W.B. Yeats : Images, Echoes and Aesthetics

Contents: Preface. 1. Ireland, England and Yeats. 2. Tradition, self-knowledge and Yeat\'s poetics. 3. Cultural nationalism, Ireland and Yeats. 4. Universe: a Jainist study of yeats\'s poetry. 5. Blake, Yeats and Unity of being. 6. Symbolism, eclecticism and Yeats. 7. Occultism, Theosophy, golden dawn and Yeats. 8. Coherence of Yeats\'s poetry. 9. Jain Karmic theory and Yeats\'s poetry. 10. Violence, politics and Yeats. 11. Nationalism, Noh Drama and Yeats\'s plays. 12. Select bibliography. Index.

"William Butler Yeats is regarded as the most important Irish poet and as one of the major poets of the twentieth century poetry in English. But readers and researchers often complain that the books on Yeats criticism tend to deal with a particular phase or a particular aspect of his poetic art and therefore the idea of comprehensive study of his poetic art remains but a mirage. The present book W.B. Yeats: Images, Echoes and Aesthetic endeavours therefore to explicate Yeats\'s aesthetics by studying in detail all major aspects of his personality, poetry and plays. A sincere attempt is made in the book to study Ireland, Irish myths, nationalism, romanticism, realism, magic, automatic writing, symbolism, occultism, Hinduism, Jainism, and modernism in the light of Yeats\'s poetry. Almost fifty years of his creative writing clearly reveal the fact that poetry writing for Yeats has been a process of innovations, transformations and alterations. The book therefore attempts to closely study changes in his themes, styles and techniques of poetry that have taken place over the years of his long career as a poet." (jacket)