Chapter 15 - Revisiting the Early Reception of Finnegans Wake in 1939

Summary

Finn Fordham’s chapter addresses the lacuna in scholarly considerations of the early European reception of Finnegans Wake by offering a cultural historiography that focuses on England, addressing its political landscape and specific cultural traditions. Examining the wartime diaries and letters of literary figures in the United Kingdom, it traces complex ideological responses to Joyce’s last text. In doing so, it outlines events that are seminal to the development of the Joyce industry in the United States; Fordham argues that the cultural vacuum in Europe produced by the war led to the conception of a “universal” Joyce. While early reviews in the Southern Review and the Kenyon Review saw the Wake as a perfectly “impersonal work” that inspired the development of New Criticism, this study will construct an alternative account of the impact of Wake. This account centers on readers who respond privately to the text in a time of global conflict and see within its polyphony a set of tacitly political practices.