“…In a letter to the London publisher Grant Richards, James Joyce defended the irreplaceable role of ‘Two Gallants’ in his short-story collection Dubliners (2006[1914]), claiming that ‘it is one of the most important stories in the book’ and that he would ‘rather sacrifice five of the other stories than this one’ (Gilbert, 1966: 62). Since its publication, this piece has stimulated discussions on the issues of multiple symbols and motifs, narrative strategies and ironic characterisation of the two ‘gallants’ (see, for instance, Benstock, 1994; Boyle, 1963; Callanan, 2011; Doloff, 2004; Duffy, 2017; Florence, 1965; Kerins, 2009; Litz, 1969; Norris, 1995). Moreover, it is also one of the most frequently mentioned Joycean texts in the field of stylistics, particularly by Kennedy (1982), Nørgaard (2003; 2007) and Toolan (2009).…”