"Allspace in a Notshall": Examining Bygmester HCE's Cosmopolitan City-Building in "Haveth Childers Everywhere"

Abstract

Space and place in Finnegans Wake are often studied within a universalist framework where specific geographical locations get little emphasis and the idea of ever-expansive and international space becomes predominant. Analyzing HCE's city-building in "Haveth Childers Everywhere" (FW 536.28-554.10) presents the opportunity of bridging the longstanding gap in Joyce studies between localism and internationalism. In this essay, I argue that, in "Haveth Childers Everywhere," HCE essentially builds a cosmopolitan city by carefully curating local details from a wide range of cities all across the world. Applying the lens of cosmopolitanism and departing from the internationalist and universalist framework enable us to analyze how HCE's city-building preserves the cultural particularity of local details and acknowledges their cultural difference without subsuming them in a homogenizing grid. The critical cosmopolitanism of HCE's city rejects the hegemony of colonialism and exclusionary nationalism and explores the socio-cultural complexities of local details without invoking binaries of parochial/global, center/periphery, or superior/inferior. Analyzing the construction of HCE's city facilitates the understanding of how he creates the ideal receptacle for the still nascent national and cultural identity of the Wakean consciousness.