My intent here is primarily as a collection site and chalkboard for my own notes on my re-reading of and thinking over of the Wake. Primarily, the center of exploraiton is to focus not on the individual references, puns, etc., as to focus on the ideational levels of meaning and their flow, development, and interaction. Secondarily, it is a place to gather notes from what criticism I read.

The benefit of using html as a notebook is that it is far easier to rework pages than it is with hand written. The flip side to that, however, is it takes a lot more work at the beginning to figure out how to organize and present. (And, for someone like me that is not a master of web design, the basics lego-block figuring of the html/css.)

Because this is in the nature of a notebook, it is wholly developmental. Thus, notes at the beginning of the project will suffer for not being able to reference sections at the end of the book which I do not remember or to which I have never given serious thought. (I've read the Wake thrice already and have done no small bit of critical reading on it, though it has been a while and most of my thinking on it all has been pushed into the more dusty storage rooms of the psychic attic.) As such, though I may not say it overtly, there is always the assumption of "more to come on this" or "subject to rethinking and revision."

As a methodological policy, I will bring in references to whatever books I am reading at the time. But I will not intentionally seek out information from other books during this first go around: that is, I want to develop my own thoughts on the Wake's ideation and flow before I go to someone else to compare answers. Thus, when such references do show up in the notes, it will be (unless I explicitly say otherwise) that they are supplementary to my own thoughts; and not guiding of them. (This especially includes Tindall's Reader's Guide.) Because of the multivalent nature of the Wake, is very easy for an individual and even a group to talk themselves into a line of thinking that looks pretty solid – until a someone notices a thread that, when pulled, rearranges the whole section. What is too common in literary criticism generally is all the more present with the Wake: ideas and interpretations put forward at one point tend to hang around even though, years later, someone else has put forward a stronger interpretation. (For example, there are aspects of Benstock's outline in Joyce-again's Wake that I consider completely incorrect, though that book is still, rightly, a major critical work on the Wake. As well, the relatively recent Wake Rites by Gibson may be a major correction to Wake scholarship, some sixty years down the critical road.)

 

There is more introduction and methodological explanation below the jump menu.

Note: as this project is just beginning, expect the formatting of the pages to change now and then as I figure out what works best towards organization and presentation of information.

Note: I am cut and pasting the quotes from the Wake from Finnegans Wiki, which I believe has the un-corrected text (I have not checked yet). I will try to check them against the 2d edition with Joyce's corrections, but be alert as no promises to thoroughness are being made.

Chapter 1.1

        003 004 005 006 007 008
  Episode: The Museyroom (008-010)
                                    010
011 012 013 014 015 016 017 018 019 020
021 022 023 024 025 026 027 028 029
 

Chapter 1.2

                                    030
031 032 033 034 035 036 037 038 039 040
041 042 043 044 045 046 047
 

Chapter 1.3

                            048 049 050
051 052 053 054 055 056 057 058 059 060
061 062 063 064 065 066 067 068 069 070
071 072 073 074
 

Chapter 1.4

                075 076 077 078 079 080
081 082 083 084 085 086 087 088 089 090
091 092 093 094 095 096 097 098 099 100
101 102 103
 

Chapter 1.5

            104 105 106 107 108 109 110
111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120
121 122 123 124 125
 

Chapter 1.6

                    126 127 128 129 130
131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140
141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150
151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160
161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169
 

Chapter 1.7

chapter outline
                                    170
171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180
181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190
191 192 193 194 195
 

Chapter 1.8

                    196 197 198 199 200
201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210
211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218
 

Chapter 2.1

chapter outline
                                219 220
221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230
231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240
241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250
251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259
 

Chapter 2.2

                                    260
261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270
271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280
281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290
291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300
301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308
 

Chapter 2.3

                                309 310
311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320
321 322 323 324 325 327 327 328 329 330
331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340
341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350
351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360
361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370
371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380
381 382
 

Chapter 2.4

        383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390
391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400
401 402
 

Chapter 3.1

        403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410
411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420
421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428
 

Chapter 3.2

                                429 430
431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440
441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450
451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460
461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470
471 472 473
 

Chapter 3.3

            474 475 476 477 478 479 480
481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490
491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500
501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510
511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520
521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530
531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540
541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550
551 552 553 554
 

Chapter 3.4

                555 556 557 558 559 560
561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570
571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580
581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590
 

Chapter 4

591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600
601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610
611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620
621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628
 

The project here is of two energies. First, while I have read the Wake through three times previous, and spent many hours exploring various parts of the book in depth, I have never given effort to a full, start to finish, general outlining, one that charts the underlying structures of the book, and have long wanted to. I have recently been brought to return to the Wake by on-line acquaintances, and have decided to go ahead and pursue this larger (and very long term) project. Once I get things started, this will mostly be a side project of mine, so it will be slow going; made even slower by that I also want to read and/or re-read criticism and source material – e.g., finally giving Vico more than casual reading – at the same time.

Second, creating a web-based notebook gives me the opportunity to collect information, interpretations on the Wake in a way not possible with hard copy notebooks. Because of the access to information permitted by the internet, there is a greater ability than ever before to create an easily accessible storehouse of information on the Wake. For example, I can quickly create and link to pages that hold the lyrics to songs refered to in the text. Or, I can create an easily modifiable page dedicated to the story of Tristram and Isolde that not only offers the basic story but interacts with how that story is presented and used within the text of the Wake.

 

The Jump Menu: I will create one page for every page in the web, and pages that focus on the major (and minor) episodes in the web. As well, I will create pages that chart the ideational and narrative flow across individual pages. In the link menu above, only pages that have been created will have active links. (That is, I will not create a page unless I have something to write upon it. The others will be colored light grey to easily distinguish them.) It would definitely save visual space to make a simple "jump to page X" menu, but you would lose the information of what pages have actually been started. Perhaps, in the future, I might do both.

 

On Content and References: I will not give reference to everything I put up on these pages even though I may have gotten the note from some source simply because I got that information from some source. If a note is something to me self-evident from the text, it does not need a reference, even though I may have first come upon it in a critical work. For the most part, there is not need to cite where I learned of cross references within the Wake. I will generally only note things that fall outside that simple rubric. The generating of a running outline will be wholly mine, and I will make note of outside sources only when I myself turned to them and am presenting them as corrections, alternatives, and such. Finally, I have no intention of reduplicating McHugh's Annotations (or other such references) here. This effort is going to be oriented more toward the structure and flow of the Wake than to the particular, moment by moment details of the Wake. When I do use McHugh, I will note him only when the information, again, is not self-evident (for example, I will not source an occurrence of the initials "HCE" in the text that I missed and saw only because of McHugh; likewise, I will not note an obvious historical reference merely because I did myself not know the historical details of the reference before seeing it in McHugh.) Note: a reference "McHugh" alone refers to the Annotations. References to McHugh's The Sigla of Finnegans Wake will be so identified.

With each page, I give link to same page on the Finnegans Wiki site. With that, you can get access to what references, etc., people have offered there in phrase-by-phrase interpretation. Note, however, it is a wiki: just because the information is offered does not make it good information. The ALP chapter of the Wake is prime demonstration. People have found the name of thousands of rivers hidden in the chapter: far, far more, it is assuredly true, than Joyce himself put in the chapter.

Finally, keep in mind this site is firstly my own notebook. Therefore I may give argument in support of something that someone else has already and more elegantly demonstrated or even to a point that is commonly held. But if there is an interpretive argument to make, there is no reason not to make it, simply so that the argument is present. Unlike with books, there are no paper costs to the internet: a person can spell out online what has to be edited out for sake of space in a book.