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ON THE WAY TO THE RAG-AND-BONE SHOP: A DEVELOPMENTAL STUDY OF W. B. YEATS'S USE OF EASTERN ICONOLOGIES (IRELAND)
Abstract
The dissertation reassesses the role of Eastern thought in Yeats's poetry and finds it to be lifelong and central to his world view. Beginning with his earliest poethood (1885) it traces his attractions to both the religious practices of the East and to the conceptual frameworks (iconologies) which complement them. The earliest poetry (1885-90) is marked by a superficial, Romantic exploitation of Eastern materials for their exoticism. At the same time Yeats was adopting a regimen of meditation he called his most important intellectual influence up to his fortieth year. In the 1890's and at the turn of the century he attempted to fulfill his religious impulse (which he singled out as his identifying characteristic) in a pseudo-mystery religion of his own devising. The early years of the new century witnessed two pivotal realizations in Yeats's life and work: he both came to a profound acceptance of reincarnation and to a deeply felt conviction that meditative practices must be matched by the cultivation of analytical systems ("philosophies") which render intelligible to our ordinary waking consciousness the other realms meditation opens. Per Amica and A Vision chronicle the pursuit of such knowledge. In the last two decades of his life, the period of his most profound work, he greatly expanded and particularized his grasp of Eastern thought. The presence of the Tantric schools is especially felt; coming to him both through sacred texts and an intimate friendship with an Tantric adept, he found in them a vision that denied no part of the human totality. Through the Tantra Yeats was able to reconcile the claims of the heart and mind, body and soul. It was as if Yeats's whole life was a preparation for death and, it was in these Eastern systems he at last found the means of self-transformation whereby he might face the "Great Questioner" with a "fitting confidence."
Subject Area
British and Irish literature
Recommended Citation
BOYD, STEPHEN KENT, "ON THE WAY TO THE RAG-AND-BONE SHOP: A DEVELOPMENTAL STUDY OF W. B. YEATS'S USE OF EASTERN ICONOLOGIES (IRELAND)" (1983). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8328159.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8328159