Abstract

This dissertation proposes that the enigmas of Wakean language are shown to be more forthcoming when read against the linguistic philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. In Finnegans Wake, as in Wittgenstein, the existence of language leads to a view of the ethical as unutterable. While previous critics have discussed the impossibility of a final judgment in regard to truth, meaning, essence and origin in Finnegans Wake, none have recognized that which is most iconoclastic and difficult to accept, but which follows from all the others--the text's refusal to participate in ethical judgment. ;The argument is made that Joyce wrote a revisionist version of Genesis in which the metaphysical certainty and cosmic proportion of an Original Sin are transcribed as the arbitrary and contingent constructions of language. Earwicker's "sin in the park" and HCE's encounter with the Cad are shown to be but two versions of a single narrative that is representative of experience as a linguistic phenomenon. Incessantly reiterated and redacted, it is dubious, indecipherable and inconclusive--evil is no longer the Other, sin no longer has an origin, and value is not based on human standards. ;The first part of the dissertation is an historical review of the critical problems presented by Finnegans Wake and the ways in which still-puzzling aspects of the text suggest a connection to Wittgenstein's philosophy. The second chapter compares the ethical poetics of Finnegans Wake with the ethical position of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The third chapter discusses the relationship between language in the Philosophical Investigations and in Finnegans Wake. The fourth chapter is a close reading of passages from Finnegans Wake from the point of view of language in the Tractatus and Wittgenstein's later philosophy