Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 65-66).

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

In this study of the influence of Matthew Arnold on W.B. Yeats, I describe a tendency in the critical field to overlook the placement of Arnold at Phase 18, and the implications of his presence beside Yeats at Phase 17, in Yeats’s key philosophical treatise A Vision (1926, 1937). The central contribution of my thesis is to address this crucial blind spot but also the concomitant failure by critics to consider Arnold’s overall bearing on the ‘System’ itself. Chiefly through analysis of the gyres, two types of man, and lunar phases of the Great Wheel, I trace five main, interrelated aspects comprising ‘the Arnoldian element’ in A Vision: 1) Romanticism; 2) morbidity; 3) Celticism; 4) culture; and 5) the over-arching ideal of ancient Greek genius. My thesis that Arnold is paramount to Yeats’s poetical and political concerns in the treatise demonstrates how the Arnoldian element – including a covert extension of Yeats’s dialogue with Arnold in “The Celtic Element in Literature” (1897) – within its abstruse occult discourse partly but powerfully shapes: 1) the projection of Irish self-rule and unity, principally in the figure of the Daimonic Man of the ideal Phase 17 (Yeats) subversively juxtaposed with the fragmenting Emotional Man of Phase 18 (Arnold and Goethe), in a time of anarchy; and 2) the representation of a range of phasal examples (named and unnamed, encompassing both literature and sexual love). I argue that Yeats’s considerable indebtedness to Arnold 1) both spurs and troubles readings of Yeats as a poet of decolonization; 2) merits attention in the long-running ‘Orwellian’ debate over Yeats’s alleged fascism, coinciding with Yeats’s eugenics; 3) illuminates A Vision as an ‘anxiety of influence’ text in which Yeats ‘kills’ his critical fathers Arnold and J.B. Yeats; and 4) warrants Arnold’s routine inclusion among Yeats’s foremost influences like Nietzsche, Blake, Dante, and Shelley whose portrayals in A Vision are partly bound up, as I show, with Yeats’s engagement with Arnold.

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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Disturbance has been recognised as a presence in Yeats’s poetry for some time, although its discussion has not been extensive. The purpose of this thesis is to explore a particular type of disturbance in Yeat’s poetry that has not yet been investigated: disruption, and its relation to the Bible. I argue that disruption, in its meanings of interruption, disorder, fracturing, and division, is a distinct presence in a number of Yeat’s poems, and that it manifests in three key categories: disruption relating to Yeatsian poiesis, Yeat’s interest in and use of instances of disruption in the Bible, and disruption of the Bible itself. / I begin by considering “The Second Coming” as a notable instance of disruption and its religious and biblical resonances. I argue that this work, in reference to an instance of disruption in the Bible, undergoes textual disruption close to its centre. I develop an account of the poem as divided into opposing texts, identities, and prophetic currents, all in close relation to the Bible. I then turn to a range of contextual matters raised by the discussion of “The Second Coming”. Starting with a consideration of religion and the Bible in Yeat’s artistic vision, I argue that these two factors are important to Yeat’s envisioning of art and that disruption is deeply involved with both. Following this I investigate the relation between disruption and the Bible itself, demonstrating that disruption is a strong presence in the biblical narrative. I then consider Yeat’s reception of the Bible, focusing on Yeat’s perception of the Authorised Version and on Blake as a precursor. I argue that the Authorised Version was significant for Yeats, and that Blake was influential in demonstrating the poetic possibilities of biblically-related disruption for Yeats. / After discussing these contextual matters I embark upon a wider survey of biblically-related disruption in Yeat’s poetry. First, I consider a group of poems from one of Yeat’s earlier poetic books, The Wind Among the Reeds. I argue that these works, through the figure of the biblical wind, explore the conjunction of disruption and the Bible in each of the three categories of disruption outlined above. I then turn to a second set of poems that I group together due to a shared theme of inspiration. I argue that these works also engage with disruption and the Bible, particularly in relation to the category of disruption relating to the act of poiesis. The last group of poems that I consider are concerned with central events in the life of Christ. I argue that these works demonstrate a dynamic exploration of disruption and the Bible in relation to these events, focusing particularly on the nature of Christ as God and Saviour. I then proceed to a consideration of disruption in Yeats apart from its expression in the poetry. Seeking to gain a deeper insight into disruption as an element of Yeatsian poiesis, I consider some relevant theoretical perspectives before suggesting that disruption in Yeats can be constructively interpreted in terms of potentiality.

Abstract available in pdf file.

Disturbance has been recognised as a presence in Yeats’s poetry for some time, although its discussion has not been extensive. The purpose of this thesis is to explore a particular type of disturbance in Yeat’s poetry that has not yet been investigated: disruption, and its relation to the Bible. I argue that disruption, in its meanings of interruption, disorder, fracturing, and division, is a distinct presence in a number of Yeat’s poems, and that it manifests in three key categories: disruption relating to Yeatsian poiesis, Yeat’s interest in and use of instances of disruption in the Bible, and disruption of the Bible itself. / I begin by considering “The Second Coming” as a notable instance of disruption and its religious and biblical resonances. I argue that this work, in reference to an instance of disruption in the Bible, undergoes textual disruption close to its centre. I develop an account of the poem as divided into opposing texts, identities, and prophetic currents, all in close relation to the Bible. I then turn to a range of contextual matters raised by the discussion of “The Second Coming”. Starting with a consideration of religion and the Bible in Yeat’s artistic vision, I argue that these two factors are important to Yeat’s envisioning of art and that disruption is deeply involved with both. Following this I investigate the relation between disruption and the Bible itself, demonstrating that disruption is a strong presence in the biblical narrative. I then consider Yeat’s reception of the Bible, focusing on Yeat’s perception of the Authorised Version and on Blake as a precursor. I argue that the Authorised Version was significant for Yeats, and that Blake was influential in demonstrating the poetic possibilities of biblically-related disruption for Yeats. / After discussing these contextual matters I embark upon a wider survey of biblically-related disruption in Yeat’s poetry. First, I consider a group of poems from one of Yeat’s earlier poetic books, The Wind Among the Reeds. I argue that these works, through the figure of the biblical wind, explore the conjunction of disruption and the Bible in each of the three categories of disruption outlined above. I then turn to a second set of poems that I group together due to a shared theme of inspiration. I argue that these works also engage with disruption and the Bible, particularly in relation to the category of disruption relating to the act of poiesis. The last group of poems that I consider are concerned with central events in the life of Christ. I argue that these works demonstrate a dynamic exploration of disruption and the Bible in relation to these events, focusing particularly on the nature of Christ as God and Saviour. I then proceed to a consideration of disruption in Yeats apart from its expression in the poetry. Seeking to gain a deeper insight into disruption as an element of Yeatsian poiesis, I consider some relevant theoretical perspectives before suggesting that disruption in Yeats can be constructively interpreted in terms of potentiality.