W.B. Yeats and the Muses

by Joseph M. Hassett

Overview

W.B. Yeats and the Muses explores how nine fascinating women inspired much of W.B. Yeats's poetry. These women are particularly important because Yeats perceived them in terms of beliefs about poetic inspiration akin to the Greek notion that a great poet is inspired and possessed by the feminine voices of the Muses. Influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite idea of woman as 'romantic and mysterious, still the priestess of her shrine', Yeats found his Muses in living women. His extraordinarily long and fruitful poetic career was fuelled by passionate relationships with women to and about whom he wrote some of his most compelling poetry. The book summarizes the different Muse traditions that were congenial to Yeats and shows how his perception of these women as Muses underlies his poetry. Newly available letters and manuscripts are used to explore the creative process and interpret the poems. Because Yeats believed that lyric poetry 'is no rootless flower, but the speech of a man,' exploring the relationship between poem and Muse brings new coherence to the poetry, illuminates the process of its creation, and unlocks the 'second beauty' to which Yeats referred when he claimed that 'works of lyric genius, when the circumstances of their origin is known, gain a second a beauty, passing as it were out of literature and becoming life.' As life emerges from the literature, the Muses are shown to be vibrant, multi-faceted personalities who shatter the idea of the Muse as a passive stereotype and take their proper place as begetters of timeless poetry.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191614897
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	07/22/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Joseph M. Hassett, Independent scholar,

Table of Contents

List of Plates vi

Acknowledgments vii

Abbreviations x

Manuscript Material Abbreviations xiii

Introduction 1

1 White Woman That Passion Has Worn Olivia Shakespear 11

2 Where the Blessed Dance Florence Farr 37

3 The Apple on the Bough Most Out of Reach Maud Gonne 65

4 The Living Beauty Iseult Gonne 103

5 Out of a Medium's Mouth George Hyde-Lees 131

6 In Search of the Muse: Memories of Love and Lyrics for Imaginary People 157

7 A Foolish, Passionate Man Margot Ruddock Ethel Mannin l69

8 Fury Dorothy Wellesley 185

9 Golden Codger and Siren Yeats Edith Shackleton Heald 199

Finale 209

Endnotes 213

Bibliography 235

Index 245

Editorial Reviews

"A subtle, suggestive study of inspiration, based on penetrating readings of the poems and a close exploration of the texture of the poet's biography; it weaves life, love and work together in a quintessentially Yeatsian manner, full of insight." —Roy Foster, Carroll Professor of Irish History, Hertford College, Oxford

"Hassett's elegant book manages to give a summary and compelling account of the extraordinary sequence of distinguished women that Yeats was inspired by throughout his life, tracing fully all the eccentricities of those connections. This is one of those books which leaves you marveling that the world left room for it to be written: a delight from start to finish." —Bernard O'Donoghue, Fellow in English, Wadham College, Oxford

"Joseph Hassett's W.B. Yeats and the Muses is a valuable addition to both the critical and biographical literature on Yeats. Equipped with shrewdly evaluated, often new, biographical material, his scrupulous engagement with the relevant poems provides convincing critical illuminations, original slants, and fresh ways of seeing. Since this work brings the Classical as well as the Romantic notion of the Muse to modern discourse in a responsible way, it's hard to imagine the poems being read in the future without reference to Hassett's extended insights into one of the most fruitful and provoking zones in all of Yeats's' work." —Eamon Grennan, Emeritus Professor of English, Vassar College

"A brilliant and magisterial work of scholarship...A magnificent achievement. What [Hassett] demonstrates with clarity, discretion and profound insight is that Yeats is a consummate poet of love. Through his careful analysis of how the love and sexual passion of a great artist can infuse his creative life with inspiration and power, Hassett has made a major contribution not only to Yeats studies but also to a more enlightened understanding of how ordinary human beings can live more productively engaged and fulfilled lives...Like his subject, Hassett's book is a work of great intellectual and human significance that will stand the test of time." —Professor James Flannery, Irish America

"[A] deeply informed and fascinating book...An exceptionally lucid work of criticism." —Michael Dirda, The Weekly Standard

"Joseph Hassett's beautifully written study follows a strong yet subtle argument through widely researched and scrupulously detailed individual chapters. The Yeats who emerges from it is clearly driven by the needs of his work as a poet; to that end all others are subservient." —Dublin Review of Books

"Even to the sophisticated reader of Yeats, these explorations of Yeats's personal life and the symbiosis of his Muses confirm 'a second beauty' and 'new coherence' to Yeats's poems. These insights are the result of Joseph M. Hassett's able scholarship." —Studies Irish Review

From the Publisher