Foretold by the prophet, the Finn again wakes.

(Profeetan ennustus, että Finn herää taas)

Finnegans Wake on James Joyce’n viimeiseksi jäänyt teos. Joyce kirjoitti Finnegan Wakea 15 vuoden ajan, alkaen vuonna 1923. Se valmistui 1938. Joyce juhli sen kustantamista 02.02.1939.

wiki: Finn, the giant who, according to folk mythology, built the Lund Cathedral

"Finnegan's Wake" is a ballad which arose in perhaps the 1850s in the vaudeville tradition of comical Irish songs. It is famous for being the basis of James Joyce's masterwork, Finnegans Wake, where the comic resurrection becomes symbolic of a universal cycle of life. Whiskey, which brought both Finnegan's fall and his resurrection, is derived from Irish uisce beatha (IPA: ['i?k?? 'b?ah?]), meaning "water of life." So too, the word "wake" is both of a passing and of a new rising. Joyce removed the apostrophe in the title to assert an active process in which a multiplicity of "Finnegans," that is, all of us, wake, that is, arise after falling. It also featured as the climax of the primary storyline in Philip José Farmer's award-winning novella, Riders of the Purple Wage. The song is a staple of the Irish folk-music group, The Dubliners, who have played it on many occassions and included it on several albums. (Wiki 5/2007)

Lyrics

Tim Finnegan lived in Walkin Street[1]
A gentle Irishman, mighty odd;
He'd a beautiful brogue so rich and sweet
And to rise in the world he carried a hod.
ya see he'd a sort of the tipplin' way
With a love for the liquor poor Tim was born
And to help him on with his work each day
He'd a "drop of the Craythur every morn.

Chorus: Whack fol the dah O, dance to your partner
Welt the floor, your trotters shake;
Wasn't it the truth I told you
Lots of fun at Finnegan's wake!

One mornin' Tim was rather full
His head felt heavy which made him shake;
He fell from the ladder and broke his skull
And they carried him home his corpse to wake.
They rolled him up in a nice clean sheet
And laid him out upon the bed,
A gallon of whiskey at his feet
And a barrel of porter at his head.

Chorus

His friends assembled at the wake
And Mrs. Finnegan called for lunch,
First she brought in tay and a cake
Then pipes, tobacca' and whiskey punch.
Biddy O'Brien began to cry
"Such a nice clean corpse, did you ever see?
"O Tim, mavourneen[2], why did you die?"
"Arragh, hold your gob[3]" cried Paddy McGee!

Chorus

Then Maggie O'Connor took up the job
"O Biddy," says she, "You're wrong, I'm sure"
Biddy she gave her a belt in the gob
And left her sprawlin' on the floor.
And then the war did soon engage
'Twas woman to woman and man to man,
Shillelagh law was all the rage
And a row and a ruction soon began.

Chorus

Then Mickey Maloney raised his head
When a noggin of whiskey flew at him,
It missed, and falling on the bed
The liquor scattered over Tim!
Tim revives! See how he rises!
Tim he rises from the dead,
Says, "Whirl your whiskey around like blazes"
"Thanum an Dhul[4], do you thunk I'm dead?"

Chorus

1. ^ Actually located in Kilkenny City, not Dublin City as one might assume. Now called Friary Street.
2. ^ from Irish: mo mhuirnín, lit. my darling
3. ^ Mouth.
4. ^ Short for "In the ainm an Diabhal" (Irish for "In the name of the devil". "Be the thunderin' Jaysus" is sometimes used instead.






Finneganin alkua suomeksi

Joycesta web-sivusto

Tikkanen maininnut Joycea seuraavilla sivuillaan:

Eliot
Merja
Pessoa
thalatta

Lainauksia:

Running riddle and fluid answer, Finnegans Wake is a mighty allegory of the fall and resurrection of mankind.

And that was the first piece of alliterative poetry in all the flaming flatuous world: a sweet exposure of the Norwegian Captain.

the course of history. Toward the middle of Finnegans Wake (338-55) an even denser, dustier episode, namely, that of the Russian General at Sevastopol.

(Joseph Campbell, kirjassa A Skeleton Key to Finnegan Wake)

Ezra Pound, upon attempting to read it, wrote "Nothing so far as I can make out, nothing short of divine vision or a new cure for the clapp can possibly be worth all that circumambient peripherization." Anthony Burgess, however, called it "one of the most entertaining books ever written." So, even in its time, there were mixed reactions.

Some meanings, it is said, require the understanding of at least 5 different languages to plumb.

Joyce spent almost 15 years working on it, at a time when his eyesight was failing. He had already had multiple operations on his eyes and could only read by using a powerful magnifying glass. Correspondence and poems could be dictated, but while working on 'Finnegan' it was necessary for Joyce to see the words on the page to edit the spelling. Even a few months before final publiation he was continually reworking, respelling and rewriting in order to load as many different meanings into the work as possible.

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