Yeats's Versions of Literary History 1896-1903

Abstract

This study examines the critical prose written by William Butler Yeats in the
period 1896-1903, and identifies the evolution within it of a mode of literary
history. I concentrate on Ideas of Good and Evil, and on the selected edition Poems
of Spenser.
The introduction examines notions of golden ages and of original fracture, and the
insertion of these tropes into a variety of literary histories. I consider some of the
aims and problems of literary history as a genre, and the peculiar solutions offered
by Yeats's approaches. I give particular attention to Yeats's alternation between
two views of poetry: as evading time, and as forming the significant history of
nations.
The first chapter examines those essays in Ideas of Good and Evil written earliest. I
consider the essays on Blake first, because Blake was the most significant influence
on the writing of Yeats's idiosyncratic literary histories. I proceed to the essays on
Shelley, on a new age of imaginative community, and on magic. The second
chapter demonstrates how Yeats's ideals and ideas became modified in more
practical considerations of audience, poetic rhythm and theatrical convention, and I
identify the new kinds of literary history in the essays on Morris and Shakespeare,
which are concerned with fracture, limitation and the loss of unmediated access to
timeless imaginative resources.
The third chapter briefly examines Yeats's very early imitations of Edmund
Spenser, and then considers the uses of literary history in Yeats's edition of
Spenser. The final chapter identifies Yeats's later returns to Spenser, and shows
how the earlier modes of literary history governed subsequent adaptations.
My conclusion summarises the advantages and limitations of Yeatsian literary
history, and place my study into the context of Yeats's whole career, comparing
these literary histories with A Vision.

Date of Award	4 Mar 1999
Original language	English