The Cycle

Finnegans Wake is structured around cycles—Giambattista Vico's ages of history, the water cycle, day and night, life and death. History doesn't progress; it recurs.

Vico's Four Ages

The book's structure is based on Giambattista Vico's Scienza Nuova (1725):

The Ages

Age	Italian	Character	Quality
1. Divine	età degli dei	Gods	Religion, fear of thunder
2. Heroic	età degli eroi	Heroes	Aristocracy, myth
3. Human	età degli uomini	Humans	Democracy, reason
4. Ricorso	ricorso	Chaos	Dissolution, return

The Pattern

After the Human Age, civilization collapses into chaos (ricorso), then returns to the Divine Age. History is circular, not linear.

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The Wake's Structure

Joyce maps Vico onto his four books:

Book	Vico Age	Content
I	Divine	The gods/parents; thunder; origin
II	Heroic	The children's games; battle
III	Human	Shaun's sermon; democracy
IV	Ricorso	Dawn; dissolution; return

The Chapters

Each book also contains internal Viconian structure:

• Book I: 8 chapters (divine themes)
• Book II: 4 chapters (heroic games)
• Book III: 4 chapters (human decline)
• Book IV: 1 chapter (ricorso, return)

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The Thunderwords

Vico believed each age began with thunder—primitive humans heard thunder and believed it was god speaking.

Joyce marks each Viconian transition with a 100-letter thunderword:

Thunder	Page	Transition
1	3	The Fall/Divine begins
2	23	—
3	44	—
4	90	—
5	113	—
6	257	—
7	314	—
8	332	—
9	414	—
10	424	Divine returns

The tenth thunder has 101 letters—the extra letter signals the cycle's completion and restart.

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The Circular Structure

The Wake famously ends mid-sentence:

"A way a lone a last a loved a long the" (p. 628)

Which continues on page 3:

"riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay..."

The Circle

• The book has no beginning or end
• Reading can start anywhere
• History repeats eternally
• Death leads to birth

The River

ALP (the Liffey) flows to the sea, evaporates, returns as rain—the water cycle mirrors the historical cycle.

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Day and Night

The Wake takes place during one night:

Time	Content
Evening	Book I — The fall, the wake
Midnight	Book II — The children's games
Deep Night	Book III — Shaun's watches
Dawn	Book IV — ALP's monologue

Every night is the same night; every dawn is the same dawn.

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The Family Cycle

The Earwicker family enacts the cycle:

Generations

1. Parents (HCE/ALP) — The old order
2. Children (Shem/Shaun/Issy) — The new generation
3. Future — The children will become parents

The Pattern

• The father falls
• The sons compete
• One son rises
• He becomes the father
• He falls
• Repeat

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Historical Cycles

Joyce embeds historical cycles:

Irish History

• Celtic → Viking → Norman → English → Republic
• Each conquest is a ricorso
• Each liberation is a new age

World History

Cycle	Rise	Fall
Rome	Republic	Empire collapses
Church	Medieval power	Reformation
Empire	British dominion	Independence movements

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The Coincidence of Opposites

Vico's cycle implies coincidentia oppositorum:

• Beginning = End
• Birth = Death
• Rise = Fall
• Shem = Shaun (eventually)

At the moment of collapse, the new age begins within the old.

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Bruno's Coincidence

Giordano Bruno (another Viconian thinker) proposed that opposites coincide:

"The minimum coincides with the maximum."

In the Wake:

• The oldest is the youngest
• The dead are the living
• The end is the beginning

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Reading Cyclically

Strategies

1. Don't seek progress — The story doesn't "go" anywhere
2. Expect return — What falls will rise
3. Notice echoes — Patterns repeat with variation
4. Read around — Start anywhere; return everywhere

The Experience

Reading the Wake is like living:

• Days repeat
• Seasons cycle
• Generations pass
• Something endures

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The Ten Thunderwords

The thunderwords mark transitions:

Number	Letters	Function
1–9	100 each	Mark Viconian phases
10	101	Completes the 1001 (Arabian Nights)

Total: 1001 letters — The number of Arabian Nights, suggesting infinite storytelling.

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Time in the Wake

Linear Time Rejected

• No clear chronology
• Past and future blend
• "Today" contains all days

Cyclical Time Embraced

• The same events recur
• Characters transform but patterns persist
• History is "a nightmare from which I am trying to awake" (Ulysses)

Eternal Recurrence

• Nietzsche's concept
• Every moment returns infinitely
• Accept and affirm

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Key Passages

The Opening/Closing

• p. 3: "riverrun..."
• p. 628: "the" → "riverrun"

Vico Explicitly

• p. 452: "The Vico road goes round and round to meet where terms begin."

The Thunder

• p. 3: First thunderword
• p. 424: Tenth thunderword

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Further Reading

• Giambattista Vico, The New Science (1725)
• Samuel Beckett, "Dante... Bruno. Vico.. Joyce"
• FWEET — Search Vico references

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See Also

• Vico's Influence — Fuller explanation
• The Thunderwords — The cycle markers
• The Fall — Each age begins with a fall
• The River — The water cycle