The Books at the Wake

Download or read book The Books at the Wake written by James S. Atherton and published by Southern Illinois University Press. This book was released on 2009-10-23 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Finnegans Wake Joyce uses world lit­erature, great and small, sacred and pro­fane, as one of the most important and frequent of his sources. Setting out to ex­plore these literary allusions, Mr. Atherton sheds a great deal of light upon other as­pects of Joyce’s work. Entire chapters are devoted to such major figures as Swift and Lewis Carroll, while less important influences are grouped together under such headings as “The Irish Writers” and “The Fathers of the Church.” He also sur­veys the various interpretations of Finnegans Wake, and makes use of the Letters of James Joyce and the manuscript of Fin­negans Wake in the British Museum.