Otto Jespersen at the "Wake": A genetic study of linguistic sources for "Finnegans Wake"

During the composition process of Finnegans Wake, James Joyce made extensive use of notebooks in which he collected material from miscellaneous sources, crossing out entries and inserting them into his drafts, creating an encyclopedic work of a highly complex nature. Genetic criticism, approaching the literary work as a process rather than a product, examines these sources, notebooks, and drafts to gain insight into the development and meaning of the work. Joyce read and took notes from Otto Jespersen's Language, Its Nature, Development and Origin in 1923, Growth and Structure of the English Language in 1924, and An International Language in 1938. Notes from each of these sources influenced the development of his characters and their language and the construction of the language of his book. Used and unused notes alike provide information about Joyce's interests and intentions.