Life in Drama and Drama in Life: Exiles, a Transitional Joycean 'Play'

Placed between A Portrait and Ulysses, Exiles occupies a crucial position inside Joyce’s oeuvre and represents the author’s last work betraying an unconcealed autobiographical matter, which is here dealt with by means of a different literary form: drama. Life and drama have always been intermingled in Joyce's literary poetics, whose main tenet is an impersonal, dramatic representation of life. The form of drama implies a peculiar language which in Exiles, the only extant play by Joyce, becomes a means for artistic creation. This paper investigates how Exiles contributes to the author's progressive effort to reach a balance between his autobiographical inspiration and his eager attempt to express artistic impersonality. Once again in Joyce's work, the attempt implies a linguistic effort leading to a new artistic creation while taking advantage of the author’s previous stylistic modes. Joyce in Exiles applies the poetics of dramatic epiphany by developing it in the form of a play and paving the way to his future masterpiece, Ulysses.