A skeleton key to Finnegans wake

440 Pages·2005·15.198 MB·English

by  Joseph Campbell, Henry Morton Robinson

PHI ®S ACAD MY
EPH
3 1867 00137 2049
CAMPBELL
A [ SKELETON KEY TO
FINNEGANS WAKE
UNLOCKING JAMES JOYCE’S MASTERWORK
Mvi.'i'ioii'tjy ; Literature
$23.95 u-s-
C
ountless readers have begun Finnegans Wake
—James Joyce’s masterwork, on which he
labored for a third of his life—only to give up
after a few pages and dismiss this great work as a
“perverse triumph of the unintelligible.” Indeed,
when it was first published in 1939, the book was
met largely with indifference, as readers and critics
asked, “Why bother with a book that’s so hard to
read?” Five years later, in 1944, a young professor
of mythology and literature named Joseph
Campbell, working with novelist and poet Henry
Morton Robinson, wrote the first guide to entering
the fascinating, disturbing, marvelous world of
Finnegans Wake.
Although many explications of Joyces book
have been written since, none displays the lyrical en¬
thusiasm or passion that Campbell and Robinson
brought to their deciphering. Now this beautiful
new cloth edition joins the Collected Works of
Joseph Campbell series with a new foreword and
updates by Joyce scholar Dr. Edmund L. Epstein
that add the insight and context of sixty years of
Joyce scholarship.
Few early readers found themselves able to
work out the mythical and literary allusions that
Joyce drew on in Finnegans Wake, but for Campbell
it all made sense. Referring to the years he spent in
a cabin during the Depression reading book after
book of the Western and Eastern Canons,
Campbell explained, “Everything that Joyce w?"
writing about came straight out of what I’d be
immersing myself in during those five years in t
wilderness.” Page by page, chapter by chapter,
Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake outlines the ba
action of Joyce’s book, simplifi ' and clarifies t
complex web of images an \ ; os, and provid
an understandable, con tin,,; • nrative fro
which the reader can venture c\\\ her ow
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# OLIVER • WENDELL • HOLMES #
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LIBRARY
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This book is a 50th reunion gift
from the Class of 1926
ABBOT ACADEMY
in memory of
MISS BERTHA BAILEY
principal of Abbot Academy
1913-1935
VsStK-u |
A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake
Other Titles in the
Collected Works of Joseph Campbell
Thou Art That:
Transforming Religious Metaphor
The Inner Reaches of Outer Space:
Metaphor as Myth and as Religion
The Flight of the Wild Gander:
Explorations in the Mythological Dimension (Selected Essays 1944-1968)
Sake & Satori:
Asian Journals Japan
—
Baksheesh & Brahman:
Asian Journals India
—
The Hero’s Journey:
Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work
Myths of Light:
Eastern Metaphors of the Eternal
Mythic Worlds, Modern Words:
Joseph Campbell on the Art of James Joyce
Pathways to Bliss:
Mythology and Personal Transformation
More titles forthcoming
JOSEPH CAMPBELL
AND
HENRY MORTON ROBINSON
• A Skeleton Key to
Finnegans Wake •
UNLOCKING JAMES JOYCE’S MASTERWORK
Edited and with a new foreword by
Edmund L. Epstein
O JOSEPH CAMPBELL FOUNDATION
NEW WORLD LIBRARY
NOVATO, CALIFORNIA
AUG if 0 2005
-ia
v New World Library
X
14 Pamaron Way
Novato, California 94949
Copyright © 1944, 1961 by Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson, © 2005 by
the Joseph Campbell Foundation
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a re¬
trieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief
passages in a review.
Cover design by Mary Ann Casler
Text design and typography by Tona Pearce Myers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Campbell, Joseph, 1904-1987
A skeleton key to Finnegans wake / by Joseph Campbell & Henry Morton
Robinson.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-57731-405-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Joyce, James, 1882—1941. Finnegans wake—Handbooks, manuals, etc.
2. Psychological fiction, English—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 3. Dreams in
literature—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Robinson, Henry Morton, 1898-1961.
II. Title.
PR6019.O9F57 2005
823 .9X2-dc22 2OO5OO089O
First printing, May 2005
ISBN 1-57731-405-0
ISBN 13 1-57731-405-9
Printed in Canada on acid-free, partially recycled paper
Distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West
10 987654321
To
Jean and Gertrude
Two sparkling daughters of
Anna Livia Plurabelle
.
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