Synopses & Reviews
An essential part of the Irish national imaginary, the poems and plays of W. B. Yeats have helped to create the nation of Ireland, while critiquing the modern state that emerged from the countrys revolutionary period. Yeatss mastery and extension of the traditional forms of verse, from ballad and sonnet to modernist sequence or constellation, gives aesthetic shape to Irish political and cultural preoccupations. This study offers a lucid and comprehensive account of Yeatss poetry and drama that makes illuminating connections with contemporary theories of nationalism and modernism.
Review
“It is the rare book on any poet that offers theoretically informed post-colonial readings as well as close analysis of meter and verse form. Bradleys Imagining Ireland in the Poems and Plays of W. B. Yeats includes comprehensive discussions of Yeatss Ireland in all its cultural, social, and political dimensions. But the focus remains always on the way Yeats responds poetically to the many varieties of Irishness: old Irish legends, popular nationalist poetry, Anglo-Irish tradition, United Irish patriots and martyrs, Free State censorship, and the fulminations of bishops against naughty behavior at dancehalls. The wealth of detail, lucid prose style, and balanced presentation of complex materials make this a superb book that new and old Yeatsians will learn from.”--Lucy McDiarmid, Marie Frazee-Baldassarre Professor of English, Montclair State University
“Bradley's exciting new book brings a lifetime's engagement with Irish literature and a liberal familiarity with studies of Yeats, modernism, and twentieth-century history to bear on Yeatss work. But in the end, Bradley speaks out of his personally coherent and humane sense of life. The readings of the great poems are his own, and they are deep. Especially exciting is the novel pairing of Yeats and Walter Benjamin as modernist European intellects between the Wars, searching, while history rushes bloodily upon them, for a vision of a new great community. Bradley is able to articulate both what is charming and what is frightening in Yeats and in nationalism. Readers will be grateful to find that this learned book is clearly and elegantly written.”--Adrian Frazier, National University of Ireland at Galway
Synopsis
An important part of the Irish national imaginary, Yeats poems and plays have helped to invent the nation of Ireland, while critiquing the modern Irish state that emerged from the nation's revolutionary period. This study offers a chronological account of Yeats volumes of poetry, contextualizing and analyzing them in light of Irish cultural and political history.
Synopsis
An important part of the national imaginary, Yeat's work has helped to invent the nation of Ireland, while critiquing the modern state that emerged from it's revolutionary period. This study offers a chronological account of Yeat's volumes of poetry, contextualizing and analyzing them in light of Irish cultural and political history.
About the Author
Anthony Bradley is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Vermont. He has been awarded Fellowships at Queens University, Belfast, and at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He is the editor of Contemporary Irish Poetry: An Anthology, the author of W. B. Yeats (a study of the plays), and the co-editor of Gender and Sexuality in Modern Ireland.
Table of Contents
Romantic Ireland”: Early Poems and Plays * Nation and Class in Responsibilities * History, Gender, Modernism: The Wild Swans at Coole and Michael Robartes and the Dancer * Modernism, Irishness, and the Postcolonial State: The Tower and The Winding Stair * A Return to Origins: New Poems and Last Poems