"Finnegan's Wake" is a ballad that arose in the 1850s in the music-hall tradition of comical Irish songs.
It is famous for being the basis of James Joyce's masterwork, Finnegans Wake, where the comic resurrection becomes symbolic of a universal cycle of life. Whiskey, which brought both Finnegan's fall and his resurrection, is derived from Irish uisce beatha (IPA: [ˈiʃkʲə ˈbʲahə]), meaning "water of life." So too, the word "wake" is both of a passing and of a new rising. Joyce removed the apostrophe in the title to assert an active process in which a multiplicity of "Finnegans," that is, all of us, wake, i.e., arise after falling.
It also featured as the climax of the primary storyline in Philip José Farmer's award-winning novella, Riders of the Purple Wage. The song is a staple of the Irish folk-music group, The Dubliners, who have played it on many occasions and included it on several albums.
No comments:
Post a Comment