pennants, as it were, > >Whose seven great bands of colour lodged and shone, >Till the sky stood with all those hues engrossed >That streak the Sun’s bright bow and Delia’s zone. > >(Sayers 1983: 299 ... 300) Note the logical flow from clause to clause in this paragraph of _Finnegans Wake_: * North Armorica in Clause 1 leads to Dublin, Georgia, in North America in Clause 2. * Peter Sawyer, the supposed founder of Dublin, Georgia (as Joyce erroneously thought), leads to St Peter in Clause 3. * St Patrick, who was miraculously transformed into a deer, leads to _venison_ in Clause 4. * Venison leads to Vanessa in Clause 5. * Wroth leads to Rot in Clause 6. * Arclight , both a light in Noah’s Ark and the French _arc de ciel_, leads to the rainbow in Clause 7. The final clause brings us back to the opening chapter of the Book of Genesis. The seven clauses are the seven days of Creation. The seventh day, when God rested from his labours, even has HCE in bed, resting from his labours! https://i.imgur.com/8fgusDP.jpg**Vico’s Statue in Naples** # Giambattista Vico # The following paragraph gives us the first of the ten thunderwords that Joyce created for _Finnegans Wake_. Joyce lifted the thunderbolt from _The New Science_ of Giambattista Vico. >_Ulysses_ ... I made it out of next to nothing. _Work in Progress_ ... I am making it out of nothing. But there are thunderbolts in it. (Mercanton & Parks 720-721) A contributor to the FinnegansWiki website has written: >As each thunderword leads into another part of the book, it fits into Joyce’s usage of Vico’s philosophy to tell the story. Each thunderword leads to a new cycle and a deeper part of sleep, and a deeper, more muddled state in HCE’s mind ([FinnegansWiki](http://www.finnegansweb.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Thunderwords)) This is an idea I have not come across before, and I will keep it in mind as I read _Finnegans Wake_. I don’t know whether it is true, but it certainly makes sense in the case of the first thunderword, which occurs at the precise moment that the landlord of the Mullingar House falls asleep, as indicated by the word _fall_. HCE is, in some sense, the landlord’s dream self, so a significant alteration in HCE’s state of mind does take place at this early point in the novel. https://i.imgur.com/Yup2PGY.jpg**The Trial of Giordano Bruno (Ettore Ferrari)** # Giordano Bruno # The fourth paragraph of _Finnegans Wake_ is a literary embodiment of Giordano Bruno’s concept of _coincidentia oppositorum_, or the identity of opposites. It is a very catalogue of polar opposites in conflict. >What, finally, is _Finnegans wake_ all about? Stripping away its accidental features, the book may be said to be all compact of _mutually supplementary antagonisms_: male-and-female, age-and-youth, life-and-death, love-and-hate; these, by their attraction, conflicts, and repulsions, supply polar energies that spin the universe. Wherever Joyce looks in history or human life, he discovers the operation of these basic polarities. (Campbell, Robinson & Epstein 12-13) I feel I have only begun to scratch the surface of these opening pages ... but time to be getting on. --- ## References ## * Joseph Campbell, Henry Morton Robinson, Edmund L Epstein (editor), _A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake_, New World Library, Novato CA (2005) * [James Joyce](https://archive.org/stream/finneganswake00joycuoft#page/n7/mode/2up), _Finnegans Wake_, The Viking Press, New York (1958, 1966) New York (1910) * [Jacques Mercanton](http://www.jstor.org/stable/4334273), Lloyd C Parks (translator), _The Hours of James Joyce, Part 1_, _The Kenyon Review_, Volume 24, Number 4 (Autumn 1962), pp 700-730, Kenyon College, Gambier OH (1962) * Danis Rose, John O’Hanlon, _The Restored Finnegans Wake_, Penguin Classics, London (2012) * [Dorothy L Sayers](https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Comedy_of_Dante_Alighieri_the_Floren.html?id=3uhT0UFKsUIC&redir_esc=y), _The Comedy of Dante Alighieri the Florentine, Cantica II, Purgatory (Il Purgatorio)_, Translated by Dorothy L Sayers, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex (1955, 1983) * [Dorothy L Sayers](https://books.google.com/books/about/Paradiso.html?id=H3LVs63Qd2wC&redir_esc=y), _The Comedy of Dante Alighieri the Florentine, Cantica III, Paradise (Il Paradiso)_, Translated by Dorothy L Sayers and Barbara Reynolds, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex (1962, 1984) * [Giambattista Vico, Thomas Goddard Bergin (translator), Max Harold Fisch (translator)](https://archive.org/stream/newscienceofgiam030174mbp#page/n7/mode/2up), _The New Science of Giambattista Vico_, Translated from the Third Edition (1744), Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY (1948) ## Image Credits ## * [Dante, Vico and Bruno](https://i.imgur.com/DdIqOQA.jpg): Adapted from Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain * [Dante and His Poem](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domenico_di_Michelino_-_Dante_and_the_Three_Kingdoms_-_WGA06421.jpg): Wikimedia Commons, Domenico di Michelino (artist), Public Domain * [The Allegorical Frontispiece of Vico’s _New Science_](https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/33797): The _depintura_ from Giambattista Vico’s _Principi di Scienza Nuova_, Domenico Antonio Vaccaro (engraver), Public Domain * [Paradise](http://onbookes.blogspot.ie/2014/12/the-divine-comedy-by-dante.html): Dante Being Led before God in the Celestial Rose, 15th Century, © Vatican Library, Photo Art Media/Heritage Images/Scala, Florence (H513168), Fair Use * [Purgatory](http://onbookes.blogspot.ie/2014/12/the-divine-comedy-by-dante.html): Domenico di Michelino (artist), [_Dante and His Poem_](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michelino_DanteAndHisPoem.jpg), (detail), Photo Art Media/Heritage Images/Scala (0026057), Florence, Fair Use * [Vico’s Statue in Naples](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GiambattistaVicoStatueNaples.JPG): Wikimedia Commons, © [IlSistemone](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:IlSistemone), Creative Commons License * [The Trial of Giordano bruno](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Relief_Bruno_Campo_dei_Fiori_n1.jpg): Wikimedia Commons, Ettore Ferrari (artist), Public Domain ## Useful Resources ## * [FWEET](http://www.fweet.org/pages/fw_srch.php) * [The James Joyce Scholars’ Collection](https://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/JoyceColl/) * [FinnegansWiki](http://www.finnegansweb.com/wiki/index.php/Page_3) * [Annotated _Finnegans Wake_ (with Wakepedia)](http://fwannotated.blogspot.ie/search/label/p3) ![Kopimi](https://i.imgur.com/7kq532u.png)

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