We use cookies to make your experience better. By continuing to browse our site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn more.
The Collected Letters of W.B. Yeats. Volume V 1908-1910 by W. B. Yeats (Hardback)
£125.00
Out of stock
Product Ref. (e.g. ISBN, SKU)
9780198126881
Published:
14 Sep 2018
Format:
Hardback
Number of pages:
1232 pages
Dimensions:
243x163x69.7mm
Weight:
1.802kgs
Author:
After the death of Algernon Swinburne in April 1909 Yeats announced to his sister that he was now 'King of the Cats'. Yet he was far less sure of himself than this boast suggests. This volume tracks Yeats's unrelenting but often agonised attempts to redefine his positon as a poet in a time of aesthetic and personal transition and uncertainty.
Shortly after the death of Algernon Swinburne in April 1909 Yeats announced to his sister that he was now 'King of the Cats'. Yet, as the letters in this volume demonstrate, although widely recognized as the leading poet in English, he was far less sure of himself than this triumphant boast suggests. Indeed, this volume tracks Yeats's unrelenting but often agonised attempts to redefine his positon as a poet in a time of aesthetic and personal transition and uncertainty, struggling, as he put it, to fashion 'an art of my own day' and amid 'doubtings, shrinkings, hatreds, reconciliations'. His letters about the eight-volume Collected Works, completed in these years, show him attempting to get his 'general personality' into his readers' minds, but always as 'a preliminary to new work'. What constituted 'personality', general or otherwise, was a contested area and in letter after letter he hammers out its relationship to 'character' in a debate which was to convert him from a late Romantic into an early Modernist. If many letters are concerned with the revision and reappraisal of old work, more reveal the insistent, and often frustrating, attempts to find new expression, particularly in the writing of The Player Queen, a process which, as he told a correspondent, convinced him that no fixed identity was possible.
Developments in his personal life contributed to the sense of uncertainty and transition. In the spring of 1908 he began an affair with a new mistress, Mabel Dickinson, but ironically we find this rekindling and intensifying his feelings for his old love Maud Gonne, and for the first time they came close to a physical relationship, although she insisted that their 'spiritual marriage' would be purer if unconsummated. But the return to mystical sublimation was, after nearly twenty years of courtship, no longer satisfying to him; the situation, as he confessed in a letter, had set his 'nerves tight as a violin string but not one that makes sweet music'.
More discordant music came from the Abbey Theatre. Early in 1908 the Fay brothers, founder members and mainstays of the Company resigned, and for a time it seemed that the whole project might come to an end. Over the next three years, as his correspondence eloquently reports, Yeats worked tirelessly to make sure this did not happen, encouraging new actors and playwrights, overseeing the evolution of a repertory structure, taking rehearsals often for weeks on end, battling with Fays for their misuse of the Irish National Theatre's name in America, mediating in the quarrels of the players, deflecting where he could the cantankerousness of the Theatre's patron, Annie Horniman, and, on her withdrawal of her subsidies, helping Lady Gregory in fund-raising, and in a final successful bid to renew the Abbey's patent. His exertions in the Theatre were much increased by the terminal illness of his friend and colleague John Synge (which, he confesses, 'for the first time in my life made death a reality to me'). The serious illness of Lady Gregory brought home to him his dependence on her and the ambience of her house, Coole Park; the massive mental breakdown of his companion Arthur Symons broke a remaining tie with the 1890s and the passing of his uncle and fellow occultist, George Pollexfen, severed his major link with Sligo. But, if these old relationships altered or disappeared, new ones were forged. Ezra Pound at last succeeded in meeting him and began encouraging him in his quest for 'an art of my own day', while Yeats himself fostered the talents of younger writers, notably the playwrights Lennox Robinson, T. C. Murray, St. John Ervine, and Lord Dunsany.
By the end of the period, Yeats, who we see brought to edge of a nervous breakdown in 1909, and defying the Establishment in producing Shaw's Blanco Posnet, became a man of affairs: pressed to apply for Professorships at Trinity College and the new National University, elected a founding member of the British Academy of Letters, and the recipient of a Civil List pension. The recasting of The Golden Helmet, first produced in the early months of his volume, as The Green Helmet of two years later, indicates how the discussions and soul-searching disclosed by his letters had begun to bear fruit. Less now a play satirizing Irish divisions and jealousies than a celebration of Nietzschean tragic joy and Castiglionean sprezzatura, it indicates the qualities Yeats had learned to prize over the intervening three years.
About the Author: John Kelly is Emeritus Research Fellow in Engilsh at Oxford University, and the general editor of The Collected Letters of W. B. Yeats. Ronald Schuchard, Goodrich C. White Professor of English and Irish Studies, Emeritus, Emory University, is the award-winning author of Eliot's Dark Angel (OUP 1999) and The Last Minstrels: Yeats and the Revival of the Bardic Arts (OUP 2008). The editor of T. S. Eliot's Clark and Turnbull lectures, The Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry (Faber 1993), he is co-editor with John Kelly of The Collected Letters of W. B. Yeats, Volume 3 (1994) and Volume 4 (2005), which received the Modern Language Association's Morton N. Cohen Award for a Distinguished Edition of Letters. He is general editor of The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical Edition in eight volumes (Faber and Johns Hopkins), Volume 2 (2014) of which won the Modernist Studies Association's award for a distinguished edition. A former Guggenheim fellow, he is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
| Number of pages | 1232 |
|---|
We will despatch your order as quickly as we can. If, for whatever reason, a product is out of stock we will contact you to discuss the likely delivery time or an alternative product.
| First Item | 2 Items & Over | |
|---|---|---|
| UK | £3.75 | £5.00 |
| EU | £15.00 | £30.00 |
| USA & Canada | £30.00 | £50.00 |
| Rest of the World | £45.00 | £60.00 |
| Collect in Store | free | free |
Additional Delivery Information (and some really important bits):
UK Delivery
Orders for delivery in the UK are normally despatched by Royal Mail, using the RM 48 Tracked Service with most orders delivered to you within a few days of placing your order with us. For larger parcels, Courier and Signed For delivery services may be used. Signed Books are shipped in our specially made book mailing cartons, with the books themselves wrapped in paper to protect them. Sometimes we may ship your order in several parts, particularly if you have 'Pre-Order' titles in your order or titles which are held in stock with our publishing partners.
The Really Important Bit: Because we use tracked, courier and signed for delivery services, please use an address at which your parcel can be received during the normal working day, for example, you may want to have your order delivered to your work address if you're not at home during the day.
First Item @ £3.75 (sometimes a shipping supplement may be added for particularly heavy books or specific postcodes*)
2 Items & over @ £5.00 in total
Another Really Important Bit: There are a number of Postcodes in the UK for which we will need to charge a shipping supplement, this will be calculated once we know the size and weight of the shipment. For these orders we will contact customers to agree a suitable and economic method of shipping. There may also be additional time required for delivery to some areas of the United Kingdom. Where possible, we will ship book orders (under 2kg) by Royal Mail to all UK postcodes. Large multiple book orders and books over 2kg are often shipped via APC Overnight or similar, regardless of Postcode.
Overseas Delivery
Shipments to EU countries:
First Item @ £15.00 (sometimes a shipping supplement will be added for particularly heavy books)
2 Items & over @ £30.00 in total
A really, really important Brexit bit: From 1st January 2021 shipments to EU addresses may incur additional costs which could be requested by Fed Ex at the time of delivery. These costs may vary from country to country and are not within our control and will be in addition to the costs paid to us for your delivery. If in any doubt, please check with your local Fed Ex office what, if any, additional costs will be applicable to your order - https://www.fedex.com
From 1st July 2021, VAT will be applicable to those EU countries where VAT is applied to books - this additional charge will be collected by Fed Ex (or the Royal Mail) at the time of delivery.
Shipments to the USA & Canada:
First Item @ £30.00
2 Items & over @ £50.00 in total
Shipments to the Rest of the World:
First Item @ £45.00
2 Items & over @ £60.00 in total
All overseas orders are shipped using a 'signed for' courier service - please provide an address at which your parcel can be signed for on receipt. We use the same packaging materials for our overseas deliveries as we do those in the UK. In some cases, particularly large and heavy books, or books being shipped to remote areas, may incur an additional shipping charge - if this is the case with your order, we'll notify you as quickly as possible of these charges and to arrange the additional payment. You can of course cancel your order with an immediate refund should you not wish to accept these additional costs. Shipments to overseas territories may incur additional Duty & Tax costs which could be requested by Fed Ex at the time of delivery. These costs may vary from country to country and are not within our control and will be in addition to the costs paid to us for your delivery. If in any doubt, please check with your local Fed Ex office what, if any, additional Tax & Duty costs will be applicable to your order - https://www.fedex.com
Collect in Person at Coles Books
We're open Monday - Saturday, 9:00am - 5:30pm. If you're collecting your order, please wait until you get the text, phone call or email from us, just to be on the safe side and to ensure we have your order ready for you on arrival (we'll use the contact information provided during checkout). Not everything on our website is available for immediate collection, please do wait for the text, call or email - if time is of the essence, we'd suggest you call us on 01869 320779 and check availability prior to placing your order. You can pick up your order from the till, please bring a copy of your email receipt (electronic or printed is fine).
Coming by Car
If you're coming to Coles by car, why not take advantage of the 2 hours free parking at Sainsbury's Pioneer Square - just follow the signs for Pioneer Square as you drive into Bicester and park in the multi-storey car park above the supermarket. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. You don't need to shop in Sainsbury's to get the free parking!
Where to Find Us
Coles Books
22 Crown Walk
Pioneer Square
Bicester, Oxfordshire
OX26 6HY, United Kingdom
It was the most impressive packaging that I have EVER SEEN!!! The books were in perfect condition!!!!!
Super fast delivery and well packaged. Quality item and service!