Charles Wheatstone And A Concertina In Joyce's "finnegans Wake

[StuartEstell]

James Joyce was known to be an enthusiastic musician - he was an accomplished tenor and pianist, and his work is full of musical allusion.

 

I began another voyage through the wonderful dreamworld of Finnegans Wake recently and was struck by a reference to Charles Wheatstone:

 

 

 

With a grand funferall. Fumfum fum-fum. 'Tis optophone which ontophanes. List! Wheatstone's magic lyer. They will be tuggling foriver. They will be lichening for allof. They will be pretumbling forover. The harpsdischord shall be theirs for ollaves. (p13)

 

According to various FW resources, Wheatstone's acoucrytophone resembled a lyre (I looked in vain for images or drawings of one online) - but given the general textual slipperiness of the Wake it's tempting to see the pulling and pushing of bellows in the phrase "tuggling foriver".

 

And 15 pages later, Joyce mentions the concertina when talking of Anna Livia:

 

 

 

She was flirtsome then and she's fluttersome yet. She can second a song and adores a scandal when the last post's gone by. Fond of a concertina and pairs passing when she's had her forty winks for supper after kanekannan and abbely dimpling and is in her merlin chair assotted, reading her Evening World. (p28)

 

Perhaps needless to say there's no further mention of either anywhere else in the book...