Abstract
This article envisages the influence of the medico-cultural discourse contemporary to Joyce on his treatment of cognition in Finnegans Wake. Drawing on Samuel Orton and Lee Edward Travis’s theory of hemisphere lateralization, which it sees as illustrated in the characters of Shem and Shaun, it argues that stuttering is not only an idiosyncrasy of HCE’s, but the gate to a previously undiscovered poetic territory, as Joyce modifies the pathological deferral of meaning produced by stuttering into an epistemological quest for a new order of speech. Shem, in particular, is associated with writing, and his alleged infirmity, which is connected to memory through the amygdala, is read as a challenge to language itself.
The brain is wider than the sky.
(Emily Dickinson 598)
Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain,
Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain.
Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise!
(Samuel Rogers 9)
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Notes
- 1.
The theory of lateralization focuses on brain asymmetry—the way the two hemispheres differ functionally and structurally—, and how they participate in the cortical and subcortical circuitry underlying complex cognition (Hugdahl and Davidson 8).
- 2.
Current research distinguishes various forms of stuttering . That referred to by Freud is “psychogenic stuttering.” For a comprehensive account of the psychological implications of stuttering see Boberg .
- 3.
Important scientific discoveries in the history of neuroscience were made during this period, resulting in at least three Nobel prizes. In 1906 Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal were awarded the prize for their work on the structure of the nervous system , and in 1932 Edgar Douglas Adrian and Sir Charles Sherrington were recognized for their discoveries regarding the functions of neurones. Finally, in 1936 Sir Henry Hallett Dale and Otto Loewi were awarded the prize for their discoveries in the field of chemical transmissions and nerve impulses.
- 4.
David Spurr’s essay on “Stuttering Joyce” was published in Errears and Erroriboose as I was completing research for my own article in May 2011. I wish to thank him for his evocative and compelling reading of stuttering in Joyce’s writing, and in particular in Finnegans Wake , which confirmed some important aspects of my own investigations in the field of cognitive sciences.
- 5.
See for example “balbulous” (FW 4.30), “balbly” (FW 37.16), “Balbaccio, balbuccio!” (FW 45.34) or “tribalbalbutience” (FW 309.2).
- 6.
For further reading on stuttering and the Tower of Babel , see Atherton 174.
- 7.
For a more detailed description of qualia see Stubenberg 21.
- 8.
For an account of the influence of The Book of The Dead on the Wake see Atherton 191–200 and Bishop 86–125.
- 9.
See for example Atherton 172–3 and Spurr 126.
- 10.
Notably, Lewis Carroll , who is an inescapable reference point in the Wake , had a stutter and was left-handed. Carroll’s physical peculiarities were clearly a model for the character of HCE and his projections, in particular for Shem .
- 11.
It should be noted that cad, apart from being the short form of “cadet,” also means “a man who does not behave in gentlemanly manner towards others” (OED).
- 12.
Cf. Frye 45–6.
- 13.
Hayman speaks of a voice “buried in the nightmare of history” (Hayman 193).
- 14.
Notice that the midden is the same “place” in which the letter (mamafesta) had previously been recovered by the hen.
- 15.
See Theall on the technological transformations of HCE .
- 16.
In this regard something should be said about the question of left-handedness as it was studied in Joyce’s time. According to Broca , left-handedness would imply a hemispheric switch. Therefore, the dominant hand was considered a reflection of cerebral dominance.
- 17.
It must be said that broad generalizations are often made in popular psychology about certain functions (e.g. logic, creativity) being lateralized, which is to say, located in the right or left side of the brain . These ideas need to be treated with care, as certain specific functions are often distributed across both hemispheres . In this essay, reference is only made to what was believed about lateralization in Joyce’s time.
- 18.
In his essay “Hesitancy in Joyce’s and Beckett’s Manuscripts,” Dirk Van Hulle uses the expression “hesitancy” in reference to the Parnell scandal and the forged letters.
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Volpone, A. (2018). “[The] Buzz in His Braintree, the Tic of His Conscience”: Consciousness, Language and the Brain in Finnegans Wake . In: Belluc, S., Bénéjam, V. (eds) Cognitive Joyce. Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71994-8_13
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