Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Content
- List of Figures and Diagrams
- Preface
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- “Everywhere that antinomy of the One and the Many”: The Foundations of A Vision
- The Is and the Ought, the Knower and the Known: An Analysis of the Four Faculties in Yeats's System
- “Spiritual Intellect's Great Work”: A Discussion of the Principles and A Vision's Account of Death The
- Ancient Frames: Classical Philosophy in Yeats's A Vision
- “Timeless and Spaceless”?—Yeats's Search for Models of Interpretation in Post-Enlightenment Philosophy, Contemporary Anthropology and Art History, and the Effects of These Theories on “The Completed Symbol,” “The Soul in Judgment” and “The Great Year of the Ancients”
- W. B. Yeats's A Vision: “Dove or Swan”
- The Thirteenth Cone
- Shifting Sands: Dancing the Horoscope in the Vision Papers
- “Metaphors for Poetry”: Concerning the Poems of A Vision and Certain Plays for Dancers
- A Vision of Ezra Pound
- Reflected Voices, Double Visions
- Yeats's Vision and the Feminine
- Esotericism and Escape
- The Political Occult: Revisiting Fascism, Yeats and A Vision
- Glossary
- Index
Preface
- Frontmatter
- Content
- List of Figures and Diagrams
- Preface
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- “Everywhere that antinomy of the One and the Many”: The Foundations of A Vision
- The Is and the Ought, the Knower and the Known: An Analysis of the Four Faculties in Yeats's System
- “Spiritual Intellect's Great Work”: A Discussion of the Principles and A Vision's Account of Death The
- Ancient Frames: Classical Philosophy in Yeats's A Vision
- “Timeless and Spaceless”?—Yeats's Search for Models of Interpretation in Post-Enlightenment Philosophy, Contemporary Anthropology and Art History, and the Effects of These Theories on “The Completed Symbol,” “The Soul in Judgment” and “The Great Year of the Ancients”
- W. B. Yeats's A Vision: “Dove or Swan”
- The Thirteenth Cone
- Shifting Sands: Dancing the Horoscope in the Vision Papers
- “Metaphors for Poetry”: Concerning the Poems of A Vision and Certain Plays for Dancers
- A Vision of Ezra Pound
- Reflected Voices, Double Visions
- Yeats's Vision and the Feminine
- Esotericism and Escape
- The Political Occult: Revisiting Fascism, Yeats and A Vision
- Glossary
- Index
Summary
The essays collected in W. B. Yeats's “A Vision”: Explications and Contexts off er exegesis and interpretation of this notoriously knotty and peculiar work, as well as examining several of the contexts implicated in A Vision. However, the collection as a whole is also an eff ort of advocacy that seeks to demonstrate and champion A Vision's interest and value. It is, perhaps surprisingly, the first ever volume of essays devoted to A Vision. As such, it could be regarded as part of a third stage in approaches and attitudes to this curious and underanalyzed part of the Yeatsian canon.
The first stage, which prevailed until the sixties, was characterized largely by incomprehension of the work itself and disdain for Yeats's occult interests more generally, most famously summarized in Auden's comment “how embarrassing,” and his observation that “though there is scarcely a lyric written to-day in which the influence of his style and rhythm is not detectable, one whole side of Yeats, the side summed up in the Vision, has left virtually no trace.” The comment may have had some justice with regard to creative influence but says nothing of intrinsic worth. Those for whom Yeats's thought was of interest tended to show a more open-minded acceptance that this “side” was part of the poet's own particular make-up and had been important to his inspiration, and individual critics wrote with varying degrees of personal sympathy. For many, it was a prominent landmark in the terrain that had to be taken into account, with obvious links to some of the most powerful lyrics that Yeats ever wrote, but one to be dealt with as cursorily as possible. For others, including Richard Ellmann, Virginia Moore, Thomas Henn, F. A. C. Wilson, A. G. Stock, and Morton Irving Seiden, A Vision had its place as a source and epitome of Yeats's creative ideas in the latter part of Yeats's life.
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- W. B. Yeats's 'A Vision'Explications and Contexts, pp. vii - xiiPublisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2012