Fragments of theatrical revelation: James Joyce’s Epiphanies

The essay proposes an approach to the Dramatic Epiphanies, Joyce’s early works, as self contained pieces of dramatic writing. The tools of conversational analysis are applied to the texts, which reveal the author’s grasp on dramatic dialogue, his exploration of the turn-taking system in a dramatic text, and his ability to construct minimal verbal interactions, no matter what the topics are. Irony and self irony are also detected as features of the Epiphanies, later to become the trademark of Exiles, his only extant play, and later Joyce’s narrative works.