Lips and Ships, Peers and Tears (2024)

The W. B. and George Yeats Library: A Short-title Catalog

2019

A Brief exploration of Yeats

2022

Beginning of Yeats: Introduction "Our thoughts are not, as we suppose, the deep but the foam upon the deep."-W.B. Yeats in his The Philosophy of Shelley's Poetry (1900) Symbols, in their exactness means the presence of a meaning which is more substantial than it seems on the surface and perhaps we owe it to symbols that there exist more than a singular meaning of the device that projects them. Uses of images and symbols are only one of the natural devices deployed in the art of poetry to reverberate and enhance the meaning of any piece of work into a non-linear one, to have multi-dimensional interpretations of it, ultimately to reach out to a broader audience with an even broader message. One of the most prominent and highly celebrated artists, who was the chief representative of the symbolist movement in English Literature, W.B Yeats has densely incorporated personalised symbols in his work in order to enhance the reality of present and mystery and richness of past. He uses an adapt arsenal of symbols across work that we shall try and map out while using the poems we have in our syllabus; No Second Troy (1916), The Second Coming (1920), Leda and the Swan (1924) and Sailing to Byzantium (1928) and some extensive investigation into the evolving author.

Yeats's Legacies : Yeats Annual No. 21

2018

Towards an Approximation of Yeats’ Poetical Landscape in His Early Poetry

2019

This article discusses the development of William Butler Yeats’ poetical landscapes, in his early poetry. Understanding Yeats’ definition of symbols and his relation to Symbolism through the works of William Blake, I will analyse four different musical symbols across a selection of five poems taken from Yeats’ first two collections— “The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems” (1889) and “The Rose” (1893). In this sense, I present a common line from these selected poems based on a mythological character travelling to an other-worldly island, where an imbalanced dialogue is maintained with fairies. In accordance with late-nineteenth century landscape perspective, the relationship between soundscapes and Yeats’ musical symbols will be examined. By doing this, I seek to interpret the convergence of Celtic imagery within the emergence of a magical soundscape. key words:W. B. Yeats, Symbolism, Celtic imagery, soundscape. 1 Francisca Fernández Arce (Chile, 1995) has a Bachelor’s degree in En...

The Politics of W. B. Yeats's Poetic Expression

Introduction William Butler Yeats is a name that is familiar to almost everyone. It infuses something great and splendid immediately after hearing it. Indeed, Yeats was considered one of the most magnificent Irish national poets of all time. He loved his country, and he was not afraid to show it through his poems and his political engagement. Living at a crucial period in Irish history, his poetry is linked to the struggle for national self-definition. He had a somewhat interesting life, as most poets do, however, what really strikes the most about him is his deep passion for mysticism and occult matters. Many of his poems are interwoven with some kind of mystic touch, no matter what the theme of his writing is. My own passion for astrology and occultism makes me sympathize with Yeats even more than I would, knowing he was a very good poet alone. He was a theosophist, and his belief in reincarnation and spiritual evolution could not be more in line with my own spiritual beliefs. The fact that he lived his life to the full, adorning his poetry with passion and energy, believing in the power of Irish people and Irish legends, and never giving in to the sorrows of his unrequited love for Maude Gonne, infuses a great respect and admiration for the poet on my behalf. He once wrote the following words: “What can be explained is not poetry”, and I believe it is much more than poetry that is impossible to explain about such an intricate and profound figure as W. B. Yeats. In spite of my deep interest in occultism, this paper is predominately focused on Yeats’s political and public engagement and how his deep passion for Ireland is reflected in his work. Further, I explain the political background in the world at the time and how it might influence the situation in Ireland, as well as Yeats’s personal attitude towards the events taking place in his country. Finally, I focus on Yeats’s political views as they are presented in his poetical expression and analyze one of his greatest works, Easter 1916.

“W. B. Yeats and the Turbulent Lives of Painted Horses.”

Yeats Annual 17 (2007): 37-50.

W. B. Yeats: A Vision: The Revised 1937 Edition (2015)

2015

Review of new annotated edition of A Vision (1937), Particular attention is devoted to the introductory section, "A Packet for Ezra Pound", its composition and editing.

Cold Dawn: Yeats, the Gyres, and Poetic Style

Temenos Academy Review, 2022

This essay discusses the transformations in W. B. Yeats's poetic style as a response to inexorable cultural and social fragmentation in the modern era, which in his work "A Vision" Yeats called the "reversal of the gyres."

Yeats's versions of literary history, 1896-1903

1998

This study examines the critical prose written by William Butler Yeats in the period 1896-1903, and identifies the evolution within it of a mode of literary history. I concentrate on Ideas of Good and Evil, and on the selected edition Poems of Spenser. The introduction examines notions of golden ages and of original fracture, and the insertion of these tropes into a variety of literary histories. I consider some of the aims and problems of literary history as a genre, and the peculiar solutions offered by Yeats's approaches. I give particular attention to Yeats's alternation between two views of poetry: as evading time, and as forming the significant history of nations. The first chapter examines those essays in Ideas of Good and Evil written earliest. I consider the essays on Blake first, because Blake was the most significant influence on the writing of Yeats's idiosyncratic literary histories. I proceed to the essays on Shelley, on a new age of imaginative community, and on magic. The second chapter demonstrates how Yeats's ideals and ideas became modified in more practical considerations of audience, poetic rhythm and theatrical convention, and I identify the new kinds of literary history in the essays on Morris and Shakespeare, which are concerned with fracture, limitation and the loss of unmediated access to timeless imaginative resources. The third chapter briefly examines Yeats's very early imitations of Edmund Spenser, and then considers the uses of literary history in Yeats's edition of Spenser. The final chapter identifies Yeats's later returns to Spenser, and shows how the earlier modes of literary history governed subsequent adaptations. My conclusion summarises the advantages and limitations of Yeatsian literary history, and place my study into the context of Yeats's whole career, comparing these literary histories with A Vision.

Yeats’s Book of ‘Numberless Dreams’: His Notebooks, ‘Visions: 1898-1901’, and the Irish ‘Unwritten Tradition

Institute of English Studies, 2020