“Life we must accept as we see it” – A critical Reading of Joyce’s “Drama and Life”

Tarso Do Amaral De Souza Cruz

doi:10.37389/abei.v21i1.3252

Abstract

James Joyce’s fictional works have been vastly analyzed and discussed ever since the first decades of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, only recently there has been a consistent growth of the critical attention given to Joyce’s essayistic production. One of the most emblematic essays written by Joyce is “Drama and Life”, from 1900. It is precisely in this essay that Joyce introduces and develops concepts – such as Joyce’s concept of drama – that would eventually turn out to be of paramount importance to the unfolding and to the understanding of his work as a whole. This article aims to critically analyze “Drama and Life” and hopefully provide enough evidence to support the hypotheses that Joyce’s conceptualization of drama is based upon basically essentialist premises and that these very premises have foundational importance for the development Joyce’s fictional work. The ideas on Joyce’s essayistic output, as well as on “Drama and Life” itself, posited by Caetano W. Galindo, Richard Ellmann, Sergio Medeiros, and Andrew Gibson are used as theoretical basis for the development of the article.

Highlights

James Joyce’s fictional works have been vastly analyzed and discussed ever since the first decades of the twentieth century
In 1899, when Joyce was but a 17-year-old student at University College, in Dublin, he wrote an essay on the Hungarian painter Michael Munkacsy’s Ecce Homo. In this text – “Royal Hibernian Academy ‘Ecce Homo’” – Joyce presents his concept of drama for the first time, a concept of great importance for those interested in understanding Joyce’s ideas about art in general and, more about his own work as a whole
Writing about Munkacsy’s work, Joyce asserts that “the picture is primarily dramatic” (17) and explains that: “By drama I understand the interplay of passion; drama is strife, evolution, movement, in whatever way unfolded” (17)

Summary

Introduction

James Joyce’s fictional works have been vastly analyzed and discussed ever since the first decades of the twentieth century. In this text – “Royal Hibernian Academy ‘Ecce Homo’” – Joyce presents his concept of drama for the first time, a concept of great importance for those interested in understanding Joyce’s ideas about art in general and, more about his own work as a whole.

Objectives

Results

Conclusion