‘JUST AS STRENUOUS A NATIONALIST AS EVER’, W.B. YEATS AND POSTCOLONIALISM: TENSIONS, AMBIGUITIES, AND UNCERTAINTIES by MOHAMMAD NABI MEIMANDI A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham For the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY School of Humanities The University of Birmingham December 2007 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. To the loving memory of my father and to Shahrzad and Mohsen ABSTRACT This study investigates William Butler Yeats’s relationship to the issues of colonialism and anti-colonialism and his stance as a postcolonial poet. A considerable part of Yeats criticism has read him either as a revolutionary and anti- colonial figure or a poet with reactionary and colonialist mentality. The main argument of this thesis is that in approaching Yeats’s position as a (post)colonial poet, it is more fruitful to avoid an either / or criticism and instead to foreground the issues of change, circularity, and hybridity. The theoretical framework is based on Homi Bhabha’s analysis of the complicated relationship between the colonizer and the colonized identities. It is argued that Bhabha’s views regarding the hybridity of the colonial subject, and also the inherent complexity and ambiguity in the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized can provide us with a better understating of the Irish poet’s complex interactions with Irish nationalism and British colonialism. By a close reading of some of Yeats’s works from different periods of his long career, it is shown that most of the time he adopted a double, ambiguous, and even contradictory position with regard to his political loyalties. It is suggested that the very presence of tensions and uncertainties which permeates Yeats’s writings and utterances should warn us against a monolithic, static, and unchanging reading of his colonial identity. Finally, it is argued that a postcolonial approach which focuses on the issue of diversity and hybridity of the colonial subject can increase our awareness of Yeats’s complex role in and his conflicted relationship with a colonized and then a (partially) postcolonial Ireland. ACKNOWLEDGEMNETS First and foremost I would like to thank Dr. Andrzej Gasiorek whose very perceptive comments and helpful advice has informed the present study. He has really been a great supervisor in all respects. I would also like to thank Nathan Waddell for proofreading my thesis. Last but not least my especial thanks go to my dear wife, Shahrzad, whose deep understanding and constant support have never failed me. CONTENTS: INTRODUCTION: 1 CHAPTER 1: POSTCOLONIALISM, IRELAND, AND YEATS 30 CHAPTER 2: ‘JUST AS STRENUOUS A NATIONALIST AS EVER’: 63 YOUNG YEATS & IRISH NATIONALISM: A TROUBLED RELATIONSHIP? CHAPTER 3: ‘TERRIBLE BEAUTY’ OR ‘NEEDLESS DEATH’? 115 YEATS’S DUAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS SELF-SACRIFICE AND MARTYRDOM CHAPTER 4: ANGLO-IRISH & CIVIL WAR AS ‘SENSELESS 157 TUMULT’? BLAMING BOTH THE COLONIZER & THE COLONIZED CHAPTER 5: COLONIALIST REACTIONARY OR POSTCOLONIAL 208 ARTIST? THE DOUBLE PICTURE OF THE OLD POET CONCLUSION 231 BIBLIOGRAPHY 238 ABBREVIATIONS Au- Autobiographies (London: Macmillan, 1961). AV- A Vision (London: Macmillan, 1962). CL II- The Collected Letters of W.B. Yeats, General Editor: John Kelly, vol. 2. 1896-1900, eds., Warwick Gould, John Kelly, and Deirdre Toomey, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). CT- The Celtic Twilight (London: A. H. Bullen, 1902). CW X- The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats: Later Articles and Reviews, vol. x., ed., Colton Johnson (New York: Scribner, 2000). E & I- Essays and Introductions (London: Macmillan, 1961). Ex- Explorations (London: Macmillan, 1962). L- The Letters of W.B. Yeats, ed., Allen Wade (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1954). LNI- Letters to the New Island, ed., Horace Reynolds (London: Oxford University Press, 1970). M- Mythologies (London: Macmillan, 1959). Mem- W.B. Yeats: Memoirs, Autobiography- First Draft Journal, ed., Denis Donoghue (London: Macmillan, 1972). SS- The Senate Speeches of W.B. Yeats, ed., Donald R. Pearce (London: Faber and Faber, 1960). VP- The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W.B. Yeats, eds., Russell K. Alspach and Peter Allt (London: Macmillan, 1957). VPL- The Variorum Edition of the Plays of W.B. Yeats, ed., Russell K. Alspach (London: Macmillan, 1966). UP I- Uncollected Prose by W. B. Yeats, vol. I., ed., John P. Frayne (London: Macmillan, 1970). UP II- Uncollected Prose by W.B. Yeats, vol. II., eds., John P. Frayne and Colton Johnson (London: Macmillan, 1975). INTRODUCTION OPENING REMARKS In the Dictionary of Irish Literature under the entry of W.B. Yeats, the introductory paragraph runs as follows: ‘Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939), a foremost poet of the English-speaking world, founder of the Abbey Theatre, dramatist, spokesman for the Irish Literary Revival, essayist, autobiographer, occultist, member of the Irish Free State Senate, and winner of the 1923 Nobel Prize for literature’.1 Even as a brief introductory paragraph, this statement does not seem to present an accurate image of a writer who can be called, quite deservedly and justifiably, one of the most prominent literary figures of English literature in the twentieth century. Indeed, the extensive and various activities and subjects which preoccupied Yeats, and were in one way or another reflected in his vast and miscellaneous output, make it difficult to present a complete and satisfactory list of them. Over the years he has been approached and interpreted by different critics as a Pre-Raphaelite, symbolist, romantic, socialist, nationalist, occultist, fascist, eugenicist, modernist, and postcolonialist, a list which points to the vast diversity of his work and to the multiplicity of interpretations of that work. The latest version of Yeats, that is, Yeats as a postcolonial artist, is a relatively new one. Equally well-contested is the very definition of postcolonialism itself, whether Ireland is a postcolonial country or was in the first place a colony, and finally the status of Yeats as a postcolonial figure. The life and the works of Ireland’s most famous poet, dramatist, critic, essayist, and senator are open to all these different interpretations. All throughout his career and much more after his death Yeats’s literary achievement and his turbulent life have been the focus of interest and criticism. There is no shortage of literary criticism on different aspects of his life and works; on the contrary there is a great deal of critical material on Yeats. Prolific and miscellaneous as he was, Yeats criticism seems to have followed suit. As David Pierce, editor of the massive and scholarly four volumes of W.B. Yeats: Critical Assessments has noted: ‘Since 1886 there has not been a year when Yeats was not the subject of a critical review or article. If the conventional sign of classic status is that more has been written about the person than the person himself wrote, then Yeats has a status as high as any classic’.2 One remarkable point about Yeats is the breadth and variety of his interests and works: magic, occult, theosophy, politic, culture, Irish nationalism, theatre management, philosophy, public speech, lyrical poetry, essay-writing, drama, short stories. Another is the persistent development and improvement of his works. Yeats is undoubtedly among a few poets who created excellent and memorable work which maintains their highest level of achievement throughout his long career, even up to the last years of his life. One need only to think of such outstanding collections as The Tower or The Winding Stairs and Other Poems, both published when the poet was over fifty. As the title of this thesis shows the main focus of my argument will be Yeats’s complex, changing and unstable interactions with the issues of Irish nationalism and British colonialism. This will naturally call for leaving out some other significant features of his work. I am quite aware that there are many various aspects of Yeats’s life and work which are important, but I will not be discussing them because they are not directly relevant to my thesis. A deeply complex and multidimensional man, Yeats had numerous interests throughout his life. Just to name some of them, questions such as magic, symbolism, East, Indian mysticism, Japanese Noh drama, theatre management, occult, theosophy, and philosophy were among his preoccupations. There is a substantial body of criticism which discusses these various issues. In the following pages I will offer a short overview of some of the various and important themes and issues in Yeats’s life and work which have been the subject of Yeats literary criticism over the years. The question of magic and occult, for example, was a central and recurrent preoccupation within Yeats’s life and work. From an early age he developed a lifelong interest in a variety of supernatural phenomena such as magic, mysticism, spiritualism, occultism, and astrology, which lasted up to his final years. He not only read 2 extensively on these subjects all through his life, but also took part in various psychic experiments such as séances, card readings, and automatic writing sessions. Yeats was deeply involved in the occultist organizations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1885 he co-founded the Dublin Hermetic Society, in the following year became an active member of Dublin Theosophical Lodge and joined The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1890.