5p Review Jj

8/10/2019 5p Review Jj

1/6


2/6

COMPARATIVE LITERATUREOMPARATIVE LITERATURE

progressive disintegration of history is a quality of saigesse on the part of the

individual.

Archembault concludes

by

ranging

medieval

chroniclers into two distinct

categories.

Villehardouin, Joinville,

Basin,

and

Commynes,

the transcendental-

ists,

have

in

common

a sense of

time as

duration,

a

philosophy

of historical

process

and of

historical

complexity;

their works

serve

a

political

or moral

purpose.

Froissart,

Chastellain,

and La

Marche,

on

the other

hand,

are termed

phenomenalists.

Theirs is a linear

sense

of

time;

their

characters

do

not

evolve;

they

lack a

vision

of

historical

process; they

are

sensitive

to external

detail,

to

visual

beauty;

and

they

write for art and

glory.

If I

have

taken

pains

to

summarize Seven French

Chroniclers

chapter

by

chapter, it is in tribute to the author's seriousness and originality. This rather brief

volume

is

dense

in

ideas,

yet

clear

in

expository

style

and

structure.

Archambault

is

to

be

thanked,

first of

all,

for

demolishing myths

or

idees

recues:

old

notions

that

Villehardouin

and

Joinville

are

honest,

simple,

naive, and, therefore,

typically

medieval

storytellers;

or

that

Commynes

is no less

typically modern,

indeed the first

modern mind.

In

addition,

borrowing

both

from

the

space-time

configurations

of

Georges

Poulet

and

the

concern

for

mediavel

mentalites

of

the

new

historians

(Duby,

Le

Goff,

et

al.),

he

investigates

the inner

mind,

the

con-

sciousness,

of

figures

as

disparate

as

Joinville,

Froissart,

and

Commynes.

Not

only

does

Archambault reveal to us the

fascinating

Thomas

Basin;

on the

old,

tried and true

figures

he

always

has

something

new to

say

and

forces

us

to rethink

our attitudes

toward medieval

historiography

as a

whole.

It is

possible

that not all readers will be

convinced

by

Archambault's

associ-

ation

of the

phenomenalists

and transcendentalists to the

two

main

schools

of

medieval

philosophy,

the

nominalists

and

realists,

and

to

the Homeric and

biblical

literary

styles

posited

in Auerbach's Mimesis. Others

will continue

to

accept

Jean

Dufournet's

massive, highly

documented

interpretation

of

Commynes

the

destroyer

of

myths

in

preference

to Archambault's more conservative

estimate.

I am a little disturbed

by

what I

(perhaps falsely)

assume

to

be an

implicit preference

on

Archambault's

part

for Basin

and

Commynes

over

the

phenomenalists.

Froissart too

is

a

great

writer,

with his

own, unique,

unfor-

gettable vision and literary world. Perhaps Froissart's secret can be brought to

light by

relating

him to the tradition of medieval

romance

and narrative

allegory.

After

all,

he was also a

major

imaginative

poet,

the

disciple

of Guillaume

de

Machaut

in

his

dits and the author of Meliador.

These remarks

are not

meant

in

any way

to

denigrate

Archambault's

book.

Other

interpretations

than

his are

possible,

and more work

always

remains to be

done.

But

what

Archambault has done is well

done. As it stands

Seven

French

Chroniclers

is an

important

contribution to our field.

No

one

working

on

the

medieval

French historians

can afford to

neglect

it.

WILLIAM

CALIN

University

of Oregon

JAMES

JOYCE

AND

POETIC DENTITY:A REVIEW

OF

The Exile

of

James

Joyce.

By

Helene Cixous.

Translated

by

Sally

A.

J.

Purcell.

New

York:

David Lewis

1972,

756

p.

The

Exile

of

James

Joyce

is

an ambitious

work.

It

is first

an

introduction

to

Joyce-a

chronological

study

of

the interrelations

among

his

private

life

and

184

progressive disintegration of history is a quality of saigesse on the part of the

individual.

Archembault concludes

by

ranging

medieval

chroniclers into two distinct

categories.

Villehardouin, Joinville,

Basin,

and

Commynes,

the transcendental-

ists,

have

in

common

a sense of

time as

duration,

a

philosophy

of historical

process

and of

historical

complexity;

their works

serve

a

political

or moral

purpose.

Froissart,

Chastellain,

and La

Marche,

on

the other

hand,

are termed

phenomenalists.

Theirs is a linear

sense

of

time;

their

characters

do

not

evolve;

they

lack a

vision

of

historical

process; they

are

sensitive

to external

detail,

to

visual

beauty;

and

they

write for art and

glory.

If I

have

taken

pains

to

summarize Seven French

Chroniclers

chapter

by

chapter, it is in tribute to the author's seriousness and originality. This rather brief

volume

is

dense

in

ideas,

yet

clear

in

expository

style

and

structure.

Archambault

is

to

be

thanked,

first of

all,

for

demolishing myths

or

idees

recues:

old

notions

that

Villehardouin

and

Joinville

are

honest,

simple,

naive, and, therefore,

typically

medieval

storytellers;

or

that

Commynes

is no less

typically modern,

indeed the first

modern mind.

In

addition,

borrowing

both

from

the

space-time

configurations

of

Georges

Poulet

and

the

concern

for

mediavel

mentalites

of

the

new

historians

(Duby,

Le

Goff,

et

al.),

he

investigates

the inner

mind,

the

con-

sciousness,

of

figures

as

disparate

as

Joinville,

Froissart,

and

Commynes.

Not

only

does

Archambault reveal to us the

fascinating

Thomas

Basin;

on the

old,

tried and true

figures

he

always

has

something

new to

say

and

forces

us

to rethink

our attitudes

toward medieval

historiography

as a

whole.

It is

possible

that not all readers will be

convinced

by

Archambault's

associ-

ation

of the

phenomenalists

and transcendentalists to the

two

main

schools

of

medieval

philosophy,

the

nominalists

and

realists,

and

to

the Homeric and

biblical

literary

styles

posited

in Auerbach's Mimesis. Others

will continue

to

accept

Jean

Dufournet's

massive, highly

documented

interpretation

of

Commynes

the

destroyer

of

myths

in

preference

to Archambault's more conservative

estimate.

I am a little disturbed

by

what I

(perhaps falsely)

assume

to

be an

implicit preference

on

Archambault's

part

for Basin

and

Commynes

over

the

phenomenalists.

Froissart too

is

a

great

writer,

with his

own, unique,

unfor-

gettable vision and literary world. Perhaps Froissart's secret can be brought to

light by

relating

him to the tradition of medieval

romance

and narrative

allegory.

After

all,

he was also a

major

imaginative

poet,

the

disciple

of Guillaume

de

Machaut

in

his

dits and the author of Meliador.

These remarks

are not

meant

in

any way

to

denigrate

Archambault's

book.

Other

interpretations

than

his are

possible,

and more work

always

remains to be

done.

But

what

Archambault has done is well

done. As it stands

Seven

French

Chroniclers

is an

important

contribution to our field.

No

one

working

on

the

medieval

French historians

can afford to

neglect

it.

WILLIAM

CALIN

University

of Oregon

JAMES

JOYCE

AND

POETIC DENTITY:A REVIEW

OF

The Exile

of

James

Joyce.

By

Helene Cixous.

Translated

by

Sally

A.

J.

Purcell.

New

York:

David Lewis

1972,

756

p.

The

Exile

of

James

Joyce

is

an ambitious

work.

It

is first

an

introduction

to

Joyce-a

chronological

study

of

the interrelations

among

his

private

life

and

184

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3/6

BOOK REVIEWS

intellectual development, his oeuvre, and the sociopolitical situations of his time.

It

is also

a

highly

consistent

interpretation

of

Joyce-as-Poet,

one

which

usually

breaks

through

the mass of

conventional

attitudes

that have accumulated

in

Joycean

criticism. Cixous

develops

two

of

Joyce's

stated

relationships

with other

writers:

his

early

claim to be a

Marxist

and

his view

of

Aristotle

as a more

insight-

ful

and

influential

philosopher

than

any

modern. Cixous

uses

an

integration

of

Marxist

and

Aristotelian

perspectives

as an

inroad to

Joyce,

with considerable

success.

Joyce

was

profoundly

influenced

by

Aristotle's

concept

of

teleological

necessity.

In Aristotle's

conception,

the

human

begins

life

in a

purely

passive

potentiality-

he

contains a

mass

of

possible

actions

which

imply

different

possible

identities. To

act

consistently

is to actualize a set of

potential

actions, and so to actualize one of

the

selve's

potential

identities.

With

hindsight,

one

can define

a

present,

actualized

identity

as

the

sole

necessary one,

and define

the

unrealized,

erstwhile

alternative

identities

as

impossibles.

For Cixous as well as

for

Joyce,

it

is

crucially

im-

portant

that Aristotelian determinism

(necessity)

is,

like Marxist

determinism,

ex

post facto.

It is

only

after consistent

actions have been

made,

after

an

identity

has

been

thereby

realized,

that

we

may

call those

actions

and that

identity

neces-

sary,

and call

the

unrealized,

alternate identities

impossible.

Before

action,

we

may recognize

certain

potential

actions

and identities

as

being

more

probable

than

others,

but we cannot

regard

any

as

inherently

impossible.

At

any starting

point,

all

one's

potential

actions

and

identities

are

equally possible.

Joyce,

an

exceptionally

versatile

man

with

many

potential

identities-musician,

heretic,

priest, orator, political savior, poet-regarded

Aristotelian

teleology

as

highly

relevant to

his

own life. Cixous reflects

this

relevance

on the critical

level

by giving

her work

a

teleological organization:

she

studies

Joyce

in

relation to his

necessary

vocation,

Poet.

Making

use of

biographies, Joyce's

letters,

notebooks,

and

literary works,

she

develops

a

psychophenomenology

of

Joyce's gradually

actualized

poetic

identity.

She shows

that

Joyce's

poetic,

dis-

cursive,

and behavioral acts

are at

once:

(1) gradual

reinforcements

of

the

identity

Joyce

as

poet -the identity

which

we

may

now consider

to

be the

historically

inevitable one

for

Joyce-and (2)

diverse

denials of his

many

other

potential

identities.

Cixous

maintains that

Joyce's

fascination

with

Aristotle becomes

a

source

of

tremendous

anxiety

and

despair. Joyce

was haunted

by

the

following consequence

of Aristotelian

teleology: fully

to actualize one

possible

identity

is to

deny many

others.

The actualization of one

potential

self is

narrowing,

for

it

transforms one's

other

potential

selves into

impossibles. Throughout

his

productive years,

Joyce

is

both

totally

committed to the

poet's

vocation

and

painfully

aware

that

to

be a

poet

is not

to

be

a

complete musician,

patriot, lover, priest.

Cixous' central

argu-

ment is that

until

the

end of

his

life

Joyce's

self-awareness

remains

essentially

negative.

With the

achievement

of

new

creative

works,

to

perceive

himself

as a

poet

is

primarily

to

perceive

himself as alienated from

his

other selves.

In

order

to combat his own tendency to perceive his poetic identity negatively, Joyce

develops

cunningly defensive,

heuristic

assumptions

which

enable

him

temporarily

(for

the

duration

of a

new

composition)

to

regard

his

poetic creativity

as

a

purely

positive,

actualizing

process.

The Exile

of

James

Joyce

is a careful

study

of

the

different,

increasingly

sophisticated

defenses which

Joyce

needed in

order

to

create.

Cixous'

title

refers to

Joyce's

most basic

defense,

the stance

of Poet

in

Exile.

Because

of his

extreme

concentration

on

his own

poetry,

Joyce

becomes alienated

185



4/6

COMPARATIVE

LITERATURE

from

his

potential self,

from his

dream of

himself as

Ireland's

political

savior.

Joyce

transforms this alienation into

an

external

phenomenon,

and

plays

the

role

of

Irish exile. The

valuable

consequence

of

this role

is that

Joyce

does not

betray

enslaved

Ireland;

narrow-minded Ireland

foolishly

betrays

him.

So

alienation,

originally

a

self-inflicted

curse,

becomes

for

Joyce

a

cultivated

value,

a

mark

of

the

being

who

is

persecuted

because

of

his

superiority. (Joyce's

self-determined

stance,

the

exile,

is

interesting

in

that

it

provides

a

general

context

for a

type

of

behavior which

Ellmann

underscores

in

his

biography

of

Joyce: Joyce's

recurrent

tendency

to

interpret ostensibly

neutral situations

as

martyrdoms

and

perse-

cutions.)

However,

the

necessary construct,

the

exile,

is tenuous and

obviously

self-

deceptive. Joyce develops more subtly defensive forms for it, forms which allow

him

a

more

convincing

positive conception

of himself as

poet.

One

such

compli-

cated

defense:

Joyce

often reworks the

myths

and

dogmas

central

to

his

forsaken

identities into aesthetic

theories,

thereby

making

it seem

that

the

identity

Poet

is

larger

than,

and able

to

contain,

those

other forsaken

identities.

Joyce's

secular

recasting

of the

felix

culpa

doctrine both

represents

this defense and

develops

another.

The

fortunate fall is the

individual's

deliberate

rupture

with

the safe

identities

given by

church, nation, language;

the

rupture

allows

the

individual to

be

self-determining,

the artist of

his

own

life.

Joyce's

ability

to

transvaluate

alienation, then,

takes the

general

form

of

an

exile

complex.

For one so

painfully

aware that full

commitment to the

identity

Poet involves a denial of all other potential identities, exile is necessary; exile

justifies poetic activity.

To be

merely

an innocent

poet

is

still

to

reject

one's

potential

selves,

but to

be an

innocent

exiled

poet

is

to be

rejected.

Done

in

exile,

poetic activity

is

primarily self-sustaining,

not

self-destructive.

Cixous

claims

that

it

is

not

until

Joyce

extends

his defensive

exile

complex

to

his

relation with

the

English language

that

he is

able to

resolve

his Aristotelian dilemma in a

permanently satisfying

way,

and to

move

beyond

the

reactionary

pitfalls

of

his

earlier defenses.

That

Joyce's

alienation

from

English

(his

native

language,

yet

historically

a

language imposed

upon

Ireland

by

her

oppressors)

becomes,

paradoxically,

the

source

of

his

poetic power

is

a

commonplace

of

Joycean

criticism.

However, pre-

vious

critical

explanations

of the

relation

between

Joyce's

alienation

from

English

and

his

poetic

control of

English

are

usually

circular: because

a

poet (linguisti-

cally

sensitive), Joyce

resents

that his

native

language

is

also alien

(the language

of

oppressors);

he

resolves

this

problem

by

becoming

a

poet

(one

who has

detached control

of

his

native

language). Cixous,

by

discussing

Joyce's

exile

from

language

as

a

particular

case

of

his

defensive construct

Exile,

is

able

to

give

a more

penetrating analysis

of

Joyce's

linguistic

skill.

More

is

involved

in

Joyce's

linguistic

skill than

a

detached control

of

language.

For

one

who

strongly imagines

himself exiled within

his

language,

mere

poetic

control can

only

be

a

temporary

solace.

So,

his

sense

of

linguistic

exile

leads

Joyce

to

reconceptualize

language

itself.

Joyce develops

a

concept

of

language strikingly

similar

to

that

of a

contempo-

rary,

Walter

Benjamin:

different national

languages

are

equivalent

to

actualized

(hence

limiting)

universes;

however,

national

languages

arise

from

Language,

the human

power

of

articulation,

which

is an

ultimately

real,

infinitely

potential

universe,

containing

all

humanly possible

modes

and

categories

of

thought.

This

concept

of

language

as

an

infinite

universe

in which

categories

of

thought

are

never

inevitably

fixed

allows

Joyce

to resolve

his

Aristotelian

dilemma.

Although

186



5/6

BOOK

REVIEWS

commitment to one identity, the Poet, at first necessarily closes access to one's

other

potential

selves,

through

poetic

commitment

to

language

one rediscovers

all

potentiality.

The

poet

discovers

a

universe

in

which

all

potential

acts

and

identi-

ties

are

once

again

open, possible

forms

.

Cixous'

analysis

allows

her

to

characterize the source

of

Joyce's linguistic

power

quite

clearly. Referring

to

the

Scylla

and

Charybdis

chapter

in

Ulysses,

she observes

that The

matter

of

the

experience

is

communicated

in

a

language

which is itself the

illustration

and

the

explicit

judgment

of

that

experience.

Because

he is a

conventionally good poet

with detached

control over

linguistic

effects,

Joyce

is

able

fully

to manifest

( illustrate )

an

experience

in

language.

Because

Joyce

also

views

language

as

an

infinite universe

of

thought,

he

is

able

simultaneously to judge that experience linguistically. (This dual power is dif-

ferent

from

connotation,

ambiguity,

and semantic

tension;

it

is

the

complete

linguistic

actualization

of

irony.)

The

Exile

of

James

Joyce

is a

valuable

book,

relevant

beyond

the

specialized

sphere

of

Joycean

criticism. It

is

therefore

regrettable

that Cixous'

conclusion

is

much

weaker

than the

text

which

precedes

it.

The

conclusion,

a

conventional

general

appraisal

of

Joyce

and

his

work,

is

a

narrowing

distortion of

Cixous'

more

interesting

hypotheses

and

insights.

This

qualitative

lapse

seems

clearly

due

to a

conflict between Cixous'

theoretical and

practical

criticisms.

For

the

body

of

her

work,

Cixous' subtle

integration

of

Marxist

and Aristotelian

constructs

func-

tions

as

a

powerful

critical

method;

it

allows for

both

implicit

evaluation and

interpretive integrity. However,

Cixous bases

her

concluding,

explicit

evaluation

upon

a

seemingly

a

priori

commitment

to

Marx and

Aristotle,

to

the detriment

both

of

Joyce

and of her

preceding speculative interpretation

of

him.

Cixous

finds fault with

Joyce's

linguistic

resolution

of

his

Aristotelian

dilemma,

claiming

that his

concept

of

language

as the

universe

of

open

possibilities

is

a

formal

resolution

but an ethical

evasion. With

Finnegans

Wake,

she

contends,

Joyce merely negates

Aristotle's

concept

of

teleological

necessity. Finnegans

Wake

is

an

irresponsibly

infinite

work, generated by

a

paranoid

fear

of

fixed,

exclusive,

actualized

form:

The need to

speak,

to

hear

the

spoken

word with

the

assurance

that

he

was

alive-to

say merely

'I

am

he

who writes'-was

what drove

Joyce

to

seek out and invent a kind of writing that would not stop its evolution and

development

once the writer

had left

it,

which

would

continue

developing

be-

cause

it

contained

an

infinite

supply

of

meanings.

This

evaluation,

based

on

a

clever but

overly

pat

application

of

Aristotle to

Joyce,

is

itself

a

kind

of

Aristotelian

reversal. As

we read The

Exile

of

James

Joyce,

its

plot

line

seems

to be

tracing

Joyce's painful,

gradual

actualization

of the

poetic identity.

At

the

end

of

the

work,

we are

suddenly

asked to

realize that

Joyce

never

authentically

actualizes

his

identity;

that

Joyce

evades

his

problem by retreating

into the

infinite

realm

of

purely

passive

potentiality (language).

In

her

conclusion,

Cixous

ignores

the

fact

that,

according

to

Aristotle,

one

can

only

trace

a work's

necessary teleology

retroactively,

after

one

has

fully

compre-

hended the work's own last moment. Joyce's last moment as poet is Finnegans

Wake;

a

thorough

autonomous

comprehension

of

Finnegans

Wake

must

precede

an

attempt

to retraverse

chronologically

the

earlier

poetry.

Such

an

approach

is

particularly

crucial

for a

study

of

Joyce, who,

as his notebooks

reveal,

conceived

of each new work

as the

containing

and

transcending

form for the

previous

ones.

Cixous

does

not

give Finnegans

Wake

her

close

critical

attention

(save

in

her

brief

appendix)

;

she reads

it

only

in

terms

of

Joyce's

earlier

works.

Hence,

her

study

also

ignores

the

fact

that

Aristotle

is a

major

figure

in

Finnegans

Wake,

and

187



6/6

COMPARATIVE

LITERATURE

OMPARATIVE

LITERATURE

that his endorsement of the probable impossible (an alternative to actualized,

necessary

history)

is

therein

explicitly

seconded

by Joyce,

and

carefully

extended

beyond

aesthetics

to

ethics.

Moreover,

Cixous' conclusion

ignores

her

own

per-

ceptive

refutation

(early

in

Exile)

of the

view

that

Joyce

is

a

symboliste,

that

he

attempts

to create

infinitely suggestive

and elusive

literature.

(I

should

note that

Cixous

does

try,

albeit

unsuccessfully,

to

overcome

this

particular contradiction.)

A

priori

Marxism leads

Cixous

to

mistake

Joyce's

linguistic

stance

for

an

arrogant

escape

from

particularity,

a

cynical

disdain for the

historically

concrete.

This

appraisal

is odd

in that it

overlooks

a

basic

feature of

Finnegans

Wake,

namely

the

radically

referential

aspect

of that

work.

In

Finnegans

Wake

Joyce

refers

constantly

to

specific

situations

in

Irish

history

in

particular,

world

history

in general. Precise reference in Finnegans Wake always functions to supplement

Joyce's speculation

on

the

possible.

At each

point,

the

effect

is twofold: historical

reference concretizes

speculation;

speculation opens

and

evaluates

its historical

referent,

seeking

a

fuller

human

form

potential

to it.

Cixous'

sympathy

with

Marxism

prevents

her

from

seeing Joyce's

own.

By

the

time

he

wrote

Finnegans

Wake,

Joyce

had

incorporated

his

understanding

of

Marx's

insights

into

his own

poetics,

primarily

into his

notion,

the Ideal

Reader.

This

figure

is not an elitist

intellectual,

but

a

potentially

infinite

number of

active,

idiosyncratic,

independent

readers who conceive

of the absolute

in

human,

mundane

terms. The

quality

of

Finnegans

Wake

which disturbs

Cixous-its existence

as

the Book that

would

remain

alive,

ever-changing, moving,

ageing,

never

fixed

on the

page -

relates more to

Joyce's

view

of

his

readers

than

to a

personal

desire

for

infinity.

Joyce

thought

of

Finnegans

Wake

as

a

partnership,

a

joint

act

of

reciprocal

imaginative

love

and

wit,

between

himself

and the Ideal Reader

(however

many

He

be).

I

do not want to

overemphasize

Cixous' conclusion.

She

provides

in the

body

of

her

work

much

original

material which

leads the active

reader

to

other,

more

consistently

original

evaluations

of

Joyce.

Indeed,

The Exile

of

James

Joyce

could have

a

highly

beneficial

impact

upon

present

criticism

of

Finnegans

Wake.

For

despite

Cixous'

own silence

on

that work's

referentiality,

her

study

of

Joyce's

language

is

a

valuable

starting

point

for

a fuller

comprehension

of his

ability

to

integrate referential and contextual poetic meaning-an integration operative in

Finnegans

Wake.

DENISE

E.

BLUE

University

of

California,

rvine

THE

BATTLE

OFTHE

BOURGEOIS:HE NOVEL

N

FRANCE,

1789-1848.

By

Priscilla

P.

Clark.

Paris:

Didier,

1973.

219

p.

The

primary

focus

of this

study

is

the

bourgeois

in French

fiction

between

1789

and

1848.

Equally

important

is

its

methodology:

it

attempts

a

sociological

approach

to literary problems. Clark aims at a middle range theory, not the comprehen-

sive

interpretations

of

the

grand theoreticians,

not

analyses

of

individual

works,

not

compilations

of data without

explanation

but rather some sort

of

limited

generalisations

which,

because

of

their

modesty,

will

be

more

solidly

established.

The works

of

Lukacs and

Girard

exemplify,

in her

view,

such

middle-range

theories

but

she dismisses

them

as

almost

entirely

formal.

By implication,

her

own work

will

emphasize

content. A

third,

closely

related aim

is

to

explore

the

critical

commonplace

whereby

the

novel

is

a

bourgeois genre.

Clark's

initial

hy-

188

that his endorsement of the probable impossible (an alternative to actualized,

necessary

history)

is

therein

explicitly

seconded

by Joyce,

and

carefully

extended

beyond

aesthetics

to

ethics.

Moreover,

Cixous' conclusion

ignores

her

own

per-

ceptive

refutation

(early

in

Exile)

of the

view

that

Joyce

is

a

symboliste,

that

he

attempts

to create

infinitely suggestive

and elusive

literature.

(I

should

note that

Cixous

does

try,

albeit

unsuccessfully,

to

overcome

this

particular contradiction.)

A

priori

Marxism leads

Cixous

to

mistake

Joyce's

linguistic

stance

for

an

arrogant

escape

from

particularity,

a

cynical

disdain for the

historically

concrete.

This

appraisal

is odd

in that it

overlooks

a

basic

feature of

Finnegans

Wake,

namely

the

radically

referential

aspect

of that

work.

In

Finnegans

Wake

Joyce

refers

constantly

to

specific

situations

in

Irish

history

in

particular,

world

history

in general. Precise reference in Finnegans Wake always functions to supplement

Joyce's speculation

on

the

possible.

At each

point,

the

effect

is twofold: historical

reference concretizes

speculation;

speculation opens

and

evaluates

its historical

referent,

seeking

a

fuller

human

form

potential

to it.

Cixous'

sympathy

with

Marxism

prevents

her

from

seeing Joyce's

own.

By

the

time

he

wrote

Finnegans

Wake,

Joyce

had

incorporated

his

understanding

of

Marx's

insights

into

his own

poetics,

primarily

into his

notion,

the Ideal

Reader.

This

figure

is not an elitist

intellectual,

but

a

potentially

infinite

number of

active,

idiosyncratic,

independent

readers who conceive

of the absolute

in

human,

mundane

terms. The

quality

of

Finnegans

Wake

which disturbs

Cixous-its existence

as

the Book that

would

remain

alive,

ever-changing, moving,

ageing,

never

fixed

on the

page -

relates more to

Joyce's

view

of

his

readers

than

to a

personal

desire

for

infinity.

Joyce

thought

of

Finnegans

Wake

as

a

partnership,

a

joint

act

of

reciprocal

imaginative

love

and

wit,

between

himself

and the Ideal Reader

(however

many

He

be).

I

do not want to

overemphasize

Cixous' conclusion.

She

provides

in the

body

of

her

work

much

original

material which

leads the active

reader

to

other,

more

consistently

original

evaluations

of

Joyce.

Indeed,

The Exile

of

James

Joyce

could have

a

highly

beneficial

impact

upon

present

criticism

of

Finnegans

Wake.

For

despite

Cixous'

own silence

on

that work's

referentiality,

her

study

of

Joyce's

language

is

a

valuable

starting

point

for

a fuller

comprehension

of his

ability

to

integrate referential and contextual poetic meaning-an integration operative in

Finnegans

Wake.

DENISE

E.

BLUE

University

of

California,

rvine

THE

BATTLE

OFTHE

BOURGEOIS:HE NOVEL

N

FRANCE,

1789-1848.

By

Priscilla

P.

Clark.

Paris:

Didier,

1973.

219

p.

The

primary

focus

of this

study

is

the

bourgeois

in French

fiction

between

1789

and

1848.

Equally

important

is

its

methodology:

it

attempts

a

sociological

approach

to literary problems. Clark aims at a middle range theory, not the comprehen-

sive

interpretations

of

the

grand theoreticians,

not

analyses

of

individual

works,

not

compilations

of data without

explanation

but rather some sort

of

limited

generalisations

which,

because

of

their

modesty,

will

be

more

solidly

established.

The works

of

Lukacs and

Girard

exemplify,

in her

view,

such

middle-range

theories

but

she dismisses

them

as

almost

entirely

formal.

By implication,

her

own work

will

emphasize

content. A

third,

closely

related aim

is

to

explore

the

critical

commonplace

whereby

the

novel

is

a

bourgeois genre.

Clark's

initial

hy-

188

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