Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
W. B. Yeats
-
Standard Name: Yeats, W. B.
Used Form: William Butler Yeats
Used Form: Willie Yeats
WBY
, who began publishing well before the end of the nineteenth century, is regarded as one of the most important twentieth-century poets in English, and one of the most international of Irish writers. He was early involved in the Irish Literary Revival, and wrote early, highly romantic lyrics on Celtic and fairy themes. Later he made poetry out of the search for a poetic language. Some of his later work is affected by his interest in the occult.
MR
resisted a pressing invitation from W. B. Yeats
and Lady Gregory
to write a play with them for the Abbey Theatre
in Dublin. She needed her writings to earn money, but a probably stronger...
Friends, Associates
Naomi Royde-Smith
NRS
was a close friend of Rose Macaulay
, with whom in the immediate postwar period she shared entertaining duties at her flat, in something similar to a salon. They apparently met through Macaulay contributing...
John Bull's Other Island, a play about Ireland written by GBS
at the request of W. B. Yeats
, opened at the Court Theatre
in London.
Innes, Christopher, editor. The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Cambridge University Press.
xxiv
Performance of text
George Bernard Shaw
Lady Gregory
and W. B. Yeats
produced GBS
's The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet: A Sermon in Crude Melodrama at the Abbey Theatre
, Dublin.
Innes, Christopher, editor. The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Cambridge University Press.
xxv
politics
Dora Sigerson
Yeats
, who had been a close friend of DS
's parents, deeply influenced her ideas about Celtic literature and culture and about Irish nationalism. Like him she supported and worked for Irish independence, both...
Family and Intimate relationships
Dora Sigerson
George Sigerson
, DS
's father, was a doctor specialising in nervous disorders (a new area of research), a poet, and a Gaelic scholar. He lectured on biology at the National University of Ireland
...
Friends, Associates
Edith Sitwell
By 1919 ES
was also friendly with Arnold Bennett
and his wife Marguerite
. Wyndham Lewis
became a great friend, did many drawings of her, and demonstrated a sexual interest in her as well, which...
Literary responses
Edith Sitwell
This book made Yeats
liken ES
to Swift
for her passion ennobled by intensity, by endurance, by wisdom.
Sitwell, Edith. Taken Care Of: An Autobiography. Hutchinson.
106
Her Times obituary called these poems Sitwell's The Waste Land, suggesting that despite her still...
Friends, Associates
Edith Somerville
Other friends of Somerville's later years included W. B. Yeats
and Augusta, Lady Gregory
. In the 1940s Somerville exchanged letters with Maurice Baring
.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
162, 252, 265
Reception
Edith Somerville
She had been a founding member of the Academy at its inception by Yeats
in 1932.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber.
252-3
Friends, Associates
Christopher St John
Their home became a centre of cultural life. Their friend Harcourt Williams
recorded a Twelfth Night party they held when W. B. Yeats
was among their guests, sharing ghost stories.
Through her association with Jeyes, FS
met such literary figures as H. G. Wells
and W. B. Yeats
. She also campaigned for the Anti-Suffrage League
and met key figures in the group, including its...
Intertextuality and Influence
G. B. Stern
While in her teens GBS
composed two one-act Waiferage plays. The heroine of one, a lonely understudy in a fifth-rate touring company, worships the leading man from afar and feels ecstatic when the leading lady...
Textual Production
Anne Stevenson
As an undergraduate at the University of Michigan
, her models included the suave, disciplined, informal, very accessible
Stevenson, Anne. Between the Iceberg and the Ship. University of Michigan Press.
122
early poems of her near-contemporary Adrienne Rich
. She wrote two stage works that were performed...