트리스탄과 이졸데에 대한 네 사도의 변주: <피네건의 경야> 2권 4장 읽기 = Variations of the Four Evangelists (Mamaluju) on the Legend of Tristan and Isolde: A Reading of Book II, Chapter 4 of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The story of Tristan and Isolde is a well-known legend which has inspired western literature since the 12th century with its story of passionate love in a tragedy. James Joyce took the story and transformed it into a comic parody or pastiche in Book II, Chapter 4 of Finnegans Wake. The narrators of the story in Finnegans Wake are the four old men, Matt, Marcus, Lucas, and Johnny, who are collectively called “mamalujo”. They are the Four Evangelists, and they are also four secular historians. The voices and visions of the four old men reflect HCE’s mind since the four old men tell HCE’s dream of Tristan and Isolde.
The four old men’s story is the vulgar and comic account of the cuckolding of King Mark by Tristan and Isolde on board ship. Considering their senility and limited imagination, the four old men seem unsuitable as the narrators of Tristan and Isolde. Through their narratives, the romantic ideal is denied and the original heroic romance is shrunk into a comic story. In their narratives, the great medieval legend turns into a ridiculous pastiche, deflating all the passions and tragic dimensions of Tristan and Isolde’s romance. Still, Joyce chose the four old men to be the narrators of the story, and so there must be a reason for his choice.
Perhaps what Joyce is looking for in the story of Tristan and Isolde is the theme of displacement of the father by the son instead that of passionate and tragic love. The fact that a man goes to bed with his uncle’s(father’s)-King Mark’s(HCE’s) “Intended” can be interpreted as a generation struggle between father and son. When children grow to maturity, they threaten the older powers of the family. In the power struggle, the old Mark-HCE’s power is lost, and the young Shaun-Tristan triumphs. When the four old men mock King Mark’s sexual impotence, they hint at his loss of political power. The sexual action of Tristan and Isolde signifies a political action: the supersession of the father. The theme of “supersession” is found on the first page of Finnegans Wake with the reference to Sir Tristram. His name, Sir Armory Tristram, can be read as the intermingling of the two contradictory meanings of “armor” and “amour”, that is, of war and love. Sir Tristram, the sexually potent young hero, the great lover, rearrives from over the Irish Sea to fight his phallic war, the war on the old powers and the conquest of Isolde. Politics and sexuality are intermingled in the name of Sir Armory Tristram.

참고문헌 (Reference)

• 1 Glasheen, Adaline, "Third Census of Finnegans Wake" U of California P 1977
• 2 Joyce, James, "The Critical Writings of James Joyce" Viking 1959
• 3 Deppman, Jed, "How Joyce Wrote Finnegans Wake" U of Wisconsin P 304-346, 2007
• 4 Joyce, James, "Finnegans Wake" Penguin Books 1999
• 5 McHuge, Roland, "Annotation to Finnegans Wake" The Johns Hopkins UP 1980
• 6 Campbell, Joseph, "A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake" New World Library 2005
• 7 Joyce, James, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" Viking Press 1968
• 8 Epstein, Edmund Lloyd, "A Guide Through Finnegans Wake" UP of Florida 2009