ESSAYS AND INTRODUCTIONS W. B. YEATS B:r ./olzn Bot!u Yeuts tlze E/Ja Courtesy of the Nationul Gu!lery oj Ireland W. B. YEATS essays and Introductions M © Mrs W. B. Yeats 1961 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1961 978-0-333-09342-9 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First edition 1961 Reprinted 1961, 1969, 1971, 1974, 1980 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in Delhi Dahlin Hong Kong johannesburg Lagos Melbourne New York Singapore Tokyo ISBN 978-1-349-00620-5 ISBN 978-1-349-00618-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-00618-2 CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION vii ESSAYS I. IDEAS OF GOOD AND EVIL: WHAT IS 'PoPuLAR PoETRY'? 3 SPEAKING To THE PsALTERY 13 MAGIC 2.8 THE HAPPIEST OF THE PoETS S3 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SHELLEY's PoETRY 6s AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON 96 WILLIAM BLAKE AND THE IMAGINATION III WIIfiAM BLAKE AND HIS ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE DIVINE CoMEDY 116 SYMBOLISM IN PAINTING 146 THE SYMBOLISM OF POETRY ISJ THE THEATRE 165 THE CELTIC ELEMENT IN LITERATURE 173 THE AUTUMN OF THE Bony 189 THE Moons 195 THE BonY oF THE FATHER CHRISTIAN RosENCRUX 196 THE RETuRN oF ULYSSES 198 IRELAND AND THE ARTS 2.03 THE GALWAY PLAINS 2.11 EMoTION oF MuLTITUDE l.IS II. THE CUTTING OF AN AGATE: CERTAIN NoBLE PLAYs oF JAPAN 2.2.1 THE TRAGIC THEATRE 2.38 PoETRY AND TRADITION 2.46 v (ontents PAGK DISCOVERIES 261 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF THE WEU OF THE SAINTS PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF JoHN M. SYNGE's POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS 306 J. M. SYNGE AND THE IRELAND OF HIS TIME JII JoHN SHAWE-TAYLOR 343 ART AND IDEAS 346 .EDMUND SPENSER 356 LATER ESSAYS AND INTRODUCTIONS GJTAN]ALI BISHOP BERKELEY MY FRIEND's BooK 412 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND AN INDIAN };foNK Louis LAMBERT THE HoLY MouNTAIN THE MANDUKYA UPANISHAD PARNELL MoDERN PoETRY A GENERAL INTRODUCTION FOR MY W ORX AN INTRODUCTION FOR MY PLAYS PORTRAITS W. B. YEATs, by John Butler Yt:ats the Elder. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Ireland Frontispiece W. B. YEATS, from the photograph by Howard Coster facing page 385 VI INTRODUCTION W HEN I WAS THIRTY I thought the best of modern pictures were four or five portraits by Watts (I disliked his allegorical pictures-had not allegory spoiled Edmund Spenser?); four or five pictures by Madox Brown; four or five early Millais; four or five Rossettis where there are several figures engaged in some dramatic action; and an indefinite number of en gravings by William Blake who was my particular study. When I was thirty-five or so a woman of genius asked me to defend her against a German connoisseur. She had made her beautiful house a shrine for certain late Burne-Jones's. The Burne-Jones Cartoons Have preserved her eyes. When I arrived he had firmly planted on a drawing room chair a picture by Renoir or perhaps an imitator, of a fat, naked woman lying on a Turkey carpet and had begun to call Burne-Jones empty and obsolete. She took me to another room and reproached me for keeping silent, but excused me as I must be upset by the connoisseur's 'over-dressed wife.' I could not ex cuse myself because I admired that slight, elegant, pale lady. A little later poets younger than myself, especially the one I knew best, began to curse that romantic subject-matter which English literature seemed to share Written for a complete edition of Yeats's works which was 1 never produced. Vll Introduction with all great literature, those traditional metres which seemed to have grown up with the language, and still, though getting much angrier, I was silent. I was silent because I am a timid man except before a piece of paper or rioters at the Abbey Theatre, and even there my courage is limited to certain topics. Perhaps I am a better man than I think, perhaps· some part of my timidity is a dread of speaking ill-chosen words, of reproving Mr. Wells, let us say, with the voice of Bulwer-Lytton; or perhaps there is some censorship like that of the psycho-analysts-yes, there must be a censorship. Now that I have all my critical prose before me, much seems an evasion, a deliberate turning away. Can I do better now that I am almost beyond caring? I have never said clearly that I condemn all that is not tradition, that there is a subject-matter which has descended like that 'deposit' certain philosophers speak of. At the end of his essay upon 'Style' Pater says that a book written according to the principles he has laid down will be well written, but whether it is a great book or not depends upon subject-matter. This sub ject-matter is something I have received from the generations, part of that compact with my fellow men made in my name before I was born. I cannot break from it without breaking from some part of my own nature, and sometimes it has come to me in super normal experience; I have met with ancient myths in my dreams, brightly lit; and I think it allied to the wisdom or instinct that guides a migratory bird. A table of values, heroic joy always, intellectual curiosity and so on-and a public theme: in Japan the viii Introduction mountain scenery of China; in Greece its cyclic tales; in Europe the Christian mythology; this or that national theme. I speak of poets and imaginative writers; the great realistic novelists almost without exception describe familiar scenes and people; realism is always topical, it has for public theme the public itself. Flaubert excused the failure of the principal character in his SalammhO by the words 'I could not visit her.' I think of the German actress who said to a reporter, 'To know a man you must talk with him, eat with him, sleep with him. That is how I know Mr. Bernard Shaw.' Then too I would have all the arts draw together; recover their ancient association, the painter painting what the poet has written, the musician setting the poet's words to simple airs, that the horse man and the engine-driver may sing them at their work. Nor am I for a changeless tradition. I would rejoice if a rich betrothed man asked Mr. T. S. Eliot and the dancer Ninette de Valois to pick a musician and compose a new marriage service, for such a service might restore a lost subject-matter to the imaginative arts and be good for the clergy. I admit other themes, even those that have no tradition; I have never blamed the brothers Caracci for painting the butcher's shop they came from, and why should not that fat, naked woman look like pork? But those themes we share and inherit, so long as they engage our emotions, come first. When that is no longer possible we are broken off and separate, some sort of dry faggot, and the time has come to read criticism and talk of our point of view. lX