Shakespeare and Joyce: A Study of Finnegans WakeAfter God, Shakespeare created most, James Joyce wrote in Ulysses. The importance of Shakespeare in Ulysses has been often discussed and documented; that this royal bard is as central and omnipresent in Finnegans Wake has been roundly agreed upon by Joyce scholars, yet no printed volume has exhaustively investigated the topic. This study arrives, therefore, as a welcome and timely look into the assertion, as on critic put it, that "Finnegans Wake is about Shakespeare." "Throughout his life," Dr. Cheng writes, "Joyce was in the habit of comparing himself to England's national poet." In the Wake, Shakespeare--his life, his plays and his characters--forms a "dense and extensive matrix of allusion." Part I of this book provides a critical and interpretative view of how Shakespearean influences and allusions illuminate the themes and meanings of the Wake; the chapters are arranged to follow general patterns of allusion and motif. Part II comprises explications of a thousand Shakespearean allusions in Finnegans Wake, recorded by page and line of the novel. Finally, Part III is a set of appendixes which list the Shakespearean allusions by play, act, scene, and line for easy reference. |
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... Brutus ( including the fact that the name " Ham- let " has the same etymological significance as that of Brutus , both words meaning " doltish " or " stupid " ) , he maintains that Shakespeare's Julius Caesar reflects the same primal ...
... Brutus and Cassius ) , Margareen ( Cleopatra ) , and the deposed king , Caesar - or , in dairymen's terms , butter ( French beurre ) , cheese ( Latin caseus ) , and margarine . Brutus , Caesar's regicide , is " Burrus yet unbeaten as a ...
... Brutus , is not in our stars , / But in ourselves , that we are underlings " ( I. ii . 140–41 ) ; and , of course ... Brutus's motive : " Not that I loved Caesar less , but that I loved Rome more " ( III . ii . 21-22 ) . The echo of ...