James Joyce and the Exilic Imagination

James Joyce left Ireland in 1904 in self-imposed exile. Though he never permanently returned to Dublin, he continued to characterize the city in his prose throughout the rest of his life. This volume elucidates the ways Joyce wrote about his homeland with conflicting bitterness and affection—a common ambivalence in expatriate authors, whose time in exile tends to shape their creative approach to the world. Yet this duality has not been explored in Joyce’s work until now.

The first book to read Joyce’s writing through the lens of exile studies, James Joyce and the Exilic Imagination challenges the tendency of scholars to stress the writer’s negative view of Ireland. Instead, it showcases the often-overlooked range of emotional attitudes imbuing Joyce’s work and produces a fuller understanding of Joyce’s canon.