Happy 347th Birthday to Giambattista Vico, the Italian philosopher whose Scienza Nuova inspired Joyce in his writing of the Wake.
His four-part circle of history: theocratic age, aristocratic age, democratic age, ricorso (return to the beginning), inspired the book’s structure and themes — as did his focus on the importance of thunder in said history. Witness: “a commodius vicus of recirculation” on page 3 and the ten hundred-letter thunderwords that ring throughout the book.
sum mer de le wake 