Yeats and the Heroic Ideal

Yeats and the Heroic Ideal PDF Author: Alex Zwerdling
Publisher: [New York] : New York University Press
ISBN: 9780814704547
Category : Courage in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
"The difficulties in a democracy have been a central theme in much of Western literature during the twentieth century--a theme that finds explicit presentation in the writings of W.B. Yeats. In [the author's view], Yeats's involvement in the Irish Independence movement, his interest in myth, religion, and the occult, his praise of aristocratic values, and his participation in Irish public life were all related expressions of the poet's desire to re-establish the vision of heroism as the central ideal of human conduct."--Dust jacket inside front cover flap.

Yeats and the Heroic Ideal

Yeats and the Heroic Ideal PDF Author: Alex Zwerdling
Publisher: [New York] : New York University Press
ISBN: 9780814704547
Category : Courage in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
"The difficulties in a democracy have been a central theme in much of Western literature during the twentieth century--a theme that finds explicit presentation in the writings of W.B. Yeats. In [the author's view], Yeats's involvement in the Irish Independence movement, his interest in myth, religion, and the occult, his praise of aristocratic values, and his participation in Irish public life were all related expressions of the poet's desire to re-establish the vision of heroism as the central ideal of human conduct."--Dust jacket inside front cover flap.

Yeats's Heroic Figures

Yeats's Heroic Figures PDF Author: Michael Steinman
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438421109
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Heroic man and "the lies of history," the myths that surrounded them, were vital to the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. This study examines the four Anglo-Irish historical figures who dominated his life and art: Oscar Wilde, Charles Stewart Parnell, Jonathan Swift, and Roger Casement. All were creators—whether they conceived their life artistically, conceived an intellectual vision of Ireland free, or made lasting art. Their powers were matched by the magnitude of their defeat, for all, except Swift, were violently crucified by the mob for their irregular private lives. In defeat, however, they revealed transcendent heroism, as they faced their enemies with aristocratic disdain and unfailing bravery. Their constantly recreated heroic images inspired and haunted Yeats in art and politics, showed him ways to remake himself and to reconcile his devotion to art with his duty to Ireland. Yeats's Heroic Figures traces the intersections of the vivid figures in the "human drama" Yeats saw as history from 1883 to 1938, and considers their shaping forces upon Yeats's art, philosophy, and life. It is the first study to consider these four heroes together, and it brings to light much material previously neglected in comprehensive studies of Yeats.

Heroic Revivals from Carlyle to Yeats

Heroic Revivals from Carlyle to Yeats PDF Author: Geraldine Higgins
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137280956
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
This book reassesses the cultural and political dimensions of the Irish Revival's heroic ideal and explores its implications for the construction of Irish modernity. By foregrounding the heroic ideal, it shows how the cultural landscape carved out by these writers is far from homogenous.

Twentieth-Century Irish Drama

Twentieth-Century Irish Drama PDF Author: Christopher Murray
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815606437
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This work provides an overview of Irish theatre, read in the light of Ireland's self-definition. Mediating between history and its relations with politics and art, it attempts to do justice to the enabling and mirroring preoccupations of Irish drama.

Heroic Revivals from Carlyle to Yeats

Heroic Revivals from Carlyle to Yeats PDF Author: Geraldine Higgins
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137280956
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
This book reassesses the cultural and political dimensions of the Irish Revival's heroic ideal and explores its implications for the construction of Irish modernity. By foregrounding the heroic ideal, it shows how the cultural landscape carved out by these writers is far from homogenous.

Yeats and Theosophy

Yeats and Theosophy PDF Author: Ken Monteith
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135915628
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
When H. P. Blavatsky, the controversial head of the turn of the century movement Theosophy, defined "a true Theosophist" in her book The Key to Theosophy, she could have just as easily have been describing W. B. Yeats. Blavatsky writes, "A true Theosophist must put in practice the loftiest moral ideal, must strive to realize his unity with the whole of humanity, and work ceaselessly for others." Although Yeats joined Blavatsky's group in 1887, and subsequently left to help form The Golden Dawn in 1890, Yeats's career as poet and politician were very much in line with the methods set forth by Blavatsky's doctrine. My project explores how Yeats employs this pop-culture occultism in the creation of his own national literary aesthetic. This project not only examines the influence theosophy has on the literary work Yeats produced in the late 1880's and 1890's, but also Yeats's work as literary critic and anthology editor during that time. While Yeats uses theosophy's metaphysical world view to provide an underlying structure for some of his earliest poetry and drama, he uses theosophy's methods of investigation and argument to discover a metaphysical literary tradition which incorporates all of his own literary heroes into an Irish cultural tradition. Theosophy provides a methodology for Yeats to argue that both Shelley and Blake (for example) are part of a tradition that includes himself. Basing his argument in theosophy, Yeats can argue that the Irish people are a distinct race with a culture more "sincere" and "natural" than that of England.

Yeats' Heroic Figures

Yeats' Heroic Figures PDF Author: Michael Steinman
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349065552
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description


The Gyroscopic Transformation of Self Quest in W. B. Yeats’s Poetry

The Gyroscopic Transformation of Self Quest in W. B. Yeats’s Poetry PDF Author: Özlem Saylan
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527526267
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 111

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Book Description
Carrying a story to tell is the “ancient burden” of craftsmen, and it is one of the characteristics of the quest to find oneself, since a journey requires recognition of the aspects of self and anti–self. Like the speaker of his poems, W.B. Yeats has something to tell. His poetry draws nourishment from the battle between the dichotomies of self and anti–self, human and divine, mind and intellect, past and present, and body and soul. This book covers a selection of Yeats’s poems from 1889 to 1939, discussing them within the frame of the quest to find oneself and its gyroscopic transformation. The book illustrates that self is not a single entity, but has multiple layers, and it can be found within the quest in which it experiences a simultaneous transformation with every phase of the antithetical structure of gyroscopic movements. In addition, the way of the quest is cyclical; however, it is not a vicious cycle, since, in life, every end is a phase of a beginning and every beginning is a phase of an end.

W.B. Yeats

W.B. Yeats PDF Author: Norman A. Jeffares
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136212248
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 497

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Book Description
This set comprises of 40 volumes covering nineteenth and twentieth century European and American authors. These volumes will be available as a complete set, mini boxed sets (by theme) or as individual volumes. This second set compliments the first 68 volume set of Critical Heritage published by Routledge in October 1995.

The Reception of W. B. Yeats in Europe

The Reception of W. B. Yeats in Europe PDF Author: Klaus Peter Jochum
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1623569516
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
The intellectual and cultural impact of British and Irish writers cannot be assessed without reference to their reception in European countries. These essays, prepared by an international team of scholars, critics and translators, record the ways in which W. B. Yeats has been translated, evaluated and emulated in different national and linguistic areas of continental Europe. There is a remarkable split between the often politicized reception in Eastern European countries but also Spain on the one hand, and the more sober scholarly response in Western Europe on the other. Yeats's Irishness and the pre-eminence of his lyrical work have posed continuous challenges. Three further essays describe the widely divergent reactions to Yeats in his native Ireland, during his lifetime and up to the most recent years.