Yeats and Artistic Power

The first book length study on the aesthetic and artistic power of William Butler Yeats, this book demonstrates the centrality in his work of the concept that art might shape life, from his earliest assay to the great poems and plays of his last years.

Marcus (English, Florida International University) considers William Butler Yeats' aesthetic of artistic power, demonstrating that the concept that art shapes life is central to Yeats' entire body of work. This is a reprint of a work originally published in 1992. The reprint contains a new introduction by the author, connecting the argument of the original book to recent developments in theory and adding a Jungian perspective.

Annotation © Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

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A study of W.B. Yeat's aesthetic of artistic power, demonstrating the centrality in his work, from his earliest essay to the great poems and plays of his last years, of the concept that art might shape life. In addition to throwing light on many of Yeats' best-known texts, the study has important implications for literary theory in the post-deconstructionist era. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Phillip L. Marcus is Professor of English at Cornell University and co-general editor of the Cornell Yeats Series. He is also the author of Yeats and the Beginning of the Irish Renaissance.