Preface to Yeats's Vision
Axel Harvey
unlike him [ Pound ] as possible, the only friend who remains to me
from late boyhood, grown gaunt in the injustice of what seems her blind
nobility of pity: `I will fight until I die', she wrote to me once,
`against the cruelty of small ambitions'."
Who might this friend be? Has the letter containing this phrase
survived?
This may or may not be the right place to ask my question, but as I
looked for an appropriate newsgroup it became disturbingly obvious that
literature, as opposed to science and entertainment, is poorly
represented in Usenet.
K. E. Dennis
> Scríobh Axel Harvey :
>
> >In his preface to _A_Vision_, Yeats pauses to "recall a person as
> >unlike him [ Pound ] as possible, the only friend who remains to me
> >from late boyhood, grown gaunt in the injustice of what seems her blind
> >nobility of pity: `I will fight until I die', she wrote to me once,
> >`against the cruelty of small ambitions'."
> >
> >Who might this friend be?
>
> Probably Maud Gonne. Yeats was terribly upset that she spent her time
> working to improve peoples lives instead of hanging onto his aura like
> a good little muse.
Although I 'm not familiar w/ the preface in question, I think this probably
is correct.
The references to "grown gaunt" & "nobility of pity" echo those poems in
which he speaks of Gonne having grown 'shrill' & 'bitter' because of her
political activities, & he had little sympathy w/ her efforts to advance the
political & economic interests of Irish workers - to pile the little streets
upon the great, as he once snarled.
Yeats was emphatically a man of his time & his class: he had a great deal of
difficulty seeing "the common people" as worthy of respect, let alone of the
degree of passionate commitment that Gonne felt. OTOH, he occasionally
expressed a grudging admiration for the passion itself, if not for its
causes.
You're right about his wishful image of Maud as decorative muse. Tho Yeats
knew many extraordinary women of intellect & action, his poems repeatedly
betray his conviction that a woman's purpose in life is to be beautiful &
beloved [& not too independent].
OTOH, despite the fraught nature of their relationship over the years, they
remained friends until his death.
Anyway, Axel Harvey went on to write:
> This may or may not be the right place to ask my question,
There aren't many other options as far as newsgroups are concerned - you
might try ie.general, if your news server carries it.
You may find some useful sources thru the Island Ireland site
[http://islandireland.com/], specifically in the section on literature:
http://islandireland.com/Pages/lit.html
> but as I
> looked for an appropriate newsgroup it became disturbingly obvious that
> literature, as opposed to science and entertainment, is poorly
> represented in Usenet.
IME, for reasonably serious discussions of any specialised subject, you're
as well off trying to find a good mailing list on the topic of interest. A
good place to start the search is the following:
Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists
http://paml.alastra.com/subjects/default.html
BTW, if you *should* happen across an especially good forum for discussions
of Irish literature, I'm reasonably certain I'm not the only person reading
s.c.i. who would appreciate hearing of it.
respectfully submitted,
|K. E. Dennis den...@mail.montclair.edu
|My employer is not responsible for my opinions,
|regardless of how sensible they are.
John Sheehan
K. E. Dennis <den...@mail.montclair.edu> wrote in message
news:3B5F35F1...@mail.montclair.edu...
> Yeats was emphatically a man of his time & his class: he had a great deal
of
> difficulty seeing "the common people" as worthy of respect, let alone of
the
> degree of passionate commitment that Gonne felt. OTOH, he occasionally
> expressed a grudging admiration for the passion itself, if not for its
> causes.
>
> You're right about his wishful image of Maud as decorative muse.
Yep, probably Maud allright. "Quattrocento features" was, from memory, one
of his besotted and ridiculous descriptions of her - seems not unlike "grown
gaunt"?
BTW I'm not so sure that he had no sympathy with the common man - again from
recollection - he seemed quite enthusiastic about the grey connemara
fisherman and his ilk. No doubt, just like his obsession with Maud, this
was merely a poetic conceit.
John
K. E. Dennis
> K. E. Dennis <den...@mail.montclair.edu> wrote ...
> > Yeats was emphatically a man of his time & his class: he had a great deal of
>
> > difficulty seeing "the common people" as worthy of respect, let alone of the
>
> > degree of passionate commitment that Gonne felt. OTOH, he occasionally
> > expressed a grudging admiration for the passion itself, if not for its
> > causes. [...]
>
> Yep, probably Maud allright. "Quattrocento features" was, from memory, one
> of his besotted and ridiculous descriptions of her - seems not unlike "grown
> gaunt"?
The bitterness of his later words no doubt was something of a reaction to his
own excessive romanticism & overwrought idealisation. & he wrote some very
bitter words indeed, expressing his view that her politics had transformed her
into a harridan:
"Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little street upon the great..." - [1]
"That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill..." - [2]
"Did she...
Recall the years before her mind
Became a bitter, an abstract thing,
Her thoughts some popular enmity:
Blind and leader of the blind,
Drinking the foul ditch where they lay?" - [3]
> BTW I'm not so sure that he had no sympathy with the common man - again from
> recollection - he seemed quite enthusiastic about the grey connemara
> fisherman and his ilk. No doubt, just like his obsession with Maud, this
> was merely a poetic conceit.
I think to some extent both were genuine - as long as the subjects of his
romantic words didn't puncture the illusion by behaving like ordinary human
beings, w/ all their flaws & impetus to independent action.
He didn't hesitate to speak contemptuously of "Paudeen's pence/By Biddy's
halfpennies have laid.." [4], or "the fumbling wits, the obscure spite/Of our
old Paudeen in his shop..." [5], & was a bit obsessed w/ how distasteful it
would be to "fumble in a greasy till/ And add the halfpence to the pence..."
[6], tho in fairness I suppose it's always a bit difficult for sensitive poetic
types - particularly those w/ inherited wealth - to understand that
penny-pinching & unromantic daily lives are not necessarily signs of degraded
souls.
footnotes:
[1] No Second Troy
[2] Easter 1916
[3] On a Political Prisoner
[4] To a Wealthy Man Who Promised a Second Subscription to the Dublin Municipal
Gallery If It Were Proved the People wanted Pictures
[5] Paudeen
[6] September 1913
Axel Harvey
I am somewhat reluctant to assume he meant Maude Gonne since, iirc,
Yeats met her when he was 24. To me that would be after "late boyhood",
but maybe it wouldn't have been to Yeats?
John Sheehan
Axel Harvey <a...@cam.org> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.10.10107...@localhost.localdomain...
Thanks to Féachadóir, K. E. Dennis, and anyone else I may have missed.
I am somewhat reluctant to assume he meant Maude Gonne since, iirc,
Yeats met her when he was 24. To me that would be after "late boyhood",
but maybe it wouldn't have been to Yeats?
No - I think that W.B. would have considered this late boyhood allright. He
was painfully shy and had little experience of girls prior to a fling with
an actress (Florence Farr?) when he was in his early 20's.
Clearly he is not referring to her and good old Maud was next on the list.
Of course he never got off the starting blocks with her as she was, unknown
to the poor boy, living with a Frenchman.Typical of the frogs what?
He was so deranged that he subsequently (very subsequently), having endured
countless rejections from Maud, proposed to her daughter, Iseault. Same
result.
I used to have an interest when at school in Sligo - but some of this might
not be entirely accurate. I seem to recall that, late in life, suffering
from impotance, he had a transplant of baboons/apes testicles! ( apologies
to the unmarried women in the NG)
John
K. E. Dennis
> Thanks to Féachadóir, K. E. Dennis, and anyone else I may have missed.
My pleasure entirely, sir.
<deep bow>
The opportunity actually to talk about an Irish poet is somewhat unusual in
s.c.i..
> I am somewhat reluctant to assume he meant Maude Gonne since, iirc,
> Yeats met her when he was 24. To me that would be after "late boyhood",
> but maybe it wouldn't have been to Yeats?
Possibly another form of poetic licence, but see John Sheehan's reply - Yeats
was something of a late bloomer. There's also the fact that he was 60 when "A
Vision" first was publ'd [1925, according to my sources], & looking back might
well have felt "I was a mere boy then" - especially given the emotional
turmoil he experienced during the preceding decade.
If the preface is from the later re-issue, in 1937, no doubt 24 would have
seemed even more boyish..
> > >In his preface to _A_Vision_, Yeats pauses to "recall a person as
> > >unlike him [ Pound ] as possible, the only friend who remains to me
> > >from late boyhood...
On reflection, it occurs to me that it's not completely out the question he
was referring to Eva Gore-Booth.
"[G]rown gaunt in the injustice of what seems her blind nobility of pity" does
plausibly suggest an echo of "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth & Con Markiewicz,"
where he says of her:
"I know not what the younger dreams --
Some vague Utopia -- and she seems,
When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,
An image of such politics."
[IMHO 'vague' & 'Utopian' are oddly off-base in describing Gore-Booth's
life-long & highly specific commitment to the political & economic empowerment
of women, especially of her organising activities among working class women.
Still, this is perhaps another example of the incomprehension Yeats seemed to
feel when contemplating the republican [note small 'r'] & socialist politics
of his time.]
OTOH, Eva lived most of her adult life in England w/ her partner, Esther
Roper, & I don't think she was especially close to Yeats or likely to be
described by him as a friend. Furthermore, she wouldn't ever have been "the
only friend remaining," as both the Countess & Maude Gonne outlived her. Eva
died in 1926, Con in 1927, Maude in the 1950s - this latter fact being another
clue that Gonne was the friend in question..
Well, after all that, I suppose I have to post @ least one of the poems cited.
A quick check of Ger's pages <another deep bow of continuing gratitude in that
direction> reveals that s.c.i.tizens previously have posted three of them:
September 1913 -
http://homepage.eircom.net/~abardubh/poetry/bearla/poem184.html
To A Wealthy Man... -
http://homepage.eircom.net/~abardubh/poetry/bearla/poem115.html
The Fisherman -
http://homepage.eircom.net/~abardubh/poetry/bearla/poem069.html
I dislike "Paudeen," so that's out, & this is not the season for "Easter
1916." I should note that it has been brought to my notice [ever so gently,
thank you] that the reference in "On A Political Prisoner" probably is to
Constance Markiewicz, rather than to Maude Gonne, so I'll skip over that,
blushing a bit...
...I'll post those 2 that specifically mention our 2 suspects, shall I?
~~~
_No Second Troy_
W. B. Yeats
he Green Helmet & Other Poems
pub'd 1910, The Cuala Press
Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
~~~
_In Memory Of Eva Gore-Booth And Con Markiewicz_
W. B. Yeats
The Winding Stair & Other Poems
pub'd 1933, Macmillan & Co.
The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
But a raving autumn shears
Blossom from the summer's wreath;
The older is condemned to death,
Pardoned, drags out lonely years
Conspiring among the ignorant.
I know not what the younger dreams -
Some vague Utopia - and she seems,
When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,
An image of such politics.
Many a time I think to seek
One or the other out and speak
Of that old Georgian mansion, mix
pictures of the mind, recall
That table and the talk of youth,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
Dear shadows, now you know it all,
All the folly of a fight
With a common wrong or right.
The innocent and the beautiful.
Have no enemy but time;
Arise and bid me strike a match
And strike another till time catch;
Should the conflagration climb,
Run till all the sages know.
We the great gazebo built,
They convicted us of guilt;
Bid me strike a match and blow.
~~~
Alan Smaill
> Thanks to Féachadóir, K. E. Dennis, and anyone else I may have missed.
> I am somewhat reluctant to assume he meant Maude Gonne since, iirc,
> Yeats met her when he was 24. To me that would be after "late boyhood",
> but maybe it wouldn't have been to Yeats?
I think this is a serious problem with this analysis.
There were more women than Maude Gonne in his life;
and calling her a "friend" hardly seems right.
>
> > >In his preface to _A_Vision_, Yeats pauses to "recall a person as
> > >unlike him [ Pound ] as possible, the only friend who remains to me
> > >from late boyhood, grown gaunt in the injustice of what seems her blind
> > >nobility of pity: `I will fight until I die', she wrote to me once,
> > >`against the cruelty of small ambitions'."
>
--
Alan Smaill email: A.Sm...@ed.ac.uk
Division of Informatics tel: 44-131-650-2710
Edinburgh University
Alan Smaill
> Axel Harvey <a...@cam.org> wrote in message
> news:Pine.LNX.4.10.10107...@localhost.localdomain...
> Thanks to Féachadóir, K. E. Dennis, and anyone else I may have missed.
> I am somewhat reluctant to assume he meant Maude Gonne since, iirc,
> Yeats met her when he was 24. To me that would be after "late boyhood",
> but maybe it wouldn't have been to Yeats?
>
> No - I think that W.B. would have considered this late boyhood allright. He
> was painfully shy and had little experience of girls prior to a fling with
> an actress (Florence Farr?) when he was in his early 20's.
Agreed on the shyness etc, but I can't believe he put the time down
to boyhood.
It's later 20th century ideas that make out that you can be a boy in
your 20s, surely.
Alan Smaill
> Axel Harvey wrote:
>
> > I am somewhat reluctant to assume he meant Maude Gonne since, iirc,
> > Yeats met her when he was 24. To me that would be after "late boyhood",
> > but maybe it wouldn't have been to Yeats?
>
> Possibly another form of poetic licence,
This is in the (prose) introduction, rather than the poems themselves.
> but see John Sheehan's reply - Yeats
> was something of a late bloomer. There's also the fact that he was
> 60 when "A
> Vision" first was publ'd [1925, according to my sources], &
> looking back might
> well have felt "I was a mere boy then" - especially given the emotional
> turmoil he experienced during the preceding decade.
>
> If the preface is from the later re-issue, in 1937, no doubt 24 would have
> seemed even more boyish..
Well. OK, but still I can't think that "boyhood friend" would ever
be the way he'd refer to Maude Gonne, it's "friend" that's the bigger
problem. I doubt he ever thought of her as a friend. (much more, of course)
> > > >In his preface to _A_Vision_, Yeats pauses to "recall a person as
> > > >unlike him [ Pound ] as possible, the only friend who remains to me
> > > >from late boyhood...
>
> On reflection, it occurs to me that it's not completely out the question he
> was referring to Eva Gore-Booth.
This is more convincing, I think.
> "[G]rown gaunt in the injustice of what seems her blind nobility of pity"
> does
> plausibly suggest an echo of "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth & Con Markiewicz,"
> where he says of her:
>
> "I know not what the younger dreams --
> Some vague Utopia -- and she seems,
> When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,
> An image of such politics."
>
> [IMHO 'vague' & 'Utopian' are oddly off-base in describing Gore-Booth's
> life-long & highly specific commitment to the political & economic
> empowerment
> of women, especially of her organising activities among working class women.
> Still, this is perhaps another example of the incomprehension Yeats seemed to
> feel when contemplating the republican [note small 'r'] & socialist politics
> of his time.]
>
> OTOH, Eva lived most of her adult life in England w/ her partner, Esther
> Roper, & I don't think she was especially close to Yeats or likely to be
> described by him as a friend. Furthermore, she wouldn't ever have been "the
> only friend remaining," as both the Countess & Maude Gonne outlived her.
But were these friends to him so long after?
Or is it someone different again?
...
Great poem, of course.
--
K. E. Dennis
> "K. E. Dennis" <den...@mail.montclair.edu> writes:
> > Axel Harvey wrote:
> >
> > > I am somewhat reluctant to assume he meant Maude Gonne since, iirc,
> > > Yeats met her when he was 24. To me that would be after "late boyhood"...
> [...]
> >
> > Possibly another form of poetic licence,
>
> This is in the (prose) introduction, rather than the poems themselves.
In my bid for the Pedant's Spoon, let me note that poetic licence is also known as
literary licence, & is not confined to poems.
The Oxford Companion to the English Language defines it as:
"The traditional practice among poets, dramatists, & others of departing from
conventional rules of form, fact, realism, logic, & the presentation of truth, for
the sake of the effect to be gained. Such licence may entail exaggeration, shifts
or collapses in time, the blending of two or more real people into one fictional
character, or attributing specific words to someone who never in fact used them."
see: http://www.xrefer.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=443416
IME, poets & other writers of creative works rarely write or speak as tho there
were a definitive line separating poetry from prose [or anything else, for that
matter].
....& "A Vision" is a prose work, anyway;-)
> > but see John Sheehan's reply - Yeats
> > was something of a late bloomer. There's also the fact that he was
> > 60 when "A
> > Vision" first was publ'd [....]
> > If the preface is from the later re-issue, in 1937, no doubt 24 would have
> > seemed even more boyish..
>
> Well. OK, but still I can't think that "boyhood friend" would ever
> be the way he'd refer to Maude Gonne, it's "friend" that's the bigger problem. I
> doubt he ever thought of her as a friend. (much more, of course)
OTOH, "A Vision" was pub'd after Yeats had married Georgie Hyde-Lees, & they'd had
2 children. I'd hardly expect him to use a more loaded term than "friend" in
describing his on-going relationship w/ Maude.
They had a very complex relat'nship indeed, but much evidence suggests that Gonne
considered it a friendship, & assumed Yeats felt similarly, tho perhaps more
passionately. "Friendship" is a term w/ an extraordinary range of meaning to
different people, after all.
For those interested in Gonne's perspective, BTW, I can recommend the following:
The Gonne-Yeats Letters, 1893-1938
Anna MacBride White & A. Norman Jeffares (Ed.)
1993, W. W. Norton, & Co. [out of print - ISBN: 0393034453]
1994 re-issue, Syracuse Univ. Press [ISBN: 0815603029]
[A quick on-line check didn't turn this up @ all on amazon.uk, or easons.com, but
it's listed on the N. American site for amazon, & thru barnesandnoble.com, so it's
still available *someplace*.]
These letters overwhelmingly are Gonne's to Yeats, as those *from* Yeats mostly
were destroyed during the Civil War. In them she repeatedly calls him "my friend"
& rambles on about everything from her political activities [on which they had
numerous disagreements, of course] to their common interests in occultism
[something I personally never assoc'd w/ Gonne!].
SFAIK, there's nothing resembling a correspondence of this sort w/ either Con
Markiewicz or Eva Gore-Booth.
One other point to consider:
"A Vision" was a work that arose out of experiments w/ automatic writing w/ his
wife - it is in lg part derived from the notebooks they kept of those. Like Yeats,
Georgie was a mbr of the Order of the Golden Dawn, & was very 'receptive' to
spiritual influences.
<knowing grin>
For a truly fascinating [if rather tendentious & sloppily written] argument that
Georgie quite consciously used her 'psychic talents' & their mutual fascination w/
the occult to help wean Yeats from his obsession w/ Maude [& w/ Maude's daughter,
Iseult, to whom he proposed only wks before he asked Georgie to marry him], see:
Yeats's Ghosts: The Secret Life of W. B. Yeats
Brenda Maddox
1999, HarperCollins
ISBN: 0060174943
In any case, after a rocky start, Georgie & Willie had a very creative & successful
marriage, & many scholars give Georgie credit as an active collaborator in the
processes that led to his late works - not as a passive muse. The automatic
writings have been closely linked to the complex symbolism & the philosophical
arguments of many of his later poems.
There are indications that Yeats *did* eventually overcome his obsession w/ Gonne
after his marriage. By the publ'n of "A Vision" - certainly by its re-issue in '37
- he already may have achieved a more balanced appreciation of their relationship
*as* a friendship - as Gonne had always seen it.
> > On reflection, it occurs to me that it's not completely out the question he
> > was referring to Eva Gore-Booth.
>
> This is more convincing, I think.
I'm afraid I consider it a long shot, TBH, for the reasons previously mentioned [&
here mostly snipped].
> > OTOH, Eva lived most of her adult life in England w/ her partner, Esther
> > Roper, & I don't think she was especially close to Yeats or likely to be
> > described by him as a friend. Furthermore, she wouldn't ever have been "the
> > only friend remaining," as both the Countess & Maude Gonne outlived her.
>
> But were these friends to him so long after?
Maude certainly was. But Con Markiewicz died only a yr after her sister.
> Or is it someone different again?
Possibly, but we're limited to considering women, & the other names that come to
mind as his friends in maturity [Katherine Tynan, for example] were *not* met in
his youth.
> Great poem, of course.
>
> [snipped _In Memory Of Eva Gore-Booth And Con Markiewicz_]
Isn't it just? For all his flaws [& who among us hasn't those?] Willie Yeats wrote
some supernally beautiful verse.
So I think I'll sneak another into the discussion....
~~~~~
_The Folly of Being Comforted_
One who is ever kind said yesterday:
‘Your well-beloved’s hair has threads of grey,
And little shadows come about her eyes;
Time but can make it easier to be wise
Though now it seems impossible, and so
All you need is patience.’
Heart cries, ‘No,
I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain.
Time but can make her beauty over again:
Because of that great nobleness of hers
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,
Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways
When all the wild summer was in her gaze.’
O heart! O heart! If she’d but turn her head,
You’d know the folly of being comforted.
~~~
_The Folly of Being Comforted_
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats
1933, The Macmillan Company
[orig’l pub'n 1904, in In The Seven Woods]
~~~~
KateH
> The Gonne-Yeats Letters, 1893-1938
> Anna MacBride White & A. Norman Jeffares (Ed.)
> 1993, W. W. Norton, & Co. [out of print - ISBN: 0393034453]
> 1994 re-issue, Syracuse Univ. Press [ISBN: 0815603029]
>
> Yeats's Ghosts: The Secret Life of W. B. Yeats
> Brenda Maddox
> 1999, HarperCollins
> ISBN: 0060174943
Thanks Karen........I was in search of a good read.
KateH :)
K. E. Dennis
> re:
My pleasure, ma'am.
<deep bow>
You might also note, if you haven't read it:
The Autobiography of Maud Gonne: A Servant of the Queen
Maud Gonne MacBride
ed., Anna MacBride White (her grand-daughter!) & A. Norman Jeffares
1995, Univ. of Chicago Press
It's fascinating, IMHO.
& to put it all into political perspective, you might hunt down the
following, which I'm pleased to learn Pluto Press has reissued
relatively recently:
Unmanageable Revolutionaries : Women & Irish Nationalism
Margaret Ward
1996, Pluto Press
ISBN: 0745310842
KateH
> KateH wrote:
> > Thanks Karen........I was in search of a good read.
>
> <deep bow>
> You might also note, if you haven't read it:
>
> The Autobiography of Maud Gonne: A Servant of the Queen
> Maud Gonne MacBride
> ed., Anna MacBride White (her grand-daughter!) & A. Norman Jeffares
> 1995, Univ. of Chicago Press
>
> It's fascinating, IMHO.
>
> & to put it all into political perspective, you might hunt down the
> following, which I'm pleased to learn Pluto Press has reissued
> relatively recently:
>
> Unmanageable Revolutionaries : Women & Irish Nationalism
> Margaret Ward
> 1996, Pluto Press
> ISBN: 0745310842
Ahhhhh that does it......the last straw. I guess I have to cough up the
cash for the Whitman College library card, now.
KateH :)
PS......Thanks! I desperately *needed* an excuse.
mickeymickiewicz
Yeats--he do the monkey balls in different sauces.
mm
KateH
> Yeats--he do the monkey balls in different sauces.
I thought that was Kipling.
KateH
K. E. Dennis
> [snip reading list]
>
> Ahhhhh that does it......the last straw. I guess I have to cough up the
> cash for the Whitman College library card, now.
> KateH :)
> PS......Thanks! I desperately *needed* an excuse.
I can't apologise, in any case - so I can only hope it's not too hugely
expensive*. But you will be happier in the long run, I promise - access to
a collegiate library [& the assoc'd inter-library loan networks] is a
wonderful thing.
(*I confess, tho: I have echoes of Matthew 13:46 going thru my head;-)
KateH
> expensive*. But you will be happier in the long run, I promise - access
to
> a collegiate library [& the assoc'd inter-library loan networks] is a
> wonderful thing.
>
> (*I confess, tho: I have echoes of Matthew 13:46 going thru my head;-)
"on finding one pearl of great value"?
Yes, one bookstore could be considerably more deadly .....than a new library
card.
Kate(spoiled ...X-librarian)H :)
mickeymickiewicz
Nope, on both counts (though sometimes only one does count)
mm
KateH
> "KateH" wrote
> > I thought that was Kipling.
>
Cryptic-er and cryptic-er..........this doesn't have anything to do with
musicals set in Oklahoma!......does it?
Kate(ever fearful)H
Timothy Murphy
>tho in fairness I suppose it's always a bit difficult for sensitive poetic
>types - particularly those w/ inherited wealth - to understand that
>penny-pinching & unromantic daily lives are not necessarily signs of degraded
>souls.
Did Yeats "inherit wealth"?
It is my impression that his father was far from wealthy.
--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail: t...@maths.tcd.ie
tel: 086-233 6090
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
mickeymickiewicz
> "K. E. Dennis" <den...@mail.montclair.edu> writes:
>
> >tho in fairness I suppose it's always a bit difficult for sensitive poetic
> >types - particularly those w/ inherited wealth - to understand that
> >penny-pinching & unromantic daily lives are not necessarily signs of degraded
> >souls.
>
> Did Yeats "inherit wealth"?
> It is my impression that his father was far from wealthy.
There is the story that the police came round to Yeats' house figuring
that he was lying about his income...since they surmised that anyone
in the papers all the time had to have money, and they went away
shocked to find he didn't have much money.
mm
K. E. Dennis
> Scríobh Timothy Murphy <9jqhr9$1th$1...@boole.maths.tcd.ie> :
>
> >"K. E. Dennis" <den...@mail.montclair.edu> writes:
> >
> >>tho in fairness I suppose it's always a bit difficult for sensitive poetic
> >>types - particularly those w/ inherited wealth - to understand that
> >>penny-pinching & unromantic daily lives are not necessarily signs of degraded
> >>souls.
> >
> >Did Yeats "inherit wealth"?
> >It is my impression that his father was far from wealthy.
>
> He wasn't a ragged arsed beggar either.
Took the words out of my mouth, there, Ger [or @ least words to the same effect].
I'll grant that 'wealth' may be a bit off the mark if one visualises lots of ready
cash & complete independence from monetary concerns.
The elder Yeats was something of a Bohemian @ heart, & @ the time of his marriage
the family income was compromised in ways quite characteristic of the self
described Irish aristocracy - bad speculations, repeated re-mortgaging of real
estate, running up huge debts to maintain appearances, & so forth - not to mention
the impact of the Land Agitation, which apparently severely affected the income
stream. [1]
Susan Pollexfen, WBY's mother, came from one of the wealthiest families in co.
Sligo - altho her father apparently was something of a mean, grasping type & she
didn't go into the marriage w/ an impressive settlement, as would have been the
expectation. [2]
They were a classic shabby genteel family, but the property & income were
substantial enough for the time, comfortably above avg IIRC, & if they were not
full fledged mbrs of the elite among Anglo-Irish "country families," certainly felt
themselves to be part of that class by 'breeding' & by right.
For absolutely exhaustive detail - more than I suspect even the most fanatical
Yeats fan could truly appreciate [tho perhaps that's just my dislike of biographies
coming thru] - on the formative yrs of the poet, see:
W.B. Yeats a Life: The Apprentice Mage, 1865-1914 (Vol. 1)
R. F. Foster
1997, Oxford Univ. Press
Vol. 2 is supposed to be pub'd this yr, but I probably will leave it to someone
else to read that. Any volunteers?
footnotes:
[1] No doubt this played some part in the complex nature of WBY's political views,
as well as being the obvious impetus behind one of his more famous poems, below.
Mystification of the actual economic basis of 'aristocratic' power has a long
pedigree, even if the 'aristocrats' in fact do not.
Yeats was so gifted that he managed to make magnificent poetry even as he voiced
his contemptuous - & contemptible - sense of ethnic & class superiority. If only
he’d meant this nonsense as ironically as it now reads.
_Upon A House Shaken By The Land Agitation_
How should the world be luckier if this house,
Where passion and precision have been one
Time out of mind, became too ruinous
To breed the lidless eye that loves the sun?
And the sweet laughing eagle thoughts that grow
Where wings have memories of wings, and all
That comes of the best knit to the best. Although
Mean roof-trees were the sturdier for its fall,
How should their luck run high enough to reach
The gifts that govern men, and after these
To gradual Time’s last gift, a written speech
Wrought of high laughter, loveliness and ease?
~~~~~
_Upon A House Shaken By The Land Agitation_
W. B. Yeats
The Green Helmet & Other Poems
pub'd 1910, The Cuala Press
~~~~~
[2] Also apparently quite influential in shaping WBY's deep distaste for
penny-pinching: it apparently was a parental grievance of considerable importance
during his childhood & youth.
K. E. Dennis
best back-handed compliments to the power of his talent. Some might reasonably see
this as the petty revenge of mediocrity on genius.
Tho personally I have difficulty divorcing his poetry from his politics - @ least in
those verses openly motivated by the latter - I recognise this is by no means the only
way to apprehend the poet or the poetry - as witness the following tribute [not itself
w/o critical sting] by another very talented poet.
Eavan Boland has written extensively about the stultifying effects of the "woman as
muse" image in Irish literature & society, & WBY's role in reinforcing it - but she @
least acknowledges genius, & what Yeats represents to anyone who writes - or merely
loves - poetry.
_Yeats in Civil War_
In middle age you exchanged the sandals
Of a pilgrim for a Norman keep
in Galway. Civil war started. Vandals
Sacked your country, made off with your sheep.
Somehow you arranged your escape
Aboard a spirit ship which every day
Hoisted sail out of fire and rape.
On that ship your mind was stowaway.
The sun mounted on a wasted place.
But the wind at every door and turn
Blew the smell of honey in your face
Where there was none.
Whatever I may learn
You are its sum, struggling to survive –
A fantasy of honey your reprieve.
~~~
_Yeats in Civil War_
Eavan Boland
An Origin Like Water: Collected Poems, 1967-1987
1996, W.W. Norton & Co.
~~~
John Sheehan
Fachad ir <Fach@d. ir> wrote in message
news:b68imtsjak3ii5d8o...@4ax.com...
> Scríobh K. E. Dennis <3B687F32...@mail.montclair.edu> :
>
> >Yeats was so gifted that he managed to make magnificent poetry even as he
voiced
> >his contemptuous - & contemptible - sense of ethnic & class superiority.
If only
> >he'd meant this nonsense as ironically as it now reads.
>
> without any irony.
I (myself) still pine for a big house/houses without the drudgery of
ironing. However I would treat the "downstairs" staff with respect and
arrange parties for their children, unlike the old gentry who you so rightly
despise.
John
John Sheehan
mickeymickiewicz <mickeymi...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:ad8287ed.01080...@posting.google.com...
I believe that W.B's father inherited 350 acres in Sligo - somewhere near
Ballisodare? Certainly a lot of land but, as mentioned by K.E.Dennis, not
enough to gain entry to the ascendancy. The Yeats family had notions of
grandeur and always claimed to be related to the Butler family (Earls of
somewhere? 'Fraid I do'nt know much about this title nonsense). This was
apparently the reason for the "Butler" part of W.B.Yeats name.
john
K. E. Dennis
> Fachad ir <Fach@d. ir> wrote:
> >
> > Sadly enough too, there are those who still pine for the big houses
> > without any irony.
>
> I (myself) still pine for a big house/houses without the drudgery of
> ironing. However I would treat the "downstairs" staff with respect and
> arrange parties for their children, unlike the old gentry who you so rightly
> despise.
& no doubt be suitably memorialised by that faithful old retainer, honest Thady.