Finnegan's Wake, The Song

"Finnegan's Wake, The Song" shows six scenes presented in irregular, rectangular compartments across the large sheet of paper. It is possible that there is a sequential order in which these vignettes may be read; it is also plausible that a few of the scenes represent events happening at the same time. Gourfain is known to depict simultaneous narratives in other works and is attracted to language - particularly the polyphony of overlapping conversation. In this sense the pictorial arrangement of the scenes not only relate to sound, narrative, text, and dialogue, they form a visual analogy to the stunning and complex use of language in James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake (1922-23), the book that inspired this print.