Note:

Note: / This thesis examines the manner in which Yeats developed the dancer as a literary symbol and discusses the meanings the symbol acquired as a result of that development. There is a chapter on historical background to the dance and another on what Yeats meant by symbol. The operation of the dancer is examined in detail in the following early poems: "Who Goes with Fergus?" "The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland" and "The Host of the Air." The development is examined in some later poems, such as "Michael Robartes and the Dancer" and others to establish the nature of the change leading toward the dancer's humanisation and toward its acquiring additional meaning because of its assocaition with other symbols, for example, tree and dragon: waht yeats called The Great Procession. "Among School Children" is examined in detail as an example of the operation of the completed symbol. [...]