Joyce’s Burns night : the poetry of Robert Burns in Finnegans wake

Abstract

This essay studies Joyce’s use of the poetry of Robert Burns in Finnegans Wake. The main works covered in this chapter are Burns’ poems ‘The Cottar’s Saturday Night’ which is used by Joyce in the ‘Fable of the Ondt and the Gracehoper’; ‘John Anderson, my Jo’, which is an example Joyce using Scottish literature to develop the theme of duality in Finnegans Wake and ‘Auld Lang Syne’, used by Joyce to deal with the passing of time and the forgetful situation of ‘the dreamer’. The essay provids close readings of a number of sections of Finnegans Wake which integrate Burns’ poetry and I discuss the role Burns and his work play in Joyce’s text.