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Ml 48106 18 BEDFORD ROW, LONDON WC1R 4EJ, ENGLAND 8024417 Lu n d g a a r d , Ly n n THE IMPORTANCE OF THE VISUAL ARTS IN THE ESTHETIC OF W. B. YEATS The University of Oklahoma ?H.D. 1980 University Microfilms Internstionsi3 «IN.ZKIlR(nd.AmAlbor.MI48106 18BalfonlRow.L(mdoilWClR4EI.Engbull THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE THE IMPORTANCE OF THE VISUAL ARTS IN THE ESTHETIC OF W. B. YEATS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY LYNN LUNDGAARD Norman, Oklahoma 1980 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE VISUAL ARTS IN THE ESTHETIC OF W. B. YEATS APPROVED BY s z r / DISSERTATION COMMITTEE TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. "AN ARTIST AND A POET": BACKGROUNDS OF YEATS’S INVOLVEMENT WITH THE VISUAL ARTS......... 1 II. "THE DIFFICULT ART OF APPRECIATION": YEATS'S ESSAYS ON THE VISUAL A R T S ....................... 53 III. INFLUENCES ON THE EARLY VERSE : "BLAKE AND THE PRE-RAPHAELITES"............................ 126 IV. THE MIDDLE YEARS: "OF PATER'S SCHOOL"............200 V. THE FINAL SYNTHESIS: "OUR MORE PROFOUND PRE-RAPHAELITISM" ........................... 237 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................... 277 111 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE VISUAL ARTS IN THE ESTHETIC OF W. B. YEATS CHAPTER I "AN ARTIST AND A POET" The rioting over The Playboy of the Western World began in 1907. W. B. Yeats watched the wildly indignant audience verbally and physically attacking the work of his friend, the author John Synge, and was reminded of the work of another friend, the painter Charles Ricketts. Almost two years later on March 8, 1909, he wrote to Lady Gregory: "I wrote a note a couple of days ago in which I compared Griffiths and his like to the Eunuchs in Ricketts’ picture watching Don Juan riding through Hell.That comparison he then put into verse in a poem: Once when midnight smote the air. Eunuchs ran through Hell and met On every crowded street to stare Upon great Juan riding by: Even like these to rail and sweat Staring upon his sinewy thigh. 2 The poem was originally published under the title "On Those Who Dislike the 'Playboy'" in the Irish Review, Dec., 1911; then in The Green Helmet And Other Poems, 1921; and as "The Attack on 'The Playboy of the Western World,’ 1907," in Responsibilities, May 25, 1914.^ Finally it was published in Collected Poems, 1933, with the title, "On Those Who Hated ’The Playboy of the Western World’, 1 9 0 7 . The verse does not mention the painting, nor do any of the titles, • nor do Yeats’s notes to the Collected Poems: the poem is, in fact, totally independent of the painting--a reader who had not read Yeats’s letters or happened to see the painting would never suspect a relationship. Yet without that par­ ticular painting, this particular poem would not exist: the scene which Yeats translates into verse is the creation of Charles Ricketts. this is the most striking example of the centrality of works of plastic art to the literary art of W. B. Yeats. Painters and sculptors--yes, and art critics as well--were of primary importance in the development of Yeats's esthetic and in the actual creation of his poetry. Evidence of this importance can be found in Yeats's biography, as well as in his works of art criticism, his plays, and his poems. Not all Yeats's poems, of course, conceal their refer­ ence as does the "Playboy" poem. There are a few which do acknowledge, by title or by direct reference within the poem, their genesis in some other work of art not literary but plastic. In the case of one such poem , we even have an account of the creative process involved, as observed by Mrs. Yeats and the artist Cecil Salkell. Mrs. Yeats attests that her husband had been much impressed by a paint­ ing by Edmund Dulac, and that he was meditating a poem which would take its inspiration from that work. But the lines did not come easily, and Yeats was still experiencing a difficult gestation when Salkell arrived for a visit: Madame Gonne MacBride smiled at me and said: "Willie is booming and buzzing like a bumble bee . that means he is writing something. ..." To my great surprise, Yeats, who appear.ed shortly, obviously preoccupied and absent minded, asked me if I would walk up the glen with him. We walked . in silence. By that I mean no word was spoken; but, all the while, Yeats kept up a persistent murmur-- under his breath, as it were. Suddenly he pulled up short . and said: "Do you realize that eter­ nity is not a long time but a short time?" I just said, I didn’t quite understand! ^Eternity," said Yeats, "Eternity is the glitter on the beetle's wing . it is something infinitely short. ..." I said that I could well conceive "Infinity" as being excessively small as well as being exces­ sively large. "Yes," he said apparently irrele­ vantly, "I Was thinking of those Ephesian topers." Yeats showed Salkell a draft, so rough as to be unintelligible, of the poem: I only saw one phrase which I knew was obsessing him at the time--for Yeats was at all times a man dominated--sometimes for weeks on end--by a single phrase: this one was "mummy wheat"--a phrase des­ tined to appear in a much later poem--a phrase he never forgot. That night Salkell painted a water color of a "weird centaur at the edge of a dark wood; in the foreground, in the shade of the wood, lay the seven Ephesian ’topers’ in a drunken stupor, while far behind on a sunny distant plain, elephants and the glory of a great army passed away into the distance." When he showed this picture to Yeats, he looked at it so critically that I suddenly remem­ bered he had been an art student. He peered at me over the, top of his glasses. "Who is your teacher?" he asked, "Has he told you about values?" What are values, I asked. Yeats laughed his deep fero­ cious chuckle; "Do you really tell me you don’t know what values are?" I said "No," and waited for instruction. "Well, I’m certainly not going to tell you! . 'Values' were the bane of my youth. " After this Yeats spoke nO more of painting, says Salkell, but instead discussed his concept of the "Daimon," and his difficulties in composing The Player Queen. But the incident was far from concluded: Later that night, W. B. came down to supper with a perfectly clear countenance; it was plain the poem was finished. He did not speak throughout the meal, yet I felt he would say something before night was through. When the ladies had withdrawn, he produced a pigskin covered brandy flask and a small beautifully written manuscript: "Your pic­ ture made the thing clear," he said, "I am going to dedicate the poem to you. I shall call it "The Black Centaur" . I was impressed and gratified. But when printed in 192 8 in The Tower, the poem was altered; it was corrected and it was entitled: "On a Picture of a Black Centaur by Edmund Dulac." Many Yeats scholars have attempted to describe the poet's "creative method," noting the long period--sometimes years--which elapsed between the original conception of a poem ' and its actual composition, the many revisions, and the vocal method of composition.^ Not many, however. have remarked that Yeats's idea often passed through the alembic of another work of art before emerging as a finished poem: "Your picture made the thing clear." The two accounts I have quoted are the only documentary evidence which attests to this process, but Yeats's notes to the poems sometimes explain difficult lines by a reference to a painting or statute.