"This is a very informative and detailed study, carefully written and executed."—Yeats: An Annual
"Several of the most telling chapters are commentaries on several poems and plays including 'Blood and the Moon,' 'Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931,' 'Parnell's Funeral' and 'The Death of Cuchulain.'"—The New York Review of Books
"By seeing the movement from early hope and confidence in artistic power, through discouragement, to the gaining of a new confidence which builds on the poet's recognition of what it is possible to achieve, [Marcus] can see the work as a whole without reducing its complexity."—Yeats Annual No. 12
Description
The first book to consider William Butler Yeats’s aesthetic of artistic power, demonstrating the centrality in his work—from his earliest essay to the great poems and plays of his last years—of the concept that art shapes life. Drawing on the Irish bardic tradition as well as such figures as Shelley, Blake, and Wilde, Yeats developed a stance that enabled him to reconcile the exacting demands of literary craftsmanship, his interest in occult thought, and his desire to advance the cause of Irish nationalism. For this edition, new material has been added, connecting the argument of the original book to recent developments in theory and adding a Jungian perspective.
About the Author
Phillip L. Marcus is professor emeritus of English, Cornell University, and professor of English at Florida International University. His books include Yeats and the Beginning of the Irish Renaissance, also published by Syracuse University Press.
Related Interest
September 2001