Toward a Digital Genetic Edition of James Joyce's 'Finnegans Wake' Chapter II.2

Abstract

This thesis is intended as a minor contribution to the broader discussion of digital textual editing. It uses a case study of James Joyce¿s creative process during the composition of Chapter II.2 of Finnegans Wake as a way to explore how computational methods may contribute to the old issue of handling textual matter. The thesis project has one objective but two parts: 1) theoretical: a genetic critical analysis of the chapter-in-progress, an overview of textual and other constituents of Joyce¿s compositional process and how they can be optimally rendered online; 2) empirical: a prototype of a digital genetic edition of a module of Finnegans Wake II.2 ¿The Letter¿ representing a ¿proof of concept¿ of the concluding work on the thesis.