their writing they find that they must also break up their verbal 
structures polysyllabically before the phonetic alphabet will 
apply to them. Reflection on this situation will help us to 
understand why alphabetic writing at first, and print later, led 
to the analytic separation of interpersonal relations and inner 
and outer functions in the Western world. Thus everywhere in 
Finnegans Wake  Joyce reiterates the theme of the effects of 
the alphabet on “abced-minded man,” ever “whispering his ho 
(here keen again and begin again to make sound sense and 
sense sound kin again)” (p. 121) and urges all to “harmonize 
your abecedeed responses” (p. 140).

     The new oil base for printing came “from the painters 
rather than the calligraphers,” and “the smaller cloth and wine 
presses embodied most of the features required by the printing 
press. . . . the primary problems of innovation centred around