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The Artist as a Force for Change in W. B. Yeats*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
Extract
W. B. Yeats has often been accused of espousing the ideal of l'art pour l'art. For example in 1898 in an essay entitled “What Should be the Subjects of a National Drama” John Eglinton expressed fears that Yeats' interest in developing ideals of literary experience in Ireland would be corrupted by his association with the aesthetic movement. A.E., though he had defended Yeats earlier, soon found himself in agreement with Eglinton. Yeats, of course, publicly renounced any intimate intercourse with the principle of art for art's sake. On the other hand, he agreed with aesthetes such as Hallam, Wilde, and Pater when they cautioned the artist against contamination by the mores and concerns of society. He also knew that the artist's ideal of beauty affected his life in a very profound way and was therefore capable of having a similar effect upon the lives of other human be-beings. I should like, in this paper, to look at Yeats' ideas about the relationship between the artist and other human beings.
To Yeats the artist and his art bore a crucial relationship to society. Certainly, Yeats did feel that society was a corrupting influence. It was certainly necessary for the artist to be in society but not of it, and to fly by the nets of family, race, and religion. Nevertheless, Yeats felt that such a separation was not ideal, neither was it the fault of the true artist. Ideally, the artist and his society should share a unity of culture and a unity of being. Even during the early years of his career, he thought that art should arise spontaneously out of society as the expression of soul, just has it had in the Renaissance, in the fifth century B.C., in the Byzantine civilization, and around the turf fires in the west of Ireland.
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- Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1978
Footnotes
*
Originally presented at the Pacific Northwest Conference on British Studies, University of Puget Sound, April 15, 1976.
References
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25 It must be admitted, however, that the attitudes of the audience in Lady Gregory's drawing room and in the Abbey, though different from each other, were certainly utterly distinct from any shaman's congregation.
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35 Variorum Edition, p. 143.
36 Ibid., pp. 169-70.
37 “Rosa Alchemica”, The Savoy, p. 58.
38 Letters, p. 280.
39 The Savoy, I, No. 2 (April 1896): 56, 58, 63, 59.
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44 O'Driscoll, , “The Tables of the Law,” pp. 116–117Google Scholar. I have quoted here from the 1897 revision. According to Professor O'Driscoll these words do not appear in the 1896 version. However, their introduction in 1897 and use in 1904, 1908 and 1925 indicate that Yeats felt they helped explain Aherne's dilemma more completely.
45 Ibid., p. 117. I have used the 1897 version in this case.
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56 Ibid., p. 787.