Exiles: Literary Classics

by James Joyce

Overview

This is the only extant play by the great Irish novelist andis of interest both for its autobiographical content and for formal reasons. In the characters and their circumstances details of Joyce's life are evident. The main character, Richard Rowan, the moody, tormented writer who is at odds with both his wife and the parochial Irish society around him, is clearly a portrait of Joyce himself. The character of Rowan's wife, Bertha, is certainly influenced by Joyce's lover and later wife, Nora Barnacle, with whom he left Ireland and lived a seminomadic existence in Zurich, Rome, Trieste, and Paris. As in real life, the play depicts the couple with a young son and, like Joyce, Rowan has returned to Ireland because of his mother's illness and subsequent death.Though lesser-known, Exiles, written after Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and while Joyce was working on Ulysses, provides interesting insights into the development of the creative gifts of a literary genius.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781591020752
Publisher:	Globe Pequot
Publication date:	05/01/2003
Series:	Literary Classics
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	162
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.35(d)

About the Author

James Joyce (1882 - 1941) was an Irish novelist, short story writer, playright, and poet. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the twentieth century. He is the author of Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnigan's Wake, among other works.

Date of Birth:

February 2, 1882

Date of Death:

January 13, 1941

Place of Birth:

Dublin, Ireland

Place of Death:

Zurich, Switzerland

Education:

B.A., University College, Dublin, 1902

Website:

http://www.jamesjoyce.ie