Viconian notions in the narrative of James Joyce

Abstract

James Joyce's self-proclaimed admiration for Vico has inspired and justified a number of studies which, taking their cue from overt intertextual allusions and biographical evidence, try to account for the bizarre connection by focusing on the correspondences between the philosopher's complex theory of eternal historical cycles, and the novelist's parody of history represented in the cyclical patterning of Finnegam Wake. Often portrayed . as minds born out of their own time, Vico and Joyce remain highly controversial authors and, quite apart from the numerous Viconian echoes and important thematic parallels identified by Joyce scholars, their common theoretical and intellectual ground remains yet to be fully mapped out. The principal aim of this study is to review Vico's influence on Joyce's narrative in the light of the issues and the new concerns which recent Joyce scholarship has brought to the fore. Whilst not adopting the radical and formally defined positions of deconstructive criticism, the thesis draws on the recent work of a few eminent post-structuralist commentators whose precious insights into Joyce's world certainly warrant a re-evaluation of the novelist's indebtedness to Vico's thought, as it has been traditionally presented and understood. In the course of this research stress will be laid, less on the much publicised cyclical view of history, than on Vico's discussion of scientific method and his notion of Divine Providence. This notion will be seen to bear significantly on the problems of authorship and canonical authority which are so central to any narratological reading of Joyce. Chapter 2 of this study will attempt, therefore, to identify and better define those principles of Vico's Science that are most relevant to the arguments put forward subsequently. Joyce's reception of Vico's ideas, and the intellectual affinities that bind both authors will be the subject of chapter 3, whereas chapters 4 and 5 will examine, in the light of twentieth century artistic and ideological concerns, the narrative strategies and innovative techniques employed in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. The Verum Factum principle and the "theology of immanence" underlying Vico's theory of knowledge, will finally be seen to constitute an indispensable philosophical framework supporting Joyce' s most radical experiments with language and linear plot. In tum these experiments may be viewed in terms of the peculiarly modernist critique of canonical history and totalitarian discourse-a critique which motivates, partly, the complex narrative strategies of Joyce' s later fiction.