Knowledge of Things Human and Divine: Vico's New Science and Finnegan's Wake
By Donald Phillip Verene

This is the first book to examine in full the interconnections between Giambattista Vico's new science and James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Maintaining that Joyce is the greatest modern "interpreter" of Vico, Donald Phillip Verene demonstrates how images from Joyce's work offer keys to Vico's philosophy. Verene presents the entire course of Vico's philosophical thought as it develops in his major works, with Joyce's words and insights serving as a guide. The book devotes a chapter to each period of Vico's thought, from his early orations on education to his anti-Cartesian metaphysics and his conception of universal law, culminating in his new science of the history of nations. Verene analyzes Vico's major works, including all three editions of the New Science. The volume also features a detailed chronology of the philosopher's career, historical illustrations related to his works, and an extensive bibliography of Vico scholarship and all English translations of his writings.

FINNEGAN'S WAKE
by James Joyce
http://finwake.com/ - site with annotations
More material concerning this book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegans_Wake
Finnegans Wake, named after a popular Irish street ballad,  published in 1939, is James Joyce's final novel. Following the publication of Ulysses in 1922, Joyce began working on Finnegans Wake and by 1924 installments of the work began to appear in serialized form, first under the title "A New Unnamed Work" and subsequently as "Work in Progress." (The final title of the work remained a secret between Joyce and his wife, Nora Barnacle, until shortly before the book was finally published.)
The seventeen years spent working on Finnegans Wake were often difficult for Joyce. He underwent frequent eye surgeries, lost long-time supporters, and dealt with personal problems in the lives of his children. These problems and the perennial financial difficulties of the Joyce family are described in Richard Ellmann's biography James Joyce. The actual publication of the novel was somewhat overshadowed by Europe's descent into World War II. Joyce died just two years after the novel was published, leaving a work whose interpretation is still very much "in progress."
BALLAD:
youtube video with the Dubliners singing it in a traditional way
lyrics