Editing Finnegans Wake (section)

=== Part I ===
{{quote box|width=23em|In the first chapter of ''Finnegans Wake'' Joyce describes the fall of the primordial giant Finnegan and his awakening as the modern family man and pub owner H.C.E.|source= –[[Donald Phillip Verene]]'s summary and interpretation of the ''Wake''{{'}}s episodic opening chapter<ref>[[Donald Phillip Verene|Verene, D. P.]]. ''Knowledge of Things Human and Divine'', p. 5</ref>}}

The entire work forms a cycle, the book ending with the sentence-fragment "a way a lone a last a loved a long the" and beginning by finishing that sentence: "riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs." Joyce himself revealed that the book "ends in the middle of a sentence and begins in the middle of the same sentence."<ref name="Joyce, Letters I, p.246">Joyce, ''Letters I'', p.246</ref> The introductory chapter (I.1) establishes the book's setting as "[[Howth Castle]] and Environs" (i.e. the [[Dublin]] area), and introduces Dublin [[hod carrier]] "[[Finnegan's Wake|Finnegan]]", who falls to his death from a ladder while constructing a wall.<ref>Finnegan is first referred to on p.4, line 18, as "Bygmester Finnegan"</ref><ref name="shorter">{{cite web|url=http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/fwake/shortwake.html |title=The Online shorter Finnegans Wake |access-date=19 November 2007 |publisher=Robot Wisdom |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071031033832/http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/fwake/shortwake.html |archive-date=31 October 2007}}</ref> Finnegan's wife Annie puts out his corpse as a meal spread for the mourners at his [[Wake (ceremony)|wake]], but he vanishes before they can eat him.<ref name="shorter"/> A series of episodic [[Vignette (literature)|vignettes]] follows, loosely related to the dead Finnegan, most commonly referred to as "The Willingdone Museyroom",<ref>Joyce 1939, [https://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-8.htm pp. 8–10] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081208124036/http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-8.htm |date=8 December 2008 }}, which presents a guided tour through a museum in the [[Wellington Monument, Dublin|Wellington Monument]], which commemorates Finnegan's fall, retold as the battle of [[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|"Willingdone"]] versus the [[Napoleon I of France|"Lipoleums"]] and "Jinnies" at [[Waterloo, Belgium|Waterloo]].</ref> "Mutt and Jute",<ref>Joyce 1939, [https://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-16.htm pp. 16–18] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081208123909/http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-16.htm |date=8 December 2008 }}, which describes a dialogue between respectively deaf and dumb [[indigenous peoples|aboriginal]] ancestors, who have difficulty hearing, seeing and understanding each other. Bishop characterises them as two prehistoric men who "babble and stammer imperceptively like [[Giambattista Vico|Vico]]'s men"; Bishop 1986, [https://books.google.com/books?id=QwTenyFeSeEC&pg=PT194&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 194].</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2342/is_n2_v28/ai_16528210/pg_1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080925002010/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2342/is_n2_v28/ai_16528210/pg_1 |url-status=dead |archive-date=25 September 2008 |title=The Mutt and Jute dialogue in Joyce's Finnegans Wake: Some Gricean Perspectives – author James Joyce; philosopher H.P. Grice |access-date=20 November 2007 |last=Herman |first=David |publisher=bnet Research Center |year=1994}}</ref> and "The Prankquean".<ref>Joyce 1939, [https://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw21.htm pp. 21–23] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019202303/http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw21.htm |date=19 October 2013 }}, which depicts Finnegan – under the name "[[Earl of Howth|Jarl van Hoother]]" – as the victim of a [[Gráinne O'Malley|vengeful pirate queen]], who arrives "three times at the Jarl's castle [..] each time asking a riddle and – upon the Jarl's inability to answer it – each time kidnapping a child, until the third visit results in a concession from the furious Jarl. Benstock 1965, p.268.</ref> At the chapter's close a fight breaks out, whiskey splashes on Finnegan's corpse, and "the dead Finnegan rises from his coffin bawling for whiskey and his mourners put him back to rest",<ref>Bishop, John; collected in ''A Collideorscape of Joyce'', p.233</ref> persuading him that he is better off where he is.<ref>His mourners advise him: "Now be aisy, good Mr Finnimore, sir. And take your laysure like a god on pension and don't be walking abroad"; Joyce 1939, [https://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-24.htm p.24, line 16] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081208123950/http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-24.htm |date=8 December 2008 }}</ref> The chapter ends with the image of the HCE character sailing into [[Dublin Bay]] to take a central role in the story.

[[File:Anna Livia Plurabelle.jpg|alt=Figure of a young woman sitting on a slope with legs crossed. It is in the middle of a rectangular fountain, surrounded by flowing water.|left|thumb|150px|[[Anna Livia (Monument)|Fountain in Dublin]] representing Anna Livia Plurabelle, a character in ''Finnegans Wake'']]
I.2 opens with an account of "Harold or Humphrey" Chimpden receiving the [[agnomen|nickname]] "Earwicker" from the Sailor King, who encounters him attempting to catch [[earwig]]s with an inverted flowerpot on a stick while manning a [[tollgate]] through which the King is passing. This name helps Chimpden, now known by his initials HCE, to rise to prominence in Dublin society as "Here Comes Everybody". He is then brought low by a rumour that begins to spread across Dublin, apparently concerning a sexual trespass involving two girls in the [[Phoenix Park]], although details of HCE's transgression change with each retelling of events.

Chapters I.2 through I.4 follow the progress of this rumour, starting with HCE's encounter with "a cad with a pipe" in Phoenix Park. The cad greets HCE in Gaelic and asks the time, but HCE misunderstands the question as an accusation, and incriminates himself by denying rumours the cad has not yet heard. These rumours quickly spread across Dublin, gathering momentum until they are turned into a song penned by the character Hosty called "[[The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly]]". As a result, HCE goes into hiding, where he is besieged at the closed gate of his pub by a visiting American looking for a drink after hours.<ref>Benstock 1965, p.xvi. {{cite web | url= https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AJoyceColl | title = Benstock, Bernard / Joyce-again's wake: an analysis of Finnegans wake, p. xvi | last= Benstock | first= Bernard | publisher= The James Joyce Scholars' Collection}}</ref> HCE remains silent – not responding to the accusations or verbal abuse – dreams, is buried in a coffin at the bottom of [[Lough Neagh]],<ref>Burgess, Anthony, ''A Shorter Finnegans Wake'', p.17</ref> and is finally brought to trial, under the name Festy King. He is eventually freed, and goes once more into hiding. An important piece of evidence during the trial – a letter about HCE written by his wife ALP – is called for so that it can be examined in closer detail.

ALP's letter becomes the focal point as it is analysed in detail in I.5. This letter was dictated by ALP to her son Shem, a writer, and entrusted to her other son Shaun, a postman, for delivery. The letter never reaches its intended destination, ending up in a [[midden heap]] where it is unearthed by a hen named Biddy. Chapter I.6 digresses from the narrative in order to present the main and minor characters in more detail, in the form of twelve riddles and answers. In the eleventh question or riddle, Shaun is asked about his relation to his brother Shem, and as part of his response, tells the parable of the Mookse and the Gripes.<ref>Tindall, W. Y., ''A Reader's Guide to Finnegans Wake'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=dO2IrqURy8cC&pg=PT117&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false pp. 117–122].</ref>{{rp|117–122}}

In the final two chapters of Part I, we learn more about the letter's writer Shem the Penman (I.7) and its original author, his mother ALP (I.8). The Shem chapter consists of "Shaun's character assassination of his brother Shem", describing the hermetic artist as a forger and a "sham", before "Shem is protected by his mother [ALP], who appears at the end to come and defend her son."<ref>Fordham, F., ''Lots of Fun at Finnegans Wake: Unravelling Universals'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), [https://books.google.com/books?id=xiV0Vw1GeKsC&lpg=PA12&hl=cs&pg=PP33&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 33].</ref> The following chapter concerning Shem's mother, known as "Anna Livia Plurabelle", is interwoven with thousands of river names from all over the globe, and is widely considered the book's most celebrated passage.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=NBsOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA23 ''A Starchamber Quiry: A James Joyce Centennial Volume, 1882–1982''], p 23, Edmund L. Epstein, Routledge, 1982, {{ISBN|0-416-31560-7}}</ref> The chapter was described by Joyce in 1924 as "a chattering dialogue across the river by two washerwomen who as night falls become a tree and a stone."<ref>{{cite web | url= http://hjs.ff.cuni.cz/main/essays.php?essay=killeen | last= Killeen | first= Terence | title= Life, Death and the Washerwomen | publisher= Hypermedia Joyce Studies}}</ref> These two washerwomen gossip about ALP's response to the allegations laid against her husband HCE, as they wash clothes in the [[River Liffey]]. ALP is said to have written a letter declaring herself tired of her mate. Their gossip then digresses to her youthful affairs and sexual encounters, before returning to the publication of HCE's guilt in the morning newspaper, and his wife's revenge on his enemies: borrowing a "mailsack" from her son Shaun the Post, she delivers presents to her 111 children. At the chapter's close, the washerwomen try to pick up the thread of the story, but their conversation is increasingly difficult as they are on opposite sides of the widening Liffey, and it is getting dark. Finally, as they turn into a tree and a stone, they ask to be told a Tale of Shem or Shaun.<ref>cf Patrick A. McCarthy's chapter summary in Crispi, Slote 2007, pp. 165–6</ref>