David Hayman

A First-Draft Version of Finnegans Wake David Hayman

James Joyce's Finnegans Wake is a complex novel that blends the reality of life with a dream world. The motive idea of the novel, inspired by the 18th-century Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico, is that history is cyclical. To demonstrate this, the book ends with the first half of the first sentence of the novel. Thus, the last line is actually part of the first line, and the first line a part of the last line. The plot itself is difficult to follow, as the novel explores a number of fractured story lines. A First-Draft Version of Finnegans Wake sheds light on Joyce's intent through the development of the Finnegans Wake manuscript.