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Edgar Quinet (1803-75) in Finnegans Wake

Jorn Barger October 2000

Aujourd'hui comme aux temps de Pline et de Columelle la jacinthe se plaît dans les Gaules, la pervenche en Illyrie, la marguerite sur les ruines de Numance et pendant qu'autour d'elles les villes ont changé de maîtres et de noms, que plusieurs sont entrées dans le néant, que les civilisations se sont choquées et brisées, leurs paisibles générations ont traversé les âges et sont arrivées jusqu'à nous, fraîches et riantes comme aux jours des batailles. (FW281)

Ellmann's translation: Today as in the time of Pliny and Columella the hyacinth disports in Wales, the periwinkle in Illyria, the daisy on the ruins in Numantia and while around them the cities have changed masters and names, while some have ceased to exist, while the civilizations have collided with each other and smashed, their peaceful generations have passed through the ages and have come up to us, fresh and laughing as on the days of battles.

Ingeborg Landuyt and Geert Lernout have shown that Joyce never read Quinet's own book, but instead found this quote (in March 1924) in Metchnikoff's La civilisation et les grands fleuves historiques. Their long essay exploring every aspect of this connection is online.

JAJ to HSW, 22Nov 1930: "E.Q. says that the wild flowers on the ruins of Carthage, Numancia etc have survived the political rises and falls of Empires" (L1-295).

Jacques Mercanton: the whole atmosphere of the Mediterranean is in [the Quinet quote], its ports, its flowers, the azure sky, the sun on the sea. In that passage Joyce felt at home. (WP239)

Quinet bios: [EB]; Romanian

Quinet quotes: 5 short, 3 lame


Wakean paraphrases

Clive Hart inventories these somewhere, probably Structure and Motif in FW, but I don't have that on hand so this gleaning is very preliminary-- please let me know what I've missed (you can use the suggestion box below).

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FW14-15 [qv]: Since the bouts of Hebear and Hairyman the cornflowers have been staying at Ballymun, the duskrose has choosed out Goatstown's hedges, twolips have pressed togatherthem by sweet Rush, townland of twinedlights, the whitethorn and the redthorn have fairygeyed the mayvalleys of Knockmaroon, and, though for rings round them, during a chiliad of perihelygangs, the Formoreans have brittled the tooath of the Danes and the Oxman has been pestered by the Firebugs and the Joynts have thrown up jerrybuilding to the Kevanses and Little on the Green is childsfather to the City (Year! Year! And laughtears!), these paxsealing buttonholes have quadrilled across the centuries and whiff now whafft to us, fresh and made-of-all-smiles as, on the eve of Killallwho.

FW236 [qv]: Since the days of Roamaloose and Rehmoose the pavanos have been strident through their struts of Chapelldiseut, the vaulsies have meed and youdled through the purly ooze of Ballybough, many a mismy cloudy has tripped taintily along that hercourt strayed reelway and the rigadoons have held ragtimed revels on the platauplain of Grangegorman; and, though since then sterlings and guineas have been replaced by brooks and lions and some progress has been made on stilts and the races have come and gone and Thyme, that chef of seasoners, has made his usual astewte use of endadjustables and whatnot willbe isnor was, those danceadeils and cancanzanies have come stimmering down for our begayment through the bedeafdom of po's taeorns, the obcecity of pa's teapucs, as lithe and limbfree limber as when momie mummed at ma.

FW253 [qv]: Nor that the mappamund has been changing pattern as youth plays moves from street to street since time and races were and wise ants hoarded and sauterelles were spendthrifts, no thing making newthing wealthshowever for a silly old Sol, healthytobedder and latewiser.

FW461 [qv]: ...for I always had a crush on heliotrope since the dusess of yore cycled round the Finest Park, and listen.

FW614-15 [qv]: Our wholemole millwheeling vicociclometer... receives through a portal vein the dialytically separated elements of precedent decomposition for the verypetpurpose of subsequent recombination so that the heroticisms, catastrophes and eccentricities transmitted by the ancient legacy of the past; type by tope, letter from litter, word at ward, with sendence of sundance, since the days of Plooney and Columcellas when Giacinta, Pervenche and Margaret swayed over the all-too-ghoulish and illyrical and innumantic in our mutter nation, all, anastomosically assimilated and preteridentified paraidiotically, in fact, the sameold gamebold adomic structure of our Finnius the old One, as highly charged with electrons as hophazards can effective it, may be there for you, Cockalooralooraloomenos, when cup, platter and pot come piping hot, as sure as herself pits hen to paper and there's scribings scrawled on eggs.


Textual

Landuyt and Lernout have reconstructed the sequence of variants that led to Joyce's specific misquotation of the text. I've highlighted the most important points:

Joycenote (VI.B.1 p84, March 1924):

Aujourd'hui comme au temps de Pline et de Columelle [ja] la jacinthe se plait dans les Gaules, la Pervenche en Illyrie, la marguerite sur les ruines de Numance et pendant qu'autour d'elles les villes ont changé de maitres et de noms, que plusieurs sont entrées dans le néant, que les civilisations se sont choquées et brisées, leurs paisibles generations ont traversé les âges et se sont succedé jusqu'à nous, fraiches et riantes comme aux jours des batailles. Edgar Quinet Introduction à la philosophie de l'Histoire de l'Humanité

Metchnikoff, La civilisation et les grands fleuves historiques:

Aujourd'hui, comme aux temps de Pline et de Columelle, la jacinthe se plaît dans les Gaules, la pervenche en Illyrie, la marguerite sur les ruines de Numance; et, pendant qu'autour d'elles les villes ont changé de maîtres et de nom, que plusieurs sont entrées dans le néant, que les civilisations se sont choquées et brisées, leurs paisibles générations ont traversé les âges et se sont succédé jusqu'à nous, fraîches et riantes comme aux jours des batailles.

Quinet, Introduction à la philosophie de l'histoire de l'humanité:

Aujourd'hui, comme aux jours de Pline et de Columelle, la jacinthe se plaît dans les Gaules, la pervenche en Illyrie, la marguerite sur les ruines de Numance; et, pendant qu'autour d'elles les villes ont changé de maîtres et de nom, que plusieurs sont entrées dans le néant, que les civilisations se sont choquées et brisées, leurs paisibles générations ont traversé les âges et se sont succédé l'une à l'autre jusqu'à nous, fraîches et riantes comme aux jours des batailles.



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FW reference: main : thunderwords : Quinet : ALP translations : search console : archetypes : digest : WakeOS
FW drafts: newgame : ROC : Kevin : Berkeley : T&I; : HCE : Cad kernel : Mamalujo : Revered letter : Pacata Aubernia
Shorter FW: contents : I.1-4 : I.5-8 : II.1 : II.2 : II.3-4 : III.1-2 : III.3 : III.4 : IV

Portrait:
etext: 1 2 3 4 5a 5b; main : ch1 notes : friends : Pinamonti : Stephen Hero : symmetry : prices

Ulysses:
chapters: summary : anchors : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12a 12b 13 14a 14b 15a 15b 15c 15d 16a 16b 17a 17b 18a 18b
notes: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
reference: Bloom : clocktime : prices : schemata : Tower : riddles : errors : Homeric parallels : [B-L Odyssey] : Eolus tropes : parable : Oxen : Circe : 1904 : Thom's : Gold Cup : Seaside Girls : M'appari : acatalectic : search
riddles: overview : Rudy : condom : Gerty : Hades : Strand : murder : Eccles
maps: Ulysses : WRocks : Strand : VR tour : aerial tour : Dublin : Leinster : Ireland : Europe
editing: etexts : lapses : Gabler : capitals : commas : compounds : deletes : punct : typists
drafts: prequel : Proteus : Cyclops : Circe
closereadings: notes : Oxen : Circe

Joyce: main : fast portal : portal
major: FW : Pomes : U : PoA : Ex : Dub : SH : CM : CM05 : CM04
minor: Burner : [Defoe] : [Office] : PoA04 : Epiph : Mang : Rab
bio: timeline : 1898-1904 : [Trieste] : eyesight : schools : Augusta
vocation: reading : tastes : publishers : craft : symmetry
people: 1898-1904 gossip : 1881 gossip : Nora : Lucia : Gogarty : Byrne : friends : siblings : Stannie
maps: Dublin : Leinster : Ireland : Europe : Paris : Ulysses
images: directory : [Ruch]
motifs: ontology : waves : lies : wanking : MonaLisa : murder
Irish lit: timeline : 100poems : Ireland : newspapers : gossip : Yeats : MaudG : AE : the Household : Theosophy : Eglinton : Ideals
classics: Shakespeare : Dante : Pre-Raphaelites : Homer : Patrick
industry: Bloomsday : [movies] : Ellmann : Rose : genetics : NewGame
website: account : theory : early : old links : slow-portal fast-portal

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