Vico's New Science
Giambattista Vico's Scienza Nuova (The New Science, 1725) provides the structural framework for Finnegans Wake. Understanding Vico is essential to understanding how Joyce organized his book.
Who Was Vico?
Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) was a Neapolitan philosopher who proposed a revolutionary theory of history:
- History moves in cycles, not linear progress
- Each cycle has four ages
- Human consciousness evolves through these ages
- After collapse, the cycle begins again
Joyce discovered Vico through his friend Ettore Schmitz (the novelist Italo Svevo) in Trieste around 1905.
The Four Ages
Vico divides each historical cycle into four phases:
1. The Age of Gods (età degli dei)
| Aspect | Description |
|---|---|
| Government | Theocracy—rule by priests |
| Language | Hieroglyphic, sacred, mute |
| Thought | Poetic, metaphorical |
| Character | Fear of gods, thunder as divine voice |
Primitive humans heard thunder and believed the gods were speaking. Religion was born from fear.
2. The Age of Heroes (età degli eroi)
| Aspect | Description |
|---|---|
| Government | Aristocracy—rule by nobles |
| Language | Symbolic, heraldic, heroic |
| Thought | Mythological, legendary |
| Character | Strength, honor, warfare |
Heroes and aristocrats dominate. Society organizes around family patriarchs and warrior codes.
3. The Age of Humans (età degli uomini)
| Aspect | Description |
|---|---|
| Government | Democracy or monarchy—rule by consent |
| Language | Vulgar, vernacular, prose |
| Thought | Rational, philosophical |
| Character | Equality, reason, commerce |
Reason replaces myth. Language becomes abstract. Society becomes democratic but also decadent.
4. The Ricorso (Return)
| Aspect | Description |
|---|---|
| Government | Chaos—dissolution of order |
| Language | Breakdown of meaning |
| Thought | Confusion, barbarism |
| Character | Collapse, but seeds of renewal |
Civilization collapses into a "barbarism of reflection." But from the chaos, a new Divine Age emerges—the cycle repeats.
Vico and the Wake's Structure
Joyce maps Vico's four ages onto his four books:
| Book | Pages | Vico Age | Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | 3–216 | Divine | Parents, gods, origins, thunder |
| II | 219–399 | Heroic | Children's games, battles, lessons |
| III | 403–590 | Human | Shaun's democracy, sermons, decline |
| IV | 593–628 | Ricorso | Dawn, dissolution, return |
Book I: The Divine Age
- Opens with thunder (the first thunderword)
- HCE and ALP as primal parents/gods
- Origins, creation, the fall
- Religious and mythological themes
Book II: The Heroic Age
- The children (Shem, Shaun, Issy) compete
- Games and battles (The Mime of Mick, Nick and the Maggies)
- Lessons and legends (Night Lessons)
- Heroic conflict between brothers
Book III: The Human Age
- Shaun dominates—the "democratic" son
- Political sermons and rationalization
- Decline and disintegration (Shaun → Jaun → Yawn)
- The human age collapsing
Book IV: The Ricorso
- Dawn breaking
- ALP's monologue—dissolution into the sea
- The sentence that doesn't end
- Return to page 3—the cycle restarts
The Thunderwords as Vico Markers
Vico believed each age began when primitive humans heard thunder and interpreted it as divine speech.
Joyce marks transitions with ten 100-letter thunderwords:
| Thunder | Page | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | The Fall—Divine Age begins |
| 2 | 23 | Continuation of Divine themes |
| 3 | 44 | The ballad and scandal |
| 4 | 90 | — |
| 5 | 113 | — |
| 6 | 257 | Transition in Book II |
| 7 | 314 | Night Lessons |
| 8 | 332 | — |
| 9 | 414 | Book III—Human Age |
| 10 | 424 | 101 letters—cycle complete |
The tenth thunderword has 101 letters—the extra letter signals completion and restart. Total: 1001 letters (like the Arabian Nights—Alf Layla wa-Layla, "A Thousand Nights and a Night").
Vico's Theory of Language
Vico proposed that language evolved through stages:
Stage 1: Mute/Divine
- Gesture and hieroglyph
- Sacred signs
- Direct connection to gods
Stage 2: Heroic/Symbolic
- Heraldic imagery
- Metaphor and myth
- Poetry as primary mode
Stage 3: Human/Vulgar
- Prose and abstraction
- Rational discourse
- Everyday speech
Joyce's Application
The Wake's language contains all three stages simultaneously:
- Hieroglyphic symbols (the sigla)
- Poetic/mythic portmanteaus
- Vulgar/colloquial speech
The text is a linguistic archaeology.
"The Vico Road"
Joyce makes the Viconian structure explicit:
"The Vico road goes round and round to meet where terms begin." (p. 452)
This is both:
- A reference to Vico Road in Dalkey, Dublin
- A statement of the book's circular structure
The road/book goes "round and round"—it meets where it begins.
Vico and History
Against Linear Progress
Vico rejected the Enlightenment idea of linear progress. History doesn't improve—it cycles:
- Civilizations rise and fall
- What happened before will happen again
- The "new" is always a return
Corso and Ricorso
- Corso: The forward movement through the three ages
- Ricorso: The return, the collapse that enables renewal
Joyce embraced this cyclical view. The Wake doesn't progress—it recurs.
Vico and Joyce's Method
Repetition with Variation
Like Vico's cycles, the Wake repeats patterns with variations:
- The same story told many ways
- The same characters in different forms
- The same fall, the same rise
The "Eternal Return"
This connects to Nietzsche's concept: everything that happens has happened before and will happen again. Joyce found in Vico a philosophical justification for his recursive method.
Vico vs. Linear Narratives
| Linear Narrative | Viconian Narrative |
|---|---|
| Beginning → Middle → End | Cycle → Cycle → Cycle |
| Progress toward resolution | Eternal recurrence |
| Characters develop | Characters transform |
| Time moves forward | Time is circular |
| Death is final | Death enables rebirth |
Reading Vico in the Wake
Tips
- Note the book divisions — Each book corresponds to an age
- Listen for thunder — Thunderwords mark transitions
- Expect recurrence — What falls will rise
- Don't seek progress — The story doesn't "go" anywhere
Key Passages
- p. 3: First thunderword (Divine Age begins)
- p. 452: "The Vico road goes round and round"
- p. 628 → p. 3: The ricorso in action
Vico's Influence on Joyce
Joyce told his friend Frank Budgen:
"I would not pay overmuch attention to these theories, beyond using them for all they are worth."
Joyce used Vico pragmatically:
- As a structural scaffold
- As a philosophical justification
- As a source of metaphors
- Not as dogma
Samuel Beckett on Vico and Joyce
In 1929, Beckett wrote the essay "Dante... Bruno. Vico.. Joyce" for Our Exagmination:
"There is no difference, says Bruno, between the smallest possible chord and the smallest possible arc, no difference between the infinite circle and the straight line... The maxima and minima of particular contraries are one and indifferent."
Beckett connected Vico's cycles to Bruno's coincidence of opposites—both inform the Wake.
Further Reading
Primary Sources
- Giambattista Vico, The New Science (1725) — The Cornell paperback translation is standard
- Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress (1929) — Beckett's essay
Secondary Sources
- Donald Phillip Verene, Vico and Joyce
- John Bishop, Joyce's Book of the Dark
- FWEET — Search Vico references
See Also
- Giordano Bruno — The other philosopher Joyce drew from
- The Cycle — The Viconian motif
- The Thunderwords — Vico's thunder in the Wake
- The Fall — Each age begins with a fall