Synopses & Reviews
Autobiographies consists of six autobiographical works that William Butler Yeats published together in the mid-1930s to form a single, extraordinary memoir of the first fifty-eight years of his life, from his earliest memories of childhood to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. This volume provides a vivid series of personal accounts of a wide range of figures, and it describes Yeats's work as poet and playwright, as a founder of Dublin's famed Abbey Theatre, his involvement with Irish nationalism, and his fascination with occultism and visions. This book is most compelling as Yeats's own account of the growth of his poetic imagination. Yeats thought that a poet leads a life of allegory, and that his works are comments upon it.
Autobiographies enacts his ruling belief in the connections and coherence between the life that he led and the works that he wrote. It is a vision of personal history as art, and so it is the one truly essential companion to his poems and plays.
Edited by William H. O'Donnell and Douglas N. Archibald, this volume is available for the first time with invaluable explanatory notes and includes previously unpublished passages from candidly explicit first drafts.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [419]-527) and index.
About the Author
William Butler Yeats is generally considered to be Ireland's greatest poet, living or dead, and one of the most
important literary figures of the twentieth century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923.
Table of Contents
CONTENTSEditors' Preface
Textual Introduction
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
Reveries over Childhood and Youth (w. 1914, publ. 1916)
The Trembling of the Veil. Book I. Four Years: 1887-1891 (w. 1920-21, publ. 1921)
The Trembling of the Veil. Book II. Ireland after Parnell (w. 1920-22, publ. 1922)
The Trembling of the Veil. Book III. Hodos Chameliontos (w. 1920-22, publ. 1922)
The Trembling of the Veil. Book IV. The Tragic Generation (w. 1920-22, publ. 1922)
The Trembling of the Veil. Book V. The Stirring of the Bones (w. 1920-22, publ. 1922)
Dramatis Personae: 1896-1902 (w. 1934, publ. 1935)
Estrangement: Extracts From A Diary Kept In 1909 (w. 1909, publ. 1926)
The Death of Synge (w. 1909, 1911, 1914, publ. 1928)
The Bounty of Sweden (w. 1923-24, publ. 1924)
The Irish Dramatic Movement: A Lecture delivered to the Royal Academy of Sweden (w. 1923, publ. 1924)
Notes
Emendations to the Copy-Text
End-of-Line Word-Division in the Copy-Text
Background Notes on Writers
Index