Steffen Hantke 38 lagevoice.com/ film/ paparazzo-boy-meets-idealistic-girl-in-alien-love-storymonsters-6428872. MacNab, Geoffrey (2015). “Monsters: Dark Continent, film review: Random plotting and jarring changes in tone.” The Independent. May 1, 2015. [online] http: / / www.independent.co.uk/ artsentertainment/ films/ reviews/ monstersdark-continent-film-review-random-plotting-and-jarring-changes-in-tone- 10217090.html. Sciretta, Peter (2010). “How Gareth Edwards Shot „Monsters‟ On An Incredibly Low Budget.” Reels: blogging the reel world. June 3, 2010. [online] http: / / www.slashfilm.com/ how-gareth-edwards-shot-monsters-on-an-incredibly-lowbudget/ . Shaw, Lucas (2014). “„Godzilla‟ Screenwriter Explains Why There‟s So Little Godzilla in „Godzilla‟.” The Wrap. May 14, 2014. [online] http: / / www.the wrap.com/ godzilla-screenwriter-explains-theres-little-godzilla-godzilla/ . Tsai, Martin (2015). “‟Monsters: Dark Continent' leaves the original far, far behind.” L.A. Times. April 16, 2015. [online] http: / / www.latimes.com/ entertainment/ movies/ la-et-mn-monsters-dark-continent-review-20150417story.html. Steffen Hantke Sogang University English Department Joyce’s Finnegans Wake as a Cornucopian Text Antonia Zimmerlich In this article I argue that James Joyce‟s Finnegans Wake exhibits the features of a cornucopian text, as introduced by Terence Cave, which allows a more flexible and open interpretation of the text. Finnegans Wake has often been referred to as a text with endless possibilities of meaning, but the concept of the cornucopia provides a framework for examining how this potential for infinite generation of meaning is actually achieved. The idea of the cornucopia allows for the text to be interpreted without limiting or reducing it. Following Cave‟s description of a cornucopian text, this article argues that Finnegans Wake is a store of res and verba, with its richness of subjects, meanings and eloquent speech. At the same time, the text can be regarded as a source out of which even more res and verba can flow, as it encourages the reader to generate meaning by entering into a discourse with it. The article describes the Viconian structure of the text along with the abundance of res and verba executed in elocutio and inventio in the text as well as the potential for an endless verso-recto-recto-verso game, if the reader agrees to take part in it. Together, these aspects show that Finnegans Wake can clearly be classified as a cornucopian text, since it allows its reader to infinitely continue the game of generating meaning with perpetually changing results. 1. Introduction: Reading Finnegans Wake as a cornucopian text Finnegans Wake is arguably, as Begnal puts it, “the most experimental work attempted in prose fiction, and it will not yield to examination easily.” (Begnal xiv) The reasons for this difficult access lie in the very different style and content of Finnegans Wake in comparison to other books. In reading Finnegans Wake we are confronted with unfamiliar words combined with unintelligible sentences, so that our established ways of making sense of a text do not seem to work anymore. The text itself invites us AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 41 (2016) · Heft 1 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Antonia Zimmerlich 40 to „stop‟ and consider a different approach: “(Stoop) if you are abcedminded, to this claybook, what curios of signs (please stoop), in this allaphbed! Can you rede […] its world? ” (Joyce FW 18.17-19) The challenge already starts with identifying a clear plot or characters. While we can find the names of characters in the text, H. C. Earwicker and his wife Anna Livia Plurabelle, usually referred to as HCE and ALP, as well as their children Shaun, Shem and Issy, we can never be entirely sure who is speaking, who is part of a story and who or what a character stands for. Parts of a plot seem to shine through from time to time, but there are always so many other allusions that offer seemingly unrelated interpretations, resulting in a web of hints and references. For a long time after its publication research regarding Finnegans Wake focussed on solving the text‟s puzzles and discovering a coherent meaningful story within the text. In order to discover meaning, structuralism attempted to find answers in the underlying structure of the text as a whole and the formation of its language. Slote explains that structuralist readings either assume that “the work‟s holistic structure informs its meaning” or that “underlying and external (or hypostatic) linguisticocultural structures inform meaning.” Post-structuralist readings on the other hand “deform the very possibility of a univocal or stabilised meaning.” (Slote 73) But both structuralist and post-structuralist readings run the risk of restricting the text and “reducing Joyce to a singular determinant of meaning.” (Slote 72) However, reading Finnegans Wake as a cornucopian text allows the text to be read as a game without clear rules, which means that in the process of reading, meaning is flexible and depends on which rules the reader decides to follow. All at once meaning can be constructed and dispersed and structural or linguistic hints can be meaningful and immediately suspended. Cave‟s idea of the cornucopian text is not commonly used to examine Joyce‟s Finnegans Wake, although the metaphor of the cornucopia is often used to describe the impression of the text on the reader. Finnegans Wake has often been referred to as a text with endless possibilities of meaning and the concept of the cornucopia provides the framework for examining how this potential for infinite generation of meaning is actually achieved. The idea of the cornucopia allows for the text to be interpreted without limiting or reducing it. In this article I argue that Finnegans Wake exhibits the features of a cornucopian text, as introduced by Terence Cave. There are several aspects to consider for creating a complete impression of Finnegans Wake as a cornucopian text: the infinity of the text‟s structure, the abundance of verba and variety of style and the related res with its infinite number of connections and interpretations. The specific use of res and verba in Finnegans Wake invite, or even challenge the reader to take on this unusual experimental text. Only if the reader agrees to take part in the game Fin- Joyce’s Finnegans Wake as a Cornucopian Text 41 negans Wake offers, does this text stop being seemingly unintelligible nonsense and becomes a source for endless generation of meaning. 2. The cornucopian text as a textual principle In his book The Cornucopian Text - Problems of Writing in the French Renaissance Terence Cave examines the notion of the text as a cornucopia that provides an endless flow of language. His analysis starts from the roots of the concept of copia in classical texts and leads to the idea of the cornucopia in Renaissance writing. In this chapter I will briefly summarize Cave‟s observations on what constitutes a cornucopian text, which will provide key features for analysing Finnegans Wake. Cave describes the classical idea of the cornucopian text as “an ideally rich work of literature, a living and inexhaustible paradigm of the humanist encyclopedia” and that these texts “hold suspended an infinite potentiality.” (Cave 175) He counts for instance works of Homer, Ovid and Virgil as fitting this description, specifically Metamorphoses and the Iliad. The cornucopian text is, as Cave states, “a universal source” (Cave 176-77) the inexhaustibility of which depends “on the conservation of their potentiality for the production of meaning.” (Cave 176) It uses language to celebrate language and pretends to present infinity. Cave explains that the word copia, originating from ops, was first associated with “riches and a broad range of more general notions - abundance, plenty, variety, satiety, resources” but also with “eloquent speech (copia dicendi)”. (Cave 3) He therefore states that “in many of its senses, copia implies the notion of mastery” in a social or linguistic context. (Cave 3) At the same time the meaning of copia includes also “the place where abundance is to be found” and that copia argumentorum is a “„store‟ of arguments” rather than a quantity. (Cave 6) „Cornu-copia‟ (lat. cornu: horn) specifies where the concept of copia is practiced even further and adds the imagery of a source from which the store that copia represents can endlessly flow. The cornucopian text envisions a utopian wholeness, but this wholeness always remains ungraspable. It remains cornucopian only in its promise. Copia or copia dicendi, in its meaning of eloquent speech, alludes to the broad “ideal of „articulate energy‟” and a rich discourse. (Cave 5) Copia dicendi involves the duality of res and verba, in which res stands for things or subject matter, while verba refers to words. Res or „subject matter‟ can only be articulated through verba. The coalescence of res and verba can achieve an ideal discourse or “true copia.” (Cave 6) This abundance of language can be compared to poetry in its execution (as Cave points out regarding Erasmus‟ text), because it is not a linear and a direct transmission of information but “bring[s] to life […] the potential nuances of a Antonia Zimmerlich 42 single bare statement.” (Cave 25) It therefore should be treated like poetry or art. In the five canons of rhetorical education, generating res in the context of copia rerum belongs under the heading of inventio and generating verba as copia verborum belongs to the concept of elocutio. According to Cave, Agricola distinguishes inventio as dialectic and elocutio as rhetoric. (Cave 14) Both levels together achieve plenitude in a text: inventio involves developing subject matters and elocutio involves the style of presenting them. In Medieval Latin the meaning of copia as „copy‟ developed. Influenced through the tradition of manuscript copying, copia received the meaning of “endless repetition”. (Cave 4) Both contrasting meanings are still clearly visible in today‟s English in the words „copious‟ and „copy‟. An important distinction therefore has to be made between simple, monotonous repetition and “fruitful variation (varietas).” (Cave 22) In French renaissance texts by Rabelais and Ronsard the concept of cornucopia shifts. The idea of endless plenitude of the cornucopian movement is questioned, the cornucopia being presented as “full only of smoke and wind.” (Cave 173) This contrasting perspective emphasises the duality of „fullness‟ and „filth‟ in the cornucopian text: an endless flow of everything, without exception, good or bad. If we expect a text to contain cornucopian fullness, it necessarily has to include filth alongside everything else. The Joycean project of Finnegans Wake can be linked to the idea of the cornucopia in more than one way. Cicero and Quintilian use the word copia in the sense of acquiring a “hoard or treasure-house of res and verba.” (Cave 6) In his text Joyce treats res and verba in the same way: he accumulates a hoard of knowledge and subject matter as well as words. While there are repetitive themes in Finnegans Wake, they are always highly varied in their execution. The text follows Erasmus‟ example of prose being treated like poetry, emphasising the nuances of each sentence and leaving the linear composition of texts behind. Just as presented by Rabelais and Ronsard, Joyce constantly questions established ways of thinking about language. Finnegans Wake may seem like an endless flow of nonsense at first glance that provides us with nothing useful, but it is the reader‟s task to find meaning in it. 3. Cycles and infinity in Finnegans Wake A cornucopian text promises to contain everything and to provide the reader with a never-ending abundance of res and verba. But infinity would only be possible if there was no end to the text in question. To achieve this impression of endlessness the structure and content of Finnegans Wake are built around the idea of the cycle. This is why Vico‟s theo- Joyce’s Finnegans Wake as a Cornucopian Text 43 ry of cyclical history presents a major inspiration for Joyce‟s project. Because he “needed rather mechanical schemes to support [his] verbal elaborations,” (Litz 254) Vico‟s concepts were ideal for Joyce to build upon. They allowed him to give his text a loose structure without restricting his creativity. Joyce explains in one of his letters to Harriet Weaver that “I would not pay overmuch attention to these theories, beyond using them for all they are worth, but they have gradually forced themselves on me.” (Morse 2) In brief, in La Scienza Nuova Vico develops the concept that history is a cyclical process eternally repeating certain typical historical situations. (see Atherton 32) According to this theory society goes through three main stages (or ages) and a short fourth stage in a continual loop: the age of gods, the age of heroes and the age of men, followed by a brief reflux, usually called ricorso. 1 (see Hart 48) The course of this repeating cycle is always similar and offers no progress in the long run, but at the same time is never exactly the same. Finnegans Wake is structured into four main books, which roughly resemble the stages Vico developed. But Joyce worked with this concept creatively and used it merely as a framework for his structure, not as rules to adhere to. Vico was much more “a constant stimulus to his imagination,” (Litz 250) that allowed him to create a text that is endless in its structure and course but still offers more than just repetition. Vico and the idea of the cycles are referenced many times throughout Finnegans Wake, for instance when the flow of the text “brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs” (3.2) or “moves in vicous cicles yet remews the same.” (134.16-17) In the text we can find hints to the different stages of Vico‟s concept. For instance in Vico‟s concept the beginning of a cycle of human history is marked with the sound of thunder, out of which religion is born, regarded as a sign of the divine. In Finnegans Wake we can recognise this thunder in the hundred-letter words that appear repeatedly in the text. They resemble the sound of thunder, but at the same time the sound of a fall (3.14-15) or of someone coughing, (414.19-20) which gives them a different context each time. Joyce‟s use of the Viconian cycles was also inspired by Indian philosophy, as Hart explains. (49-50) These theories acted as inspiration for Joyce just as Vico did, without focus on accuracy or truth. The cycles of history in Indian philosophy use four ages instead of three. A connection 1 The age of gods is characterised by a theocratic society, centring on the divine, religion and baptism. The age of heroes is aristocratic, with focus on family, marriage and the heroic. The age of men is democratic, characterised by the human, reason and death. The cycle ends in anarchy and war, which leads society back to its initial state. (see Hart 48) Antonia Zimmerlich 44 to Finnegans Wake can be seen here because Joyce chose to give emphasis to the reflux phase of Vico‟s theory, creating a mixture of both theories. In Indian philosophy the moment of change from one cycle to the next is called „sandhi‟, which is a moment of great calm and silence and can be regarded as “the most important moment of all in the resurrection process.” (Hart 52) Right at the beginning of Book IV we are made aware that this stage begins by the exclamation: “Sandhyas! Sandhyas! Sandhyas! ” (593.01) In smaller cycles throughout the book this stage is represented by the word “silence.” (334.31; 501.6) As these examples show, Joyce plays with both concepts and creates his own interpretation of history and infinite repetition for Finnegans Wake: “down the gullies of the eras we may catch ourselves looking forward to what will in no time be staring you larrikins on the postface in that multimirror megaron of returningties, whirled without end to end.” (582.18-21) However, Joyce not only references the idea of cyclical history but even creates a loop out of the text itself, representing a cycle with no forced beginning and ending. By creating this loop Joyce allows the text to be read on and on without having to stop. Finnegans Wake therefore “literally acts out the Vichian ricorso” (Litz 252) that leads back to the beginning. We can see Book IV continued in Book I as indicated by the mid-sentence start. The last paragraph of the book, “Coming, far! End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thousendsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the” (628.13-16) reminds how far we have come and invites us to read it “again! ” by continuing with the text‟s first sentence: “riverrun, past Eve and Adam‟s, from swerve of shore and bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle Environs.” (3.1-3) The text starts off again mentioning Adam and Eve, and with this referencing the biblical beginning of humanity and the idea of the birth of mankind. Another metaphor for this infinitely repetitive structure is the cycle of night and day that occurs throughout the text: each day starts anew just like the one before, but still different, with no end in sight. The four chapters can be distinguished through their references to this cycle. At the end of I.8 references to the coming of darkness can be found; in Book II there are references to evening; Book III alludes to night and IV to dawn. The circular aspect of the text in the last and first sentence then indicates that it then has to start all over again, just like the never-ending and unstoppable rotation of the earth. With a variety of references and allusions the text constantly invites the reader to keep going and start all over again so that there is no end to the process of reading: “[t]he Vico road goes round and round to meet where terms begin. Still onappealed to by the cycles and unappalled by the recoursers we feel all serene, never you fret, as regards our dutyful cask.” (452.21-22) Joyce’s Finnegans Wake as a Cornucopian Text 45 Not only does Finnegans Wake present the cyclical idea in its main books, but, according to Tindall, also several times within Books I to III separately. The eight chapters of Book I are two cycles in themselves, as are the four chapters of Book II and III. Book IV is the reflux that leads back to the beginning. (see Tindall 72) Furthermore, cycles can be found in even smaller sections and “almost every page contains the whole.” (Tindall 72-73) Joyce creates cycles within cycles, which deepens the effect of a never-ending, infinite text. His text integrates smaller units within bigger units, and each is a cycle on its own and therefore infinite. However, as soon as we change perspective and observe the bigger framework we see that each cycle is part of another endless cycle. According to Litz, Joyce compresses these patterns to show that they can appear everywhere. A passage that contains such a compressed cycle is: “Teems of times and happy returns. The seim anew. Ordovico or viricordo. Anna was, Livia is, Plurabelle‟s to be.” (215.22-24) It contains references to Vico‟s order, the return of time and the recurrence of a character under different names. In just one short passage the whole is reflected. Finnegans Wake seems to contain “all marryvoising moodmoulded cyclewheeling history,” (186.1-2) not only as a whole but also within chapters, sentences and words. The impression we get through these cycles within cycles is described in the text itself: “solarsystemised, seriolcosmically, in a more and more almightily expanding universe.” (263.24-26) In this manner the text creates the effect of a spiral, leading the reader deeper and deeper into the text. It is not a simple circle, which would represent monotonous repetition (as in the meaning of copia as copy). The spiralling cycle offers something new (or varietas) to the reader each time. 4. Verba and the cornucopia of elocutio 4.1. Joyce’s use of verba In his De copia Erasmus places his discussion of verba before res, because verba forms the basic linguistic unit of the text and therefore has to “come first,” although emphasis should be on res. (Cave 20) Accordingly, the first thing that needs to be done when analysing a text is to examine its verba. In the case of Finnegans Wake, the first thing that stands out is that we are confronted with an unfamiliar use of language, which is why I will consider Joyce‟s use of verba and then move on to analyse the res. Ultimately, res and verba should form a unity that acts together in forming a text out of which meaning is to be generated. In his chapter on copia, Cave talks about the presence of res in the verbal sphere, attempting to represent reality in language. Because of their etymology and the contexts they are used in, we continually find Antonia Zimmerlich 46 new perspectives “to see the world through the lattices of language.” (Cave 29) Cave‟s observation shows how words are shaped through their history and use, which makes it possible for Joyce to change a word‟s meaning or allude to several things at once by connecting them in specific ways. 2 Even taking into account all the words and languages in the world, “they can reflect only fragments of the full richness of thought.” (Farbman 96) Finnegans Wake is a refusal to accept that thoughts can never be completely expressed in text. But to be able to do so, the scope of verba needs to be expanded. In Finnegans Wake sentences are constructed in an unusual and varied way, using different languages, styles and word creations. For instance thunder is a motif that comes up repeatedly, but the use of verba to represent thunder is always different. In 3.14-15 it is a combination of the sound of falling and thunder represented in language, beginning with “bababadal[…]” reminding of stuttering (which fits in with the theme of falling as well as drinking and Dublin‟s pubs) and then followed by a combination of words for thunder: i.e. Japanese kaminari, Hindu karak, Greek bronta ô and French tonnerre. In another instance in 414.19-20 the thunder is related to the sound of coughing with “husstenhasstencaffincoffin[…].” Because Finnegans Wake is plurilingual and even includes different historical stages of language we can never be sure if a foreign language could be at play when encountering an unknown word. The range of languages is so broad that a reader usually will not know all. Additionally, we can find a plenitude of creatively crafted words in the text that confront us with double meaning. For instance Joyce makes use of Lewis Carroll‟s invention of portmanteau words: combinations of morphemes blended together to form a new word. The portmanteau phrase “Saddenly now” (363.13) simultaneously suggests urgency as „suddenly now‟, sadness as „sadly now‟ or even reassurance with „certainly now‟ and the blend “chaosmos” (118.21) combines „chaos‟ and „cosmos‟ within itself. Another form of word creation in the text is the mondegreen, which invites mishearing of words when read aloud. For instance the phrase “venisoon after” (3.9) can be heard as „very soon after‟ or read with reference to „venison‟, which is linked with the biblical reference to “old isaac” (3.10) whose son Jacob is the “venison purveyor.” (McHugh, Annot. to FW 3) The „sigla‟ that can occasionally be found in the text (for instance 299.36) show particularly well how Joyce plays with verba. The sigla stand for a concept, character or entity that cannot be described more 2 Joyce was also inspired by Vico‟s theory of language and etymology, according to which “the course of history could be inferred from etymology since the story of man‟s progress was embedded in the structure of the words we use.” (Atherton 34) Joyce’s Finnegans Wake as a Cornucopian Text 47 aptly using language, so Joyce creates a whole new form of expression. 3 With these different word creations the variety of vocabulary in Finnegans Wake becomes endless, which shows that, as Begnal puts it, “Joyce has taken language as far as it can possibly go.” (Begnal ix) Moreover, there is a great amount of alliterations used, often to achieve connection but mainly for pleasure and amusement while reading and creating a flow of language: “And they leap so looply, looply as they link to light. And they look so loovely, loovelit, noosed in a nuptious night.” (226.26-28) It is clear that the language in Finnegans Wake is supposed to give pleasure to the reader through sounds and the experimental „fooling around‟ with words. The text can be read aloud without paying attention to meaning, just to enjoy the sounds of made-up words and alliterations. Specifically the final part of the book is characterized by fluid language. Book IV can be read as ALP‟s monologue (often interpreted as occurring while she is dying, but I would argue dissolving), offers the impression of her becoming one with the river Liffey flowing into the sea (she is both mère and mer). (see Norris 166) The language creates sounds of burbling water and rhythmic waves and the impression of echoes and fading whisper: “We pass through grass behush the bush to. Whish! A gull. Gulls. Far calls. […] Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thousandsthee. Lsp.” (628.13-15) Patell describes the impression of fluidity through language while reading as “a fluid place, where events and characters of the past and future are all intermingled drops in the flow of a continuous present” (Patell 9) or an eternal present that encompasses everything at once. The image of the river and the impression of fluidity embody Vico‟s concept of ricorso and present a connection to the image of the cornucopia out of which res and verba keep flowing with no end. The style of Finnegans Wake varies from narration (FW 30), to dialogue reminding of a play (16), song lyrics with sheet music (44), question and answer (139), articles with footnotes (260) monologue (619), lists of titles and names (104) and poetry (418). Constantly the text includes italics, capitalisation, changes in alignment (196) and even drawings (308) and diagrams (293). All of this provides even more richness and variation for the text. Style and form of narration changes so frequently throughout the book that Begnal describes it as “a cornucopia of narrational forms.” (Begnal 33) 3 In a few cases the sigla occur in the actual text (for instance FW 299.36) but Joyce mainly used them in his notebooks to refer to characters, or rather what they stand for. An in-depth study of the meaning of sigla can be found in Roland McHugh‟s The Sigla of Finnegans Wake. Antonia Zimmerlich 48 4.2. Cornucopia of elocutio The idea of „copia‟ with the meaning of copy is present in Finnegans Wake, but not only as a simple copy with repetition but full of variation (elocutio). While the historic cycle is repeated again and again in the text, its elocution constantly changes. Although there is no linear plot, the story of the family of HCE and ALP can be distinguished through repetition of hints throughout the book. Scenes, dialogues and rumours can be pieced together to form a story of this family, but all hints to this are versions of one another, which amount to a mass of stories with a mass of versions: “There extand by now one thousand and one stories, all told, of the same.” (5.28) What we as readers perceive is the blurred bigger picture: the presentation of a family through hundreds of small images of which none is trustworthy or definite. This story that is told over and over again can be regarded as a cornucopia of rhetoric or elocutio: it develops the same idea over and over using different words, producing a similar image that is always slightly different. In the text we can find stories about the same event (involving HCE and a possible scandal) of which we can never know the actual truth. Preparing to begin a never-ending variation of the same story, the text states: “Comes the question are these the facts of his nominigentilisation as recorded and accolated in both or either of the […] narratives.” (31.33-35) But right away the text lets us know: “We shall perhaps not so soon see.” (32.2) The rumours about Earwicker (HCE) that appear throughout Book I.2-4 depict in their progression the idea of fullness and filth of the cornucopian text. The first description begins with claiming, “the best authenticated version […] has it that it was this way.” (30.10) The initial endeavour seems to be “discarding once for all those theories from older sources.” (30.5) Therefore, many of the explanations and descriptions start with a variation of “[i]t has been blurtingly bruited by certain wisecrackers […]” (33.15-16) or “it is interdum believed […],” (33.34-35) yet they never yield a clear answer. The portraits of HCE we are presented with then develop with “increasing remoteness and unfamiliarity,” so that the distinction of a storyline becomes more and more difficult. (McHugh, The FW Exp. 19) Still, the telling of truth is emphasised in the text: “Leally and tululy” (89.36) and “Such as truly pearced our really‟s that he might, that he might never, that he might never that night. Triely and rurally. […] You have it alright.” (90.29-33) It is even demanded: “Now tell me, tell me, tell me then! ” (94.19) so that we are encouraged to keep reading in the expectation to find an answer in each following line. However, the text reminds us: “Somany Solans to talk it over rallthesameagain. Well and druly dry.” (94.27-28) The promise of a single complete truth is an illusion and we remember that we will never find it in this cornucopia of elocutio. Joyce’s Finnegans Wake as a Cornucopian Text 49 But the text carries on playing with the story: “And so they went on, the fourbottle men […] their anschluss about her whosebefore and his whereafters and how she was lost away away in the fern and how he was founded deap on deep in anear […].” (95.27-30) The arguing voices (often referred to as the four judges or pub goers, due to allusions to drinking) are “contradrinking themselves” (96.3-4) and the truth moves further and further away: “I differ with ye! Are you sure of yourself now? You‟re a liar, excuse me! ” (96.17-18) The distinction between the rumours and descriptions finally becomes so difficult that it is demanded to “bring the true truth to light,” (96.27) which is of course impossible in this text. The rumours and stories in this text are of a cornucopian dimension and could go on forever. They develop and transform from possible truth to more and more distorted versions, always circling around and playing with the truth, which we can never find. There is no end to this cornucopia of elocutio. 5. Res and the cornucopia of inventio 5.1. Res and inventio in Finnegans Wake The point of the creativity in production and invention of verba and its elocutionary use is particularly the creation of potential for as much res as possible, which will be examined next. Attridge states that the reader has to leave behind two assumptions about reading texts when reading Finnegans Wake: that a text exists so it can be mastered and all its secrets uncovered, and that the text‟s meaning is communicated by the text to a passive reader. (see Attridge 10) This book demonstrates that the meaning of any text depends on the reader. Finnegans Wake seems intimidating for anyone first confronted with it, because of its complexity and unintelligibility. The reader seems to need the knowledge of dozens of languages, history, philosophy, linguistics and so much more, but from a different perspective on the text‟s richness, Finnegans Wake actually offers “some familiar ground to walk on” (Attridge 9-10) to every reader. The book does not expect full expertise from its reader, but on the contrary promises pleasure no matter what the starting level is. However, this is only possible if the text truly offers an abundance of res. In the description of elocutio above, it has become clear that rhetorical and stylistic variation seems to be endless in Finnegans Wake. Additionally, we can find a plenitude of meanings (or inventio) within each variation. McHugh states “nearly everything in Finnegans Wake means several different things at once,” (McHugh, The FW Exp. 79) which means a decision on a specific interpretation can never be reached, creating a cornucopia of possible meanings. Antonia Zimmerlich 50 The character (or entity) HCE is referred to as “H. C. Earwicker” (33.30) and “Harold or Humphrey Chimpden” (30.20-21), but also referenced with “Here Comes Everybody” (32.18-19), “Howth Castle and Environs” (3.3), “Hear! Calls! Everywhaire! ” (108.23) and “H 2 C E 3 ” (95.12), but Joyce also summarizes the idea of this „character‟ with the sigla „ E ‟ turned on its side. Each one of these terms includes a relation to HCE, but also a great number of other connections. In each variation a whole different meaning can be found: one moment it is a reference to geography, and the next to psychology or history. Especially with the sigla the number of possible meanings is unlimited, because it leaves established letters behind and instead uses a symbol that has no previous res attached to it but has the potential to stand for anything. Bishop claims that for Joyce “every normal particle of language [is] inherently a quadruple pun of sorts,” (Bishop 210) because it conceals beneath its current denotation other meanings existent in its history. A sentence can be the starting point for the generation of res through its potential for connections of etymology, languages and double meanings. This can be demonstrated with almost any page in Finnegans Wake, but I will give only two examples. The passage “oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since devlinsfirst loved livvy,” (3.23-24) not only includes the image of the fruit lying in the grass, but also the colours as a reference to the orange and green factions in Ireland. The etymology of „orange‟ includes “the fruit which was first eaten” in Basque (McHugh 3) and appelsien in Dutch, which in its combination of „apple‟ and „sin‟ relates to „devlins‟ (devil) and back to “Eve and Adam‟s” in line 1, and therefore reminds of the original sin and the creation of humanity as a theme in the beginning of Book I. In the passage “encirculingly abound the gigantig‟s Lifetree, our fireleaved loverlucky blomsterbohm, phoenix in our woodlessness, haughty, cacuminal, erubescent (repetition! ) whose root they be asches with lustres of peins” (55.27-30) we can find a similar web of connected meaning. With the English word “phoenix” (55.28) in combination with “fireleaved” and “asches” there is the reference to the mythical bird from Latin phoenix, while “lifetree”, “bohm”, “roots” and “fire-leaved” also draw a connection to the Ancient Greek pho î niks referring to the date fruit and date tree. The Greek phoinos meaning „blood-red‟ connects “erubescent” and the image of the flaming phoenix with “lustres of peins”. There is also a connection to Phoenix Park in Dublin, which is mentioned several times in Finnegans Wake in reference to sin. Here “lifetree” together with “lustres of peins” hints again at the original sin, but in connection with “repetition” and “encirculingly” it reminds of the eternal life of the mythical bird, which draws a connection to the eternal repetition of history throughout the book. These images and themes can additionally be connected to other paragraphs in the book, for instance other allusions to Phoenix Park, repeti- Joyce’s Finnegans Wake as a Cornucopian Text 51 tion or original sin, which would lead us to even more subject matters. These two passages show how the text allows us to spin a web of connected references and allusions that seems almost limitless and produces a never-ending flow of res. But whatever we think we have „understood‟ when it comes to Finnegans Wake, the text reminds us of its own unreliability: “the learning [is] betrayed at almost every line‟s end.” (120.24) The point of reading Finnegans Wake as a cornucopian text is precisely its many meanings, options and possibilities, none of which can ever be proven as correct or incorrect. Books like Danis Rose and John O‟Hanlon‟s Understanding Finnegans Wake: A Guide to the Narrative of James Joyce‟s Masterpiece have tried to translate Finnegans Wake into a cohesive plot and to interpret the text with focus on the supposed characters. But with their attempt they force a single interpretation on a text, which has as many interpretations as it has readers. By ignoring the allusions, languages and double or triple meanings in the text, their interpretation obstructs the cornucopia of inventio. This goes to show that a text can only perform in a cornucopian manner if we do not try to force it into a certain number of interpretations, but play along with its potential to produce infinite possibilities. A text that at some point can be completely analysed and exhausted of all its potential cannot be cornucopian. Cave explains that “[o]nce the Metamorphoses, for example,  is  converted into a set of allegorical notations, its significance becomes finite.” (Cave 176) Because Finnegans Wake can never be broken down to a certain number of facts, meanings and interpretations, it can never become finite. 5.2. Finnegans Wake as a ‘growing’ text Even outside of the original text more res is produced in relation to Finnegans Wake. Joyce intended it to be a text that would be discussed and thought about. In a famous quote about the text Joyce states: “I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality.” (Ellmann 521) This statement seems to suggest that when we read Finnegans Wake, there are actual solutions to the puzzles we encounter. But it is part of these puzzles to discover that they have no solution, or rather not a single one. This is how Joyce can keep his readers busy: he ensures that we will infinitely wonder and guess and never stop discussing his text. The sheer amount of literature on Finnegans Wake shows that it is a text that actually produces more texts, because they keep discussing and quoting it. Texts are produced to understand the existing text, which creates a whole new discourse and involves the reader becoming a creator of meaning. This allows the original text to spread and grow through sec- Antonia Zimmerlich 52 ondary literature. Additionally, Joyce‟s notebooks and his letters as well as the footnotes that are added to the text create an even richer source, providing more material. One footnote or comment can lead the reader to the next. This is another instance in which the text has the effect of a cornucopia: a never-ending stream of text production, knowledge and discourse that is carried on and kept up as long as readers discuss and write about Finnegans Wake. The fact that each and every reader can reach different interpretations while reading shows that possibilities of interpreting this text are just as endless as the number of potential readers. Especially in group-readings one interpretation or opinion can trigger another, which effectively means meaning is created through discussing the text and ideas about the text arise from other ideas. This avalanche effect of Finnegans Wake very aptly presents the cornucopian aspect of the text. Whether Joyce intended this effect with all the allusions he included in the text is not the point, since, as Attridge puts it, he “created a text with the power to generate more meanings than he had in mind.” (Attridge 13) As a result, everyone who reads and discusses Finnegans Wake contributes to the meaning making process and generates more of it, in one way or another. It is an infinite discourse involving the reader, who further develops the res and verba found in the text. But not only does Finnegans Wake create new texts, it references earlier texts as well. In Atherton‟s The Books at the Wake: A Study of Literary Allusions in James Joyce‟s „Finnegans Wake‟ it becomes clear that this is a book created on the basis of intertextual relations to other books. The literary web of texts that Finnegans Wake spins therefore stretches not only to later texts, but to an even greater extent to earlier texts. 6. Finnegans Wake as a meaning making game 6.1. Selection and combination of verba and res After considering res and verba separately, I will now examine how they interact and form potential for meaning. The basic modes that are used to construct and understand linguistic messages are selection and combination. Roman Jakobson argues that texts are created through selection on a paradigmatic level 4 and combination on a syntagmatic level. 5 To create a text a writer is “by no means a completely free agent in his choice of 4 A specific set of words makes up a paradigm, from which a text is formed. By analysing the paradigmatic elements of a text we can reconstruct how the text takes on meaning. 5 A syntagm is an orderly combination of interacting signifiers made within a framework of syntactic rules and conventions, forming a meaningful whole within a text. Joyce’s Finnegans Wake as a Cornucopian Text 53 words.” (Jakobson 117) Words have to be selected from a range of lexemes that writer and reader have in common, which are combined into sentences. Usually we are limited by syntactic rules as to the combination. Transmitting information efficiently therefore demands that both sides share a common code and common rules. In Finnegans Wake Joyce leaves the established set of words behind and selects or creates words that are unknown to his readers. He combines them in a non-cohesive and unusual way. With this he breaks out of the established syntagmatic structure, which means the only way to give the text meaning is to analyse the paradigms that underlie the text. In such a paradigmatic reading a possible overall meaning can form through leaping from the meaning of one word to another. Finnegans Wake is not necessarily to be read in a linear fashion from the first page to the last. Its structure encourages the reader to go back and forth and jump between chapters, paragraphs and especially when reading with secondary literature that provides footnotes and references. Deleuze and Guattari introduce the metaphor of the rhizome, which can represent the non-linear organization of Finnegans Wake: “The rhizome itself can take on the most diverse forms, either branching out and spreading in every possible direction across the surface, or condensing itself into bulbs or knots. [...] Any given point of the rhizome can and must be connected with every other point.” (Deleuze and Guattari 7) This rhizomatic image is a fitting representation of the random organization of the text. While there is an underlying structure, as explained above, the web of signifiers still spreads in all directions. Parts of the text can be connected with unrelated parts in between, since each part can be connected to any other part, due to the rhizomatic structure. The text even encourages this, stating: “the words which follow may be taken in any order desired.” (121.12-13) There are references to Vico and history throughout the whole text. But in many cases allusions and images belonging to one isotopy are crowded in one page of the text (forming „bulbs and knots‟) or stretch through several chapters, connecting seemingly unconnected parts of the text. For instance imagery relating to dawn and daybreak accumulate in Book 4, the same counts for fluidity, water and river or sea imagery in Book 4. In Book I.5 the isotopy of writing and text production stands out. Sentences related to „finding the truth‟ stretch from Book I.2 to I.4, allusions to female anatomy and sexuality accumulate from 297.1 to 298.3 and also come up from time to time throughout the book. How words are combined and related is therefore the reader‟s decision and the meaning that is produced depends on whatever relations the reader decides to make. Antonia Zimmerlich 54 6.2. The Verso-Recto-Recto-Verso Game and the generation of meaning In Finnegans Wake Joyce disrupts our established way of reading and „understanding‟ texts. The book demonstrates that meaning is not inherently present in a text, but has to be generated by the reader. By naming non-existent things and using words that have no pre-established meaning, Joyce creates a text that is entirely dependent on the cooperation of his readers. His words only have meaning for his readers if they can attribute one to them. Finnegans Wake is not about presenting a story with a coherent plot but about forcing the reader to engage with the text and the text unfolding in front of the reader‟s eyes. It is an invitation not to rely on the printed word. In the text, „presence‟ or „truth‟ is denied through the plurality of possible interpretations. The text is not supposed to inform us. We should rather focus on the “how (and why)” or the “performative” aspect of the text. (Mahler 111) Mahler uses the idea of a verso-recto game to describe the interplay of syntactic material and corresponding meaning. This can be applied to Finnegans Wake as follows: while reading we convert the verso or syntactic material we encounter (ie. “a commodious vicus of recirculation” FW3.2) to semantic effects or a mental image of a recto (i.e. Vico‟s repeating cycle of history). In perceiving this recto, we can then re-convert the idea back to the syntactic formation of the text (for instance discovering that the text itself forms a cycle with its incomplete last and first sentence). (cf. Mahler 111-115) The game we play switching between syntactics and semantics, going back and forth from verso to recto and from recto to verso, makes us generate meaning with each conversion. The complexity of Finnegans Wake “holds open numerous entrances to the text, each of which will provide a thread of meaning” (Attridge 18) and once the reader has entered the text and follows a thread, the text will lead to another thread in the web of Finnegans Wake. It holds the potential for the reader to never find an exit and the reading and meaning making would never have to end. The book even refers to its own infinity that invites us to read it again and again: “as were it sentenced to be nuzzled over a full trillion times for ever.” (120.12) Obviously the cornucopian aspect here demands the active participation of the reader. According to Iser, texts trigger interpretation while reading and the reading itself becomes a performative act that develops both through the text and the reader‟s imagination. (see Iser 281-296) Through the reader the cornucopian performativity of the text actively produces the idea it is describing. The endless generation of meaning in a cornucopian text is only possible, if we decide to engage with it and to enter in the game we are invited to. Finnegans Wake offers the potential for the reader‟s endless meaning-making process through its cornucopian performativity. But right from the first page onwards it becomes clear that each reader has to decide individually how to approach this text. If we reject it as nonsense Joyce’s Finnegans Wake as a Cornucopian Text 55 right away, we will never be able to find any meaning in it. But if we accept the text as an intentional puzzle, we enter in a dialogue with the written word in front of us, aware that there might not be a solution. 7. Conclusion As mentioned at the beginning of this article, a truly abundant discourse is characterized by acquiring “a hoard or treasure-house of res and verba.” (Cave 6) This is clearly what Joyce has achieved in Finnegans Wake. It is a store of res and verba, with its richness of subjects, meanings and eloquent speech. At the same time, the text can be regarded as a source out of which even more res and verba can flow. Not only is the text responsible for the creation of a great amount of secondary texts, but it also encourages us to generate meaning in our own discourse with it. Finnegans Wake takes up the idea of endlessness and multiplication of meaning by providing infinite options of combination and relation between words and themes. Once we reach the last page of the text we are given the possibility to start all over again, through the text‟s cyclical structure. The repetition could be endless and never exactly the same. The Viconian structure along with the abundance of res and verba executed in elocutio and inventio in the text as well as the potential for an endless verso-recto-recto-verso game show that Finnegans Wake can clearly be classified as a cornucopian text. 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New York: Scribner. Antonia Zimmerlich Institut für Englische Philologie Freie Universität Berlin