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 Katharine Tynan
Yeats reviewed this book for the Gael, the Irish Fireside Review, and Truth. He declared that in the finding [of] her nationality she has found also herself, and written many pages of...
Literary responses Dorothy Wellesley
Yeats 's introduction praised her for uniting a modern subject and vocabulary with traditional richness.
Yeats, W. B., and Dorothy Wellesley. “Introduction”. Selections from the Poems of Dorothy Wellesley, Macmillan, 1936, p. vii - xv.
x
As well as Horses, he particularly praised Matrix.
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, 1999.
209-10
and wrote that it revealed the innermost heart of the Celt.
Melville, Joy. Mother of Oscar. John Murray, 1999.
209
Literary responses Teresa Deevy
Lennox Robinson and Frank O'Connor remained strong supporters of TD 's stage writing, but W. B. Yeats felt she was wrong not to accept more help with revision. A study of her plays by John Jordan
Literary responses Katharine Tynan
In his review for the Evening Herald, W. B. Yeats judged that this volume was well nigh in all things a thoroughly Irish book, springing straight from the Celtic mind and pouring itself out...
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...
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, 1982.
12-13, 113, 115
Literary responses Katharine Tynan
W. B. Yeats , to whom KT had sent a copy of this volume, wrote, you are at your best when you write as a mother and when you remember your old home and the...
Literary responses Martin Ross
Most of the reviews were excellent, but the Westminster Gazette gave the book a furious tearing.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
103
Just from excerpts quoted in reviews, W. B. Yeats judged the book to be very big.
Collis, Maurice. Somerville and Ross: A Biography. Faber and Faber, 1968.
129
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 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, 1966.
31
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, 2007.
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 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, 1975.
91
They were revived for a charity performance in London in August 1993.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
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...

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