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Thesis (M.A.)--Villanova University, 2008. / English Dept. Includes bibliographical references.

Inspiration as embodied in the mythical figure of the Muse is an insistent theme in Yeats' poetry. His particular concept of the Muse is drawn from Celtic mythology, and in its principal aspects is synonymous with Robert Graves' sinister White Goddess, which derives from similar or cognate sources in Celtic lore. The White Goddess is described in terms of a triad of mother, beloved and slayer, and may be considered the prototype for the Gaelic Muse, celebrated by poets as the Leanhaun Sidhe. Originally, the Leanhaun Sidhe was a goddess of the Tuatha De Danaan; the Danaans were the divinities of ancient Eire who finally "dwindled in the popular imagination" to become the fairy folk, or Sidhe. Fractions of Yeats' prose and his collections of Celtic stories portray the Sidhe's activities and the Muse's gift of deathly inspiration. The Leanhaun Sidhe and her fairy denizens predominate in Yeats' first major poem "The Wanderings of Oisin" and in his first three volumes of poetry. The Celtic theme of the seduction of a mortal by a fairy enchantress provides the controlling structure of "The Wanderings of Oisin." The ornately beautiful and sinister Niamh entices Oisin away from his cherished Fenian companions and from all human experience; however, after three hundred years in the immortal realm, Oisin longs to return to the insufficiencies of mortality. "The Wanderings of Oisin" establishes the equivocal dialectic of the fairy and human orders, of seductive vision and inescapable fact, which underlies much of Yeats' later work. The attributes of the Leanhaun Sidhe are also seminal. As White Goddess, she represents the beloved in whom the dualities of creation and destruction coincide; in addition she possesses individual qualities, notably, her sadness. Niamh is comparable to the fairy beguilers of Crossways and particularly to the Muse figures of The Rose. In this second volume, Yeats supplicates the Rose (the Celtic Muse) for the facility to sing Danaan songs. Her inspiration allows him to perceive the essence underlying the phenomenal world, but again the transcendent cannot deny the finite and the immortal Rose remains transfixed upon the Rood of Time ("To the Rose upon the Rood of Time"). Her role as White Goddess is emphatic: she prompts God to create the world, but conversely her beauty effects its destruction. The Wind among the Reeds embodies a climactic treatment of the flight into fairyland. The poet meditates upon the apocalyptic Sidhe with unceasing desire; there is no counterweight to alluring vision. In the poetry of 1904-10, the Muse retains her role of White Goddess, but becomes a creature of mortality. Since she is both changeful and subject to change, the poet laments her cruel fickleness and her transiency. Although mortal, she is the human original for the heroic archetype, and Yeats endows her with the epic savagery and recklessness of the Celtic warrior queens. The Morrigu becomes the source of inspiration. After The Green Helmet and Other Poems the Muse no longer serves as a major structural theme. Yeats becomes preoccupied with the finished work of art, the highly-wrought artefact, rather than with the inspiration for that work. The Muse is the legendary destructive beloved, Mary Hynes or Helen, but the poet creates her, she does not create him. The Muse as artefact proves the invention of the aged poet who cannot render an impassioned dedication to female beauty. "The Tower" is the most prominent poem to treat this change, yet even here Yeats reaffirms his dual allegiance to art and life, the resolution echoing the pattern established in "The Wanderings of Oisin." In the late poetry, the White Goddess as Muse is totally disavowed and Yeats turns to the persona of the fleshly Crazy Jane; interestingly, the aged poet celebrates the pleasures of the body and of the physical universe. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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Yeats was part of a late nineteenth-century European literary movement which, dissatisfied with Western tradition, both scientific and religious, looked towards the Orient for enlightemnent. Unlike Pound, who sought solace in Japanese and Chinese sources, Yeats went to Indian philosophy and literature in his quest for "metaphors for poetry," and he remained a constant student of the Indian view of life. [...]

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This thesis has examined the moon and sun imagery of Yeats's Last Poems (1936-1939), contrasting the diminution and transmutations of astronomical imagery with its rich symbolic development from 1889 to 1936. Using lyric poetry of The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats and selected prose works of William Butler Yeats, the study has traced the multiple antinomial forces embodied in moon and sun and the change in imagery that marked Yeat's poetic growth. The thesis has discussed vestiges of overt moon and sun imagery in Last Poems, Yeats's reasons for the changes that characterize his career, and the substitutes that replaced moon and sun.

This thesis has been a study of strategies employed in the poetry of W. B. Yeats. Specifically, it has treated five poems important in Yeats' development as a poet: "The Song of Wandering Aengus"; "The Wild Swans at Coole"; "Leda and the Swan"; "Lapis Lazuli"; "Long-Legged Fly." It has demonstrated certain devices used in the composition of the poems. In short, it has been an explication of the poems.Further, this thesis has revealed Yeats' concern for art as a subject for poetry. It has revealed that early in his development, Yeats was concerned with art and the individual, and that later in his development, he was concerned with art and civilization.

In addition to being a respected poet, dramatist, essayist, and statesman, William Butler Yeats was a dedicated student of the occult and practicing magician for most of his adult life. In spite of his dedication, Yeats’ commitment to occultism has often been ridiculed as “bughouse” (as Ezra Pound put it), shunted to the margins of academic discourse, or ignored altogether. Yeats’ occult-focused prose fiction—the occult trilogy of stories “Rosa Alchemica,” “The Tables of the Law,” and “The Adoration of the Magi” and the unfinished novel The Speckled Bird—has often received similarly dismissive treatment. Some critics have accused Yeats of being an escapist or of being out of touch with the intellectual currents of his time. However, Yeats was in touch with the intellectual currents of his time, one of which was the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century occult revival. This was not a fringe movement; it was one which intersected with some of the most pressing social and cultural issues of the time. These include the dissatisfaction with mainstream religions, the renegotiation of women’s roles, the backlash against science, and nationalism and the colonial enterprise. This intersection is what I have termed occulture. The central purpose of this dissertation is twofold. First, I demonstrate the cultural and academic relevance of the occult revival by analyzing its connections to these critical issues. Second, I situate the occult trilogy and The Speckled Bird as artifacts of the occult revival and its associated facets. Through its main characters, the occult trilogy illustrates a fragmented self associated with literary modernism and with scientific challenges to individual identity from Darwin, Freud, and others. In addition, these three stories exemplify a sacralization of the domestic sphere which conflicts with the officially-sanctioned sacred spaces of mainstream religions. The Speckled Bird also reconfigures the sacred space as Michael Hearne contemplates a magical order with Irish nationalist implications. In examining these works within this historical context, I present them as texts which engage with the social and cultural landscape of the time. / Occulture : occultism and the occult revival -- The occult trilogy : self and space in an occult context -- The speckled bird : sacralizing Ireland. / Department of English

William Butler Yeats published the first section of the Autobiographies in 1915 with the appearance of Reveries Over Childhood and Youth and published the last contribution to the final volume of 1955 with Dramatis Personae in 1935. For a period of twenty years, Yeats was formulating this official version of his life. The constant building and selecting for this version created a volume that, for the most part, carefully edited out too personal reflections and also served to present an incomplete and disjointed autobiography.