SOURCE: Williams, Raymond. “Exiles.” In James Joyce: New Perspectives, edited by Colin MacCabe, pp. 105–110. Bloomington, IN: The Harvester Press, 1982.

In the following essay, Williams examines Exiles as dramatic fiction.

This is a reconstruction of the later part of a lecture, the earlier parts of which were based on the essay The ‘Exiles’ of James Joyce, written in 1947 and now contained in Drama from Ibsen to Brecht (London: Chatto & Windu, 1968). An explanatory link has been written for the present publication.

The play Exiles has usually proved difficult for students of Joyce, and especially for those who are interested in the innovatory fictional methods which are of course his major achievement. I said most of what I thought could be said about the play in an essay written in 1947, though then as now not looking at the marginal and speculative relations between the play and Joyce's life and biography. But...