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.
In 1895 (the same year that KT
published Christmas Verses) W. B. Yeats
printed some of her poems, including The Children of Lir, in his anthology A Book of Irish Verse.
Hinkson, Pamela. “The Friendship of Yeats and Katharine Tynan, II: Later Days of the Irish Literary Movement”. The Fortnightly, No. 1043 n.s., Nov. 1953, pp. 323-36.
324-5
Anthologization
Michael Field
The Poetry Bookshop
issued A Selection From the Poems of Michael Field in 1923, bringing together pieces from their published poetry collections and plays, such as Underneath the Bough, Callirrhoë; Fair Rosamund, Wild...
Anthologization
Dorothy Wellesley
Horses, having gone forward into Poems of Ten Years, 1924-1934, was selected by W. B. Yeats
for The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1935, and by Philip Larkin
for The Oxford Book...
Gilbert, R. A., and Florence Farr. “Preface to the Collectanea Hermetica Series”. Egyptian Magic, Aquarian Press, 1982, p. vi.
vi
Johnson, Josephine. Florence Farr: Bernard Shaw’s new woman. Colin Smythe, 1975.
71
Cultural formation
Elinor Glyn
During the late 1920s and early 30s, EG
was caught up in the wave of Spiritualism (the belief that the living can contact the dead through mediums) that had been gaining ground in England particularly...
Cultural formation
John Millington Synge
He first met William Butler Yeats
, one of two major Irish literary contemporaries who also rejected religion in their youth, in 1896. (The other scoffer at religion, James Joyce
, he met only once...
Cultural formation
Annie Besant
AB
's fascination with Theosophy and its tenets of reincarnation and karma developed quickly in the year after her first meeting with Blavatsky. Another who shared her interest was W. B. Yeats
.
Taylor, Anne, 1932 -. Annie Besant: A Biography. Oxford University Press, 1992.
242, 253
Dedications
Dorothy Wellesley
This selection of poems (sometimes of excerpts) comes entirely from Poems of Ten Years, except for the opening piece, Fire: An Incantation, which was written in May 1935
Wellesley, Dorothy, and W. B. Yeats. Selections from the Poems of Dorothy Wellesley. Macmillan, 1936.
v, 11
and which later...
Education
Julia O'Faolain
At junior school JOF
's talent for mimicry won her two medals for poetry reading: an Elizabethan poem in an English accent and from W. B. Yeats
in an Irish one.
O’Faolain, Julia. Trespassers, A Memoir. Faber and Faber, 2014.
114
Education
Bessie Head
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...
Education
Margaret Kennedy
During her last year at Cheltenham
, MK
heard W. B. Yeats
lecture on the Irish poet and playwright J. M. Synge
.
Biographer Violet Powell
gives Synge's initialswrongly as J. B.
Powell, Violet. The Constant Novelist. W. Heinemann, 1983.
28
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...
Yorke, Liz. Adrienne Rich: Passion, Politics, and the Body. Sage, 1997.
7
Rich enjoyed her time at Radcliffe, though...
Education
Enid Bagnold
At the age of fifteen EB
won a school poetry competition and was rewarded with a visit with W. B. Yeats
. Years later, she recalled that he advised her never to interest herself in...
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...
Timeline
1890: The year following Irish nationalist Ellen...
Women writers item
1890
The year following Irish nationalist Ellen O'Leary
's death from breast cancer on 15 October 1889, her Lays of Country, Home and Friends (many of them political) were collected and published.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
December 1891: William Butler Yeats established (in London)...
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
19
By April 1894: English theatre patron Annie Horniman funded...
Writing climate item
By April 1894
English theatre patron Annie Horniman
funded a repertory season at the Avenue Theatre
(later the Avenue Playhouse), London which concentrated on the new drama.
Hartnoll, Phyllis, editor. The Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 4th ed., Oxford University Press, 1983.
397
By earlier 1903: Elizabeth and Lily (or Susan Mary) Yeats...
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
3 August 1916: In the aftermath of the Easter Rising, Irish...
National or international item
3 August 1916
In the aftermath of the Easter Rising, Irish nationalist Roger Casement
, formerly Sir Roger, was executed for treason at Pentonville Prison
in London for attempting to smuggle a shipment of German arms to Ireland.
Forbes, Peter, editor. Scanning the Century. Viking, 1999.
234
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
8 February 1932: Count Geoffrey Wladislas Vaile Potocki of...
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
By June 1958: The Nigerian Chinua Achebe published his...
Writing climate item
By June 1958
The Nigerian Chinua Achebe
published his first and still most famous novel, Things Fall Apart (titled from W. B. Yeats
).
“The Centre Cannot Hold”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 2938, 20 June 1958, p. 341.
341
By July 1964: Canadian writer Jane Rule issued in Canada...
Writing climate item
By July 1964
Canadian writer Jane Rule
issued in Canada and England her best-known novel, Desert of the Heart, whose title alludes to W. H. Auden
's poem on the death of Yeats
.
Healy, Eloise Klein. “Jane Rule: Inventing and Reinventing Community”. Women’s Review of Books, Vol.
25
, No. 1, Jan.–Feb. 2008, pp. 10-11.
10-11
Canadian Periodical Index. Canadian Library Association, 1928–2024.
17 (1964): 80
1970: Roger McHugh edited a collection of letters...
Women writers item
1970
Roger McHugh
edited a collection of letters between W. B. Yeats
and Margot Ruddock
entitled Ah, Sweet Dancer.
Yeats, W. B. A Vision. Privately printed for subscribers only by T. Werner Laurie, 1925.
Yeats, W. B. A Vision. Macmillan, 1962.
Yeats, W. B. Cathleen Ni Houlihan. A. H. Bullen, 1906.
Yeats, W. B. “Foreword”. Letters on Poetry from W.B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley, edited by Dorothy Wellesley, Oxford University Press, 1964, p. v.
Yeats, W. B. Four Plays for Dancers. Macmillan Co., 1921.
Yeats, W. B. In the Seven Woods. Dun Emer Press, 1903.
Yeats, W. B., and Dorothy Wellesley. “Introduction”. Selections from the Poems of Dorothy Wellesley, Macmillan, 1936, p. vii - xv.
Raine, Kathleen, and W. B. Yeats. “Introduction”. Letters on Poetry from W.B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley, edited by Dorothy Wellesley and Dorothy Wellesley, Oxford University Press, 1964, p. ix - xiii.
Yeats, W. B. Last Poems and Two Plays. Cuala Press, 1939.
Yeats, W. B. Letters on Poetry from W.B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley. Editor Wellesley, Dorothy, Oxford University Press, 1940.
Yeats, W. B. Letters on Poetry from W.B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley. Editor Wellesley, Dorothy, Oxford University Press, 1964.
Yeats, W. B. Letters to Katharine Tynan. Editor McHugh, Roger, Clonmore and Reynolds, 1953.
Yeats, W. B. Michael Robartes and the Dancer. Cuala Press, 1920.
Yeats, W. B. On Baile’s Strand. Maunsel and Co., 1905.
Tynan, Katharine et al., editors. Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland. M. H. Gill and Son, 1888.
Wellesley, Dorothy, and W. B. Yeats. Selections from the Poems of Dorothy Wellesley. Macmillan, 1936.
Yeats, W. B. The Collected Plays of W.B. Yeats. Macmillan, 1934.
Yeats, W. B. The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats. Macmillan, 1933.
Yeats, W. B. The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Shakespeare Head Press; Chapman and Hall, 1908, 8 vols.
Yeats, W. B. The Countess Cathleen. T. F. Unwin, 1899.
Yeats, W. B. The Countess Kathleen. T. Fisher Unwin, 1892.
Gonne, Maud, and W. B. Yeats. The Gonne–Yeats Letters 1893–1938. Editors White, Anna MacBride and A. Norman Jeffares, Hutchinson, 1992.
Yeats, W. B. The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1892-1935. Oxford University Press, 1936.
Yeats, W. B. The Tower. Macmillan, 1928.
Yeats, W. B., and Augusta Gregory. The Unicorn from the Stars, and Other Plays. Macmillan, 1908.