Finnigan's wake has various internal relations with philosophy and science. It applies Vico's theory of historical cycle in the overall structure, draws lessons from Bruno and others' principle of unity of opposites in the form and characterization, absorbs Freud and Jung's psychoanalytic theory in the connotation, and draws lessons from the complementary principle and uncertainty principle in relativity and quantum mechanics in the language revolution. It is a combination of mystery and mediocrity, myth and science, modern ideas and ancient wisdom, and it is one of the masterpieces to express the world changes caused by science and philosophy in this century.
The quotations and metaphors of Hebrew classics, Shakespeare's plays, ancient religions and world history in finnigan's Wake, as well as a large number of foreign language vocabulary, are enough to prove his worldwide reading. Ibsen, the "father of modern drama" in Norway, is a writer admired by Joyce all his life. The aesthetic thoughts of Aristotle, Aquinas and Vico have had a great influence on Joyce's creative theory and practice.
Judging from the political structure of modern Ireland, Catholic forces, nationalists and political conservatives have always been the mainstream. However, the constant invasion of foreign nationalities has changed Ireland for thousands of years, and sometimes it has even become a decisive force in Ireland's fate. Therefore, Joyce's attention to history in finnigan's Wake naturally focuses on the history of other ethnic groups closely related to Ireland.
When Joyce left Ireland in 1904 and went into exile in Europe, she thought Ireland was a slave to two masters, one was English and the other was Italian-two masters, the British Empire and the Roman Catholic Court. For centuries, the rule of the British Empire and the bondage of Catholicism to the Irish national spirit, coupled with internal corruption and endless natural and man-made disasters in Ireland, have turned this treasure island, which once had a long culture and civilization, into a hell full of hunger, plague and poverty.
Irish history and finnigan's wake
Joyce's hometown Ireland was once an island country in the Atlantic Ocean, with beautiful scenery, rich products and splendid culture. However, since the 10 century, invaders from the European continent followed, especially in the 12 century, English troops began to enter Ireland. By the end of 19 when Joyce lived, Ireland had become the poorest place in Europe and the only colony in Western Europe. Natural disasters, foreign invasions and civil strife almost constitute the whole modern history of Ireland. Joyce once described his motherland like this:
Ireland is a great country. She is called "Emerald Island". The suzerain government has restricted her normal development for hundreds of years, making her a barren land. Now it is an uncultivated land. The government planted hunger, syphilis, superstition and alcoholism there; Puritans, Jesuits and religious paranoia spread rapidly.
The earliest immigrants from continental Europe came to Ireland in the 4th century BC. Joyce mentioned them in the first chapter of finnigan's Wake.
Around 500 BC, Celts, also from the European continent, crossed the ocean and came to Ireland. Although no different Celtic tribe can unify the island, their language and culture have gained a dominant position in Ireland. This and the introduction of Catholicism laid the foundation for the later unique Irish culture. Father St Patrick introduced Catholicism to Ireland. Later, with the development of Irish religious forces, Ireland entered the most glorious period in history and almost became the center of European culture. In finnigan's Wake, the word "Patrick" is directly mentioned in 18.
Catholicism and church forces have penetrated into all aspects of Irish society.
In 432 AD, Saint Patrick was sent to Ireland by the Pope to persuade the Irish to convert to Christianity. After he landed in wicklow, angry pagans tried to kill him. St Patrick plucked a three-leaf sorrel and vividly expounded the doctrine of the trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. His speech deeply touched the Irish and was baptized by St. Patrick. On March 17, 493, St. Patrick died. In memory of him, the Irish designated this day as "St. Patrick's Day". Bring the light of Catholicism to every corner of the island. With the prosperity of Irish monasteries, Irish scholars studied Latin and Christian theology in monasteries. Missionaries from Ireland to Britain and continental Europe spread the Irish style of study and attracted many scholars from all over Europe. These monasteries are great. They are isolated from the world and have made great contributions to the preservation of many religious knowledge of Latin. Illustrations of calligraphy and painting, metalworking and sculpture have made great progress in Ireland. Joyce proudly described Ireland's contribution to all mankind in a speech: "Before being invaded by foreign enemies, this island country was once a veritable center of holiness and wisdom, spreading culture and vitality to the European continent. Her pilgrims and hermits, scholars and sages passed the torch of knowledge from one country to another. "
It is these long-standing cultural traditions that have created Irish philosophers, intellectuals, writers and poets who can be proud of the world.
Developed culture made Irish missionaries go to Europe to preach, and developed economy led to the looting of Scandinavian pirates. In 795 AD, Vikings from Scandinavia invaded Ireland.
In addition to attacking the Irish coast, they also established a stronghold in the local area. These settlements later became the starting point of the earliest cities in Ireland. This is how Dublin was established. In 852 AD, the Vikings built a fortress in Dublin Bay, which was the origin of Dublin. Some place names in Ireland also contain Scandinavian language elements. Many Irish coastal cities also reflect the structure of Viking cities.
The Irish resistance was as disorganized as the Viking invasion. There was a constant power struggle in Ireland, and some factions also formed alliances with the Vikings. But in the end, the chaotic resistance succeeded. At the end of 10, Brian Brou basically unified the Irish resistance. The threat of vikings forced the Irish to develop their own technology, and the establishment of cities and the development of maritime trade brought great progress to Ireland. Although the Vikings did not rule Ireland for a long time, their culture and language left footprints in Ireland.
Greytcloak refers to Harald Grayclock, the Norwegian ruler in the 10 century, and Cedric Silkyshag refers to Sitric Silkenbeard, the commander of the Scandinavian army in the Battle of Clontarf. It was in the 10 14 war that the Nordic people were defeated by Ryan Brou, and the influence of the Scandinavians in Ireland gradually weakened.
After entering the 12 century, the English army began to invade Ireland on a large scale. The internal struggle in Ireland led to the Anglo-Norman invasion, from which eight centuries of bloody and violent colonial history began. The new invaders only overthrew the former ruler of Ireland. With the passage of time, more and more Norman nobles began to be assimilated by Irish language, customs and costumes. In the end, when the Reformation made waves in the European continent, they still adhered to the Catholic tradition. /kloc-in the 0/4th century, many riots against British rule broke out in Ireland. England, dragged down by the Hundred Years' War, relaxed its rule over Ireland. Since then, wars of the roses has further weakened the importance of Ireland in the eyes of the British. It was not until the Tudor dynasty was established that England concentrated on ruling Ireland again. Until the colonial rule of Ireland was finally established in the17th century, successive British monarchs have been suppressing the resistance of Irish insurgents. The rarity of classics makes this history mysterious and elusive, but it is necessary for Joyce's readers to understand this history. The arduous course of the Irish nation for hundreds of years runs through the book finnigan's Wake. It was during this period that Ireland began to serve two masters-the British ruler and the Holy See.
/kloc-The 0/8th century is of great significance to Ireland, especially Dublin, Joyce's hometown. Influenced by the European continent, the urban landscape has undergone great changes, and many beautiful and modern buildings have appeared. There are also many antique garden villas in the country. But these can't hide the poverty and difficulties brought by population growth and economic recession. From the middle of18th century to the middle of19th century100th century, no matter how the struggle between Ireland and England was ups and downs, no matter how the political movement within Ireland was surging, Ireland's backwardness remained the same. By 1845, the "potato famine" finally happened. In five years, the population of Ireland plummeted by more than 2 million, and in the following decades, more than 2 million people left their homes and emigrated overseas. In "finnigan's Wake", you can vaguely see the horror of hunger and ant hills everywhere:
Winder, what we feel is an Allen Mountain, the tomb of a nation.
After entering the 20th century, economic backwardness and political independence made Ireland's political situation chaotic. Protestantism and Catholicism compete for power and interests almost endlessly, but the struggle against British colonial rule has failed again and again in the face of powerful enemies and constant internal friction of resistance. It was not until Joyce's death 1949 that the British Empire recognized Ireland's independent status. Joyce was born in Dublin, 1882. At the age of 20, he "faithfully" left the place where he spent his childhood and adolescence. After 19 12, he never returned to his hometown.
But in each of Joyce's works, readers can feel that they are frozen in Edwardian Dublin. Joyce always describes Dublin. He thinks that as long as it embodies the essence of Dublin, it embodies the essence of all cities in the world. This city provides Joyce with a model for observing the world, which is large enough to be compared with any European city, but small enough to get a glimpse of it. There, animal-drawn taxis and gas lamps exposed the backwardness of this civilized city in the industrial revolution, and British soldiers everywhere reminded people that although Ireland is located in Western Europe, it is a colony of the British Empire. The painful life of different Irish people, the stagnant national independence movement, the struggle between political forces and religious forces and the mental paralysis that followed have all become the themes described in Joyce's novels.
The downfall of Irish civil rights leader parnell ("the uncrowned king of Ireland") was an important event for both Ireland and Joyce's family. Joyce originally lived in a Catholic family with a good economic situation, and her father was a follower of parnell. The decline of parnell eventually led to the decline of Joyce's family, which brought deep harm to young Joyce. Finnigan in finnigan's Wake can also be regarded as the incarnation of parnell. A series of processes in the story of Finnegan's Wake, such as climbing, falling to death, wake and resurrection, can correspond to parnell's political success, scandal and downfall, people's regret or secret joy, and his final position in the eyes of Irish people in the parnell incident.
By combing the brief history of Ireland and analyzing the fragmented performance of Irish history in finnigan's Wake, we can see that for Joyce, the memory of Irish history, especially modern history, has been distorted, which can not help but make him suffer greatly. He has mixed feelings of love and hate for Ireland's unique culture and bumpy historical experience, deeply understands the influence of external forces on Ireland, and also feels helpless and sad about Ireland's internal struggle. Joyce felt that all kinds of "evil forces" in Ireland had become the shackles that bound his freedom, especially the paralysis of Irish society limited his development. Joyce's personality made it impossible for him to compromise with the reality in Ireland. In the end, he chose to leave "loyally" and display his talents in a broader world. However, the exile of self is not an escape. After 40 years of hard work, my motherland and hometown have always been an eternal theme. His works basically show the life and spirit of Ireland and Dublin comprehensively and truly. Especially in finnigan's Wake, Joyce's "writing the history of the world" also started from the endless flow of Li Feihe, focusing on presenting Irish history in the novel. In the end, Joyce and his works became the pride of Ireland and Dublin and became an indelible part of Irish history.
Finnigan's wake and the history of China
Joyce's concern for Irish history in finnigan's Wake can be regarded as a cry for the fate of this nation. He sometimes teases, sometimes satirizes, and sometimes criticizes foreign history closely related to Ireland. Although the history of China, which is in the same boat as Ireland, has developed in parallel with Ireland, and there is almost no intersection, it also frequently appears in finnigan's Wake.
When we pay attention to the history of China in finnigan's Wake, the first thing we notice is the carrier of China's history-"China people". In the fourth chapter of finnigan's Wake, there is a saying, "A tongue in Mondalin is in a big bowl?"
This shows the origin of the relationship between British pound and Chinese. From the descriptive characteristics of China literature, Pound discovered a mysterious power of language and image, and from this, he worshipped the power of China's poems and Chinese characters. He proposed to draw lessons from the ideographic function of Chinese and Chinese characters in Ideographic Law, and finally advocated that English poetry should also try to infiltrate the whole poem into the image. Readers can regard the early part of Kontos as the pioneer of finnigan's wake. According to Pound, he has been planning to write this modern epic since 1904, including world literature, art, architecture, mythology, economy and historical biographies. In order to reflect human achievements, paint a modern epic with correct thinking and action ability. This long poem is obscure, involving Italian architecture in the16th century, Provence poetry, Confucius philosophy, medieval economic history and so on. All these coincide with Joyce's original intention of writing world history in world language, and Joyce carries it forward in his own practice. The history of China in finnigan's Wake is mostly short fragments, some of which are only a few words, and some can't even form a complete meaning independently.
However, when Joyce wrote "finnigan's Wake", he still positioned the readers as readers who are familiar with English, and he was unable and unwilling to use Chinese characters in his works, so he chose to transliterate ideographic Chinese characters and put them into the text. This kind of phonetic Chinese has brought great difficulties to reading, whether it is English readers or Chinese readers. For example, the word "son-yet-sun" in the fourth chapter of finnigan's Wake can be understood as "son of the sun" (English) or Sun Yixian (Chinese or Chinese-English translation). This formidable multilingual pun can play the dual role pursued by Joyce: it greatly increases the difficulty of reading and shows the complex mistakes of human language and history.
By analyzing the fragments about China's history in finnigan's Wake, we can easily find that Joyce's concern about China's history is similar to Irish historical experience at first.
In the third chapter of finnigan's Wake, a group of phrases "Tsin Tsin Tsin Tsin Tsin Tsin Tsin Tsin Tsin Tsin Tsin Tsin Tsin Tsin" appeared for the first time, which is Webster's spelling of "Qing". ), which can be understood as the national title of China in Joyce's era, can also remind people of the toast of China officials at the banquet, and can also remind people of the loud noise of these officials clinking glasses after drinking for 30 days. This series of voices sounded when the people suffered from famine and the country went through hardships.
From 65438 to 1940 in Ireland, the large-scale reduction of potato production also caused a nationwide famine, resulting in a rare population decline in world history. The British government, which ruled Ireland at that time, stood by and did what the Qing court did when the people were suffering. This overlapping historical picture makes readers feel that Joyce's joking language expresses grief and indignation at the tragedies suffered by the two peoples in history.
The persistent and fierce internal wrestling in Ireland since ancient times and the internal friction caused by it are the focus of Joyce's attention. The numerous dynasty changes are also a feature of China's history, which Joyce also noticed. In finnigan's Wake, Joyce mentioned many times the loser or winner in the war of regime change and troubled times in China. In the third chapter of the novel, I wrote:
Television killed the telephone in the quarrel between brothers. Our eyes need to turn. Let them be seen! The wolf bone bonfire has opened the way. I hope nothing can break Mary's Bible.
This clip mentioned the story of Zhou Youwang smiling at Bomei people and playing a vassal in a bonfire. This big mistake eventually led to the demise of the Western Zhou Dynasty. A passage in the fifth chapter: ... among the descendants of his great Fengyang dynasty, there is only one other son. In fact, did you ever look at the envelope with stamp and address every day and feel satisfied?
This clip refers to Fengyang, Anhui, the hometown of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Joyce's attitude towards the internal struggle in ancient China also reflects his helplessness and resentment towards the endless internal struggle in Ireland.
British colonial rule and Irish national independence struggle in modern Irish history are Joyce's most realistic history, so the invasion of distant China and the revolution for national independence also entered his field of vision. Chapter 11 of finnigan's Wake In the conversation between TAFF and Bart, Bart said:
..... Roll his sleeve over his sheep's shoulder to make him look more energetic. When he smelled their exclusive news, the happy man explained behind that he was a great hero, a great aesthetic philosopher, and there was a crack on the other side of his body, which destroyed his natural popular part ...
This clip is about the fierce Sino-Japanese War in 1930s. In the fourth chapter, Joyce wrote about the greatest revolution in the history of China at that time-the Revolution of 1911: "But why is this the second tune of Dr. Sun Yat-sen? He has a cow neck on his plump face. "
Among them, "Hankoff" can be understood as Hankou, the place where the revolution was initiated, "Sun Shang" can be understood as the forerunner of the revolution and "the father of the country" Sun Yat-sen, and "Hankoff" refers to the following worship rituals that have been common in the feudal empire for thousands of years. "Boxer Rebellion" refers to the peasant uprising Boxer Rebellion against foreign aggression which happened at the same time as Sun Yat-sen's anti-feudal revolution. Ireland, like China, experienced glory in ancient times and suffered humiliation in modern times. Joyce expressed sympathy for China, which suffered from aggression and suffering, and expressed understanding and support for China's struggle for national independence.
St Patrick's sermon laid the foundation of Irish Catholicism and was called "the patron saint of Ireland". As mentioned above, Patrick appeared many times in finnigan's Wake. Confucius is the founder of Confucian culture in China, and Joyce's concern about the history of China is also reflected in the contents related to Confucius that appear many times in finnigan's Wake. "He has the largest cone-shaped piano bone, and his rich piano bone is like a foot room around a shanty town in Thailand."
This section of the sixth chapter mentions some anecdotes about Confucius. "There is the most conical hodpiece" seems to be laughing at Confucius' head with a bag, which should be Joyce's conclusion when he first saw Confucius' portrait. Next, I mentioned Songs of the South and Mount Tai-Humble Room. Qufu is the hometown of Confucius, who "prayed for Confucius in the mud mound". Joyce directly wrote the Niqiu here as "chuff" and "Shan" and hid it in "Mount Tai", "chuchufuuos" and "Mount Tai". That legend. Finnigan's Wake also records the communication between Confucius and other ancient thinkers in China:
In fact, only another person's son will look at an envelope with stamps and addresses on it almost every day for a long time? It is true that it is a shell: its face, despite its perfect defects, is its wealth.
This passage records a dialogue between the two grandfathers of Confucianism and Taoism in Joyce's way. Laozi said to Confucius, "A son should not have himself, and a minister should not have himself."
Another fragment in chapter 5:
The other guy turned out to be a friend who needed him, for example, a lady whom the latter knew, was carrying out a well-prepared ceremony before upstheres, and immediately ran to see her fullness and peace in her nature.
This clip records an interesting story between Yan Ying and Confucius: When he made Lu, his disciples went to watch the war. Zi Gong rebelled, and the report said: Who said Yan Zi was used to being polite? The husband said that he didn't climb the stairs, didn't rush in class, and didn't kneel when giving jade. Today, Yan Zi opposes this. Who is Yan Zi who is used to politeness? Yan Zi had something to do with lujun, so he retired to see Zhong Ni. Zhong Ni said, "My husband didn't go up the stairs or attend classes, and he didn't kneel down when he gave jade, but his master objected. Is it polite? " Yan Zi said: I heard that there is something between two horses. You do one thing, I do another. The speed of your arrival is based on the calendar, class trends and positions. You gave Yu a very low position, so you knelt down. And I heard it: the big ones should not be too idle, and the small ones can get in and out. Yan Zi went out and Zhong Ni gave it to him as a gift. On the contrary, Ming disciples said that "Wei" could perform illegal ceremonies.
Joyce sympathized with the history of China, which developed in parallel with Ireland. Compared with Ireland, China has a more glorious history, but her wealth and beauty, generosity and friendliness have brought her the disaster of war. The century-long humiliation of the whole nation and the sufferings of the people of this country forced Joyce, who was also deeply hurt by history, to sing aloud. His cry for the pain of Irish national history also has a China accent. Moreover, Joyce's strange "accent" in finnigan's Wake comes from many other languages, and it is also mixed with the history of their hometown.
Language presentation of historical concern
Grasping Joyce's intention of "writing the history of the world", we can see from Joyce's point of view of paying attention to history that finnigan's Wake takes the task of dispelling the center and pays attention to history by destroying colonial language and literary tradition.
The glory of Ireland and the tradition that made Joyce proud formed a heartbreaking contrast with the reality of the era in which he lived. The interaction between the ills of the Irish nation and the colonial rule of different colonists for nearly a thousand years has brought about the irresistible loss of national language and the confusion of historical memory, as well as the paralysis of moral spirit, the rupture of cultural traditions, the confusion of self-identity, the imprisonment of social stereotypes and a series of problems that Ireland cannot extricate itself from. Joyce destroyed the language of the colonists in his way, disintegrated the Irish history and world history written by the rulers, and never dissolved the center of colonial culture. Finnigan's Wake was conceived in the 1920s, when revolutions in the natural sciences were constantly taking place. Since Darwin's theory of evolution and Freud's psychoanalysis at the end of 19, the birth of quantum mechanics and relativity in modern physics has completely broken the traditional concept of classical physics and led to a brand-new view of time and space and world. This new concept of time and space and cosmology left a deep impression on finnigan.