A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake James Joyce's Masterwork Revealed

by Campbell, Joseph; Robinson, Henry Morton; Epstein, Edmund L.

• ISBN13: 9781577314059
• ISBN10: 1577314050
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-06-16
• Publisher: New World Library

Summary

Since its publication in 1939, countless would-be readers of Finnegans Wake — James Joyce's masterwork that consumed a third of his life — have given up after a few pages and dismissed it as a "perverse triumph of the unintelligible." In 1944, a young professor of mythology and literature named Joseph Campbell, working with Henry Morton Robinson, wrote the first "key" or guide to entering the fascinating, disturbing, marvelously rich world of Finnegans Wake. The authors break down Joyce's "unintelligible" book page by page, stripping the text of much of its obscurity and serving up thoughtful interpretations via footnotes and bracketed commentary. A Skeleton Key was Campbell's first book, published five years before he wrote his breakthrough Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Author Biography

Perhaps most responsible for bringing mythology to a mass audience, Joseph Campbell’s works rank among the classics in mythology and literature: Hero with a Thousand Faces, the four-volume The Masks of God, The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, and many others. Among his many awards, Campbell received the National Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Contribution to Creative Literature and the 1985 Medal of Honor for Literature from the National Arts Club. A past president of the American Society for the Study of Religion, Campbell was professor emeritus at Sarah Lawrence College in New York until his death in 1987.

Table of Contents

About the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell	xi
Foreword and Editorial Note to the Collected Works Edition	xiii
Acknowledgments	xix
Foreword	xxi
Preface to the Compass Edition, 1961	xxv
Introduction to a Strange Subject	3	(12)
Synopsis and Demonstration	15	(22)
BOOK I: THE BOOK OF THE PARENTS
Finnegan's Fall	37	(16)
HCE---His Agnomen and Reputation	53	(10)
HCE---His Trial and Incarceration	63	(16)
HCE---His Demise and Resurrection	79	(16)
The Manifesto of ALP	95	(10)
Riddles---The Personages of the Manifesto	105	(16)
Shem the Penman	121	(10)
The Washers at the Ford	131	(12)
BOOK II: THE BOOK OF THE SONS
The Children's Hour	143	(20)
The Study Period---Triv and Quad	163	(32)
Tavernry in Feast	195	(50)
Bride-Ship and Gulls	245	(12)
BOOK III: THE BOOK OF THE PEOPLE
Shaun before the People	257	(12)
Jaun before St. Bride's	269	(18)
Yawn under Inquest	287	(34)
HCE and ALP---Their Bed of Trial	321	(14)
BOOK IV: RICORSO	335	(18)
Conclusion	353	(12)
Chapter Notes	365	(4)
A Joseph Campbell Bibliography	369	(4)
Index	373	(26)
About the Author	399	(2)
About the Joseph Campbell Foundation	401