Joyce-Pidgin-Man

Abstract

Abstract:Early twentieth-century research on pidginization had a profound, previously unstudied influence on James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. This influence was not only stylistic but also, more importantly, political. By following Joyce's growing fascination with pidgin languages and their formation from the earliest drafts of Finnegans Wake to its published version, one can discern in the work a more coherent, specific, and compelling linguistic and cultural politics than critics have previously noticed within it: an affirmation of provisional and instrumental forms of cross-cultural communication. Pidgins also provide a crucial link between the Wake's political dimension and its philosophical engagement with Giambattista Vico.