Joyce Illustrates Finnegans Wake and HCE Goes Tomb-Hopping

Abstract

Chapter I.4 of Finnegans Wake was first published in the April-July 1927 issue of transition. Ten years later in a letter dated August 6, 1937, Joyce writes to his Dublin friend Constantine Curran, ‘‘I am trying to finish my wip [Work in Progress]. (I work about 16 hours a day, it seems to me) . . .’’ (LI 395). What Joyce was working on in 1937 and 1938 was the editing and proofreading of the galleys for Finnegans Wake, including I.4. As he proofread, he continued expanding and embellishing the text, inserting directly into the galleys new words and phrases, which he culled from the notebooks that he had been amassing since 1922. Joyce’s intention was to obfuscate his night book further by introducing references to various artworks, such as Rembrandt’s The Night Watch (Figure 1), with the phrase, ‘‘Wacht even!,’’1 (76.23). There are also references to Michelangelo’s Night statue (Figure 2) in the Medici Chapel in Florence. This latter work is suggested by the lyrics from the French song, ‘‘La femme à barbe,’’2 as well as by other phrases that Joyce added to the galleys in 1937–38. Using the images of these artworks, and the words associated with them, Joyce sends HCE on a path emulating that of the Egyptian god Osiris. To establish the context for these events, we should recall that at the end of chapter I.3 of Finnegans Wake, HCE has been barraged with insults (71.10–72.16); rumors of his illicit behavior and crimes fly indiscriminately. Under the weight of these assaults, HCE finally succumbs and ‘‘Sdops’’ (74.19), i.e., drops, stops. As John Bishop points out, when I.4 opens, HCE reveals a ‘‘stream of unconsciousness of a man sleepily dead to the world.’’3 He longs to be brought back to life, and Joyce portrays HCE seeking refuge in the Book of the Dead4 (BOD). This text was ‘‘believed to give the dead strength to resist the attacks of foes and to