Oneiric Mappings and Wake-spaces in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake

In the Saint-Sage debate¹ in IV.1, archdruid Balkelly likens space to “zoantholitic furniture,” suggesting an evolutionary progression “from mineral through vegetal to animal” (Joyce 611.14-15). This passage, informed by Irish philosopher George Berkeley and enacted by his intertextual counterpart – the “archdruid of islish chinchinjoss” – is multifaceted and evinces, inter alia, James Joyce’s intricate treatment of both real and dream spaces. For the mythical archdruid, space transcends mere physicality, becoming a “Photoreflection and Iridals Gradationes” – a play on light and perception (Joyce 611.05). By echoing Berkeley’s esse est percipi philosophy, the archdruid provides a key insight into James Joyce’s construction of the dreamscape in Finnegans Wake. This conceptualization of space as perception is aptly applied to the dream-spaces in Finnegans Wake, where spatiality is fluid and ever-changing, reflecting the fragmentation of the dreaming mind. This study explores the spatial poetics of Finnegans Wake through the lens of spatial studies, focusing on the interplay between real and dream spaces. The Wakean dreamscape emerges as fluid, recursive and inherently tied to language, facilitating a volatile type of intertextuality, shaped by cultural memory and mythos.