Finnegans Wake And James Joyce's Historical Solicitude

James Joyce was possessed by an unswerving devotion to his own art in fiction throughout his life. Although his genius in writing was often misunderstood in his times, nowadays, Joyce has been already considered as one of greatest novelists in the last century. Joyce's four works, short stories Dubliners and novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, demonstrated the process of literary development in in the first half of the 20th century. Especially his last work, Finnegans Wake, is considered as a bridge of modernism and postmodernism. The scholars and readers all over the world made significant progress in decades. The traditional studies of Finnegans Wake are mainly interpretions of word and expressions in the book. Some latter critics adopted Psychoanalytic Theory, Deconstruction Theory and Carnival theory to analyse Finnegans Wake. To understand Finnegans Wake from perspective of History, the author starts this thesis from the core of"Writing world history"and holds the view that Joyce has historical solicitude in Finnegans Wake. Therefore, this thesis attempts to interpret Joyce's historical solicitude in this book. Chapter I is mainly about the historic fragments and the world of history in Finnegans Wake. In this world of history, Joyce expressed grief and indignation for Irish historical wounds coming from being colonized and civil strife. Furthermore, with the vision of whole world, Joyce paid attention to history of other nations and expressed understanding and sympathy for Chinese history. Chapter II and Chapter III touch upon Joyce's devices of concerning history: the decentration of colonial history in language level and unravelling universals of historical development. The former part focuses on the language in Finnegans Wake. The decline of Ireland was ascribed to centuries'colonial rule of England. English language and English Literature destroyed language tradition and historical memories of Ireland. Joyce adopted language of Anarchism to disrupt orders of English language and literature. The latter part proceeds from the relationship between Finnegans Wake and La Scienza Nuova of G. B. Vico. Joyce tried to seek universals of various history and made use of Vico's theory to construct structure of Finnegans Wake. Two devices fit closely with each other and incarnate Joyce's historical solicitude in Finnegans Wake.