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.
The regime included plenty of household chores and caning as a punishment (with both of which Bessie was familiar), while the curriculum featured singing, drawing, cookery, dressmaking, nature study, and gardening as well as more...
Author summary
Seamus Heaney
SH
was the pre-eminent Irish poet of his generation, writing in a lucid style which is often dazzling and never obscure. A highly visible international figure in the later twentieth century and beyond, he was...
Textual Features
Seamus Heaney
Setting out to enable his readers to witness the spectacle of a gifted writer becoming a definitive one, he begins by considering poetic theories of sound and meaning held by Frost
, Eliot
, and...
Literary responses
Seamus Heaney
Motion
mentions the famous comparison of Heaney with Yeats
, and observes that they shared a commitment to the matter of Ireland, but that Heaney eschews Yeats's cloudy symbols for an investment in the...
Education
Emily Hickey
She demonstrated an early interest in reading. Scott
, Tennyson
, and Barrett Browning
numbered among her early favourites. Her father, however, did not allow her to read Shakespeare
, as he was repelled by...
Textual Features
Emily Hickey
The collection contains, among other pieces, three narrative poems, one of which, The Ballad of Lady Ellen, shows the influence of William Butler Yeats
. Several sonnets here employ the Italian form. Sources note...
Intertextuality and Influence
Constance Holme
The title-page quotes W. B. Yeats
: Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.
Holme, Constance. Crump Folk Going Home. Cedric Chivers.
title-page
The country community where the story is set centres closely on Crump, the great house of the ancient Lyndesay...
Decades later she remembered praising Chekhov
, Hoffmansthal
, Ibsen
, and Strindberg
, while admitting that I mocked, censured, rebuked, tore down, with reckless delight, Shaw
, Yeats
, Masefield
,
Jameson, Storm. Journey from the North. Harper and Row.
69
and other British dramatists.
Friends, Associates
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
As in Dublin, she became known for her salons, which were held on Saturdays from 5 to 7 p.m. until their popularity demanded bi-weekly gatherings. The cream of London's literati and intelligentsia attended, including George Bernard Shaw
Intertextuality and Influence
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
JFLW
gave two different accounts of what had made her a poet. In one, it was reading The Nation's Valentine, To the Ladies of Ireland, in which Richard D'Alton Williams
urged Irishwomen to sing...
Literary responses
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde
The Academy gave a favourable review but found the preface unclear. William Butler Yeats
admired the book,
Melville, Joy. Mother of Oscar. John Murray.
209-10
and wrote that it revealed the innermost heart of the Celt.
Melville, Joy. Mother of Oscar. John Murray.
209
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Jennings
As a teenager, EJ
read T. S. Eliot
and (as she put it) wrote long poems of sort of vers libre which I imagined were influenced by Eliot, and which were very personal, in fact...
Education
Jennifer Johnston
JJ
began going to school at the tender age of three: she had problems with her sight and it was felt that this would teach her to recognise her letters. She attended Park House School...
Intertextuality and Influence
Jennifer Johnston
JJ
says, I don't plan my writing; I just sit down and listen to the voices. This makes it sound easy. It is not.
Moloney, Caitriona et al. Irish Women Writers Speak Out: Voices From the Field. Syracuse University Press.
67
Irish politics is the background to her work, as to...