There are few things more synonymous with Ireland as a creamy, rich pint of Guinness. Plenty of time has been spent on James Joyce’s relationship with the black stuff, yet few have really considered just how much of a role Guinness plays in Finnegans Wake. Through dozens of allusions, references, and cunning puns, the pride of St. James’s Gate bears out an outsized presence through the dream-life of HC Earwicker, and for this special New Years Eve episode, Toby and TJ take a break from reading the Wake to clean a glass, pour to the harp, let it settle, top it off, then try to split the G. Our hearts are full, and our glasses are too: let’s raise a glass to Joyce, the Wake, and a potential future Guinness sponsorship for the podcast! Sláinte!

This week’s readers: Toby Malone, TJ Young

References:

FWEET: http://www.fweet.org/cgi-bin/fw_grep.cgi?srch=guinness&cake=&icase=1&accent=1&beauty=1&hilight=1&escope=1&rscope=1&dist=4&ndist=4&fontsz=100&shorth=0

Peter Chrisp on Joyce and Guinness: https://peterchrisp.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-frothy-freshener-james-joyces.html

Dannen, Catherine Gubernatis. “The Facts and Fiction Behind ‘the Free, the Flow, the Frothy Freshener’: The Guinness Company and the Story of Joyce’s Lost Ad.” James Joyce Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 4, 2011, pp. 711–26. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24598886. Accessed 20 Dec. 2024.

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