W. B. Yeats

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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.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Literary responses John Millington Synge
The first audiences hated what they perceived as the scandalously negative portrayal of Irish character. Actresses on stage in their shifts or undergarments were felt to be indelicate and damaging to national pride.
Benson, Eugene. J. M. Synge. Macmillan.
12-13, 113, 115
Literary responses Augusta Gregory
The play was very well received, drawing large and enthusiastic audiences. From the beginning, critics recognized its hypnotic effect and its potential to stir audiences to violence. One reviewer, Stephen Gwynn , questioned whether such...
Literary responses Dorothy Wellesley
Yeats found and valued in DW 's work both descriptive genius
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.
and passionate precision.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Sackville-West 's considered judgement was that Wellesley was undisciplined, and that the philosophic freight which Yeats admired in her work...
Literary responses Augusta Gregory
W. B. Yeats felt that she alone of the Abbey playwrights wrote out of a spirit of pure comedy, and laugh[ed] without bitterness and with no thought but to laugh.
Saddlemyer, Ann. In Defence of Lady Gregory, Playwright. Dufour Editions.
31
Literary responses Florence Farr
Reviews were mixed: some found the plays bizarre, and others (including Yeats ) admired their religious fervour.
Johnson, Josephine. Florence Farr: Bernard Shaw’s new woman. Colin Smythe.
91
They were revived for a charity performance in London in August 1993.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Literary responses Emily Lawless
Though it was never entirely forgotten, Lawless's writing did not fit the assumptions about what Irish literature should be
Hansson, Heidi. Emily Lawless 1845-1913: Writing the Interspace. Cork University Press.
4
in the first half of the twentieth century, and she was largely excluded from the...
Literary responses Charlotte Brooke
CB was warmly appreciated in Ireland. She influenced there a parallel effort to preserve traditional music as she had preserved traditional words: that of Edward Bunting , who edited in 1796 the first volume...
Literary responses Katharine Tynan
Yeats noted that by including Joyce here KT had helped launch his career: It has led to the publication of some of Joyce's fiction in a little London paper called the Egotist [sic] over which...
Literary responses Katharine Tynan
KT found that her staunch support for Parnell after the divorce case was now punished with some damaging criticism of this biography.
Tynan, Katharine. Twenty-Five Years: Reminiscences. Smith, Elder.
382
Tynan, Katharine. The Middle Years. Constable.
66
The review in the anti-Parnellite National Press presented abuse of me...
Literary responses Florence Farr
FF 's performances won the acclaim of several critics, including Yeats himself, and her recitation technique was for a short time heralded as a new art form: according to William Archer , in this system...
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
Literary responses Kathleen Raine
KR longed vainly to be published by Eliot at Faber; by the time that she heard from Yeats 's daughter, years later, that he had first read her at the recommendation of Eliot , she...
Literary responses Katharine Tynan
W. B. Yeats wrote to her of this book: You have the gift to describe many people with sympathy and even with admiration and yet to leave them their distinct characters.
Hinkson, Pamela. “The Friendship of Yeats and Katharine Tynan, II: Later Days of the Irish Literary Movement”. The Fortnightly, No. 1043 n.s., pp. 323-36.
331
Literary responses Michael Field
Writing in 1892, William Butler Yeats said that Callirrhoë possessed imagination and fancy in plenty
Yeats, W. B. Uncollected Prose by W.B. Yeats. Editors Frayne, John P. and Colton Johnson, Columbia University Press.
227
—setting itself apart from some of MF 's later publications, which he considered to be much less successful.
Literary responses Charlotte Mew
Marianne Moore was quoted on the dust-jacket: This collection is to me extraordinary—unforced, and masterly in a technical way, almost without exception. There are in the style traces of W. B. Yeats and Thomas Hardy

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