Exiles (play) Exiles (play) Exiles is James Joyce's only extant play and draws on the story of "The Dead", the final short story in Joyce's story collection "Dubliners". The play was rejected by W. B. Yeats for production by the Abbey Theatre. Its first major London performance was in 1970, when Harold Pinter directed it at the Mermaid Theatre. In terms of both its critical and popular reception, "Exiles" has proven the least successful of all of Joyce's published works. In making his case for the defence of the play, Padraic Colum conceded: "...critics have recorded their feeling that ["Exiles"] has not
W. B. Yeats Nobel Prize in Literature. William Butler Yeats was born at Sandymount in County Dublin, Ireland. His father, John Butler Yeats (1839–1922), was a descendant of Jervis Yeats, a Williamite soldier, linen merchant, and well-known painter who died in 1712. Benjamin Yeats, Jervis's grandson and William's great-great-grandfather, had in 1773 married Mary Butler of a landed family in County Kildare. Following their marriage, they kept the name Butler. Mary was a descendant of the Butler of Ormond family from the Neigham (pronounced Nyam) Gowran branch. By his marriage, William's father John Yeats was studying law but abandoned his studies to study