A Concordance to Finnegans Wake
A reference work to help the reader trace the symbolic and thematic development of the verbal motifs in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, this concordance contains a primary index of the 63,924 words in the vocabulary, an alphabetical list of syllables in the compound words, and a section listing some 10,000 English words suggested by Joyce’s puns and distortions. The primary word-index provides page-line references for every occurrence of all but a small handful of the most common English words. This is a full-scale work dealing with the language of Joyce’s last period, and much information gleaned from the Joycean research of the past ten years is gathered together in the volume.
This concordance, the first full-scale work dealing with the language of James Joyce’s last period, provides a finding-list and analytical index for his last work, Finnegans Wake. There are three parts: the first consisting of a complete alphabetical index to the vocabulary of Finnegans Wake, the second comprising a list of syllabifications (showing the inner parts of compound words), and the third providing a list of some 10,000 English words suggested by Joycean distortions.
The primary word-index, similar in most respects to those which have already been published for Joyce’s Ulysses and Stephen Hero, list in alphabetical order all of the 63,924 different words which make up the vocabulary of Finnegans Wake and provides page-line references for every occurrence of all but a small handful of the most common English words. Except for punctuation marks, every typographical unit in the book is accounted for, and each is listed just as it appears in the text.
The second on syllabification lists in alphabetical order the inner parts of over 10,000 complex words in Finnegans Wake which are built up out of simpler elements and which would be impossible to find from the primary index alone.
In the last section, called “Overtones,” the aim is to list the English words suggested by Joyce’s puns and distortions. Much information gleaned from the Joycean research of the past decade is gathered together here.