The Politics of Language Choice in Finnegans Wake

Abstract

In chapter 2, Mecsnóber situates Joyce’s subversion of normative monolingual language use in the context of the changing linguistic landscapes and policies of the wider European scene. In particular, Mecsnóber investigates the specific tension encoded in Finnegans Wake between the divergent linguistic politics of the two rival brothers, the postman Shaun and the writer Shem: the tension between idioms perfected, promoted, and prescribed as official national languages, on the one hand, and on the other, international auxiliary languages, often of mixed origins, that are not marked by a single political bias and are thus seen as neutral (such as Esperanto). Having sketched the symbolic role of the postal services as one of the first areas where the linguistic policies of the nation states of the new post-war Europe could be demonstrated, Mecsnóber reviews efforts to enforce a monolingual paradigm and efforts to promote the cause of international languages in a linguistically diverse environment. Mecsnóber argues that through its increasing commitment to linguistic diversity and multilingualism, the Wake echoes a disenchantment with the monolingual paradigm spreading in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, and challenges the linguistic inequality between fully empowered native speakers and disenfranchised others.