The Fall and Rise of the Polis in Finnegans Wake

Abstract: This essay examines the role of the rise and fall of the Greek polis in Finnegans Wake . On the one hand, the Wake tells the story of the rise of the egalitarian polis as they traced a path from despotic kingship to oligarchic rule to democratic community. While the power of kings was diluted by such oligarchic offices as the polemarch and the archon, the power of the oligarchs was further diluted by strategi, hoplites, and the popular assembly. While those in favor of democracy attempted to find a mean between despotism and liberty in order to create a static state in equilibrium, various forms of excess made the achievement of this goal impossible. On the one hand, inequalities of wealth created conflicts within the polis; on the other, imperialistic ambitions created conflicts between various city-states. Joyce saw these catastrophic events as a sort of fortunate fall insofar as the fall of the polis freed the individual from state control and led to a flowering of Greek culture. He also suggests a comparable flowering of Irish culture after the political disaster of the fall of Charles Stewart Parnell.