Religion as Aesthetic Creation: Ritual and Belief in

176 Pages·2015·0.87 MB·English

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USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations USF Graduate Theses and Dissertations
11-7-2011
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Amy M. Clanton
University of South Florida, [email protected]
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Clanton, Amy M., "Religion as Aesthetic Creation: Ritual and Belief in William Butler Yeats and Aleister
Crowley" (2011). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/3718
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Religion as Aesthetic Creation: Ritual and Belief

in William Butler Yeats and Aleister Crowley

by

Amy M. Clanton

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences
University of South Florida

Major Professor: Phillip Sipiora, Ph.D.
Sara Deats, Ph.D.
William T. Ross, Ph.D.
Ylce Irizarry, Ph.D.

7 November 2011
Keywords: performance, art, Percy Bysshe Shelley, occult, magic
Copyright © 2011 Amy M. Clanton
DEDICATION

I dedicate this dissertation to my father and late mother and thank them for
always aiding and encouraging me in all my academic and creative pursuits. I
also thank my late aunt, June Stillman; she influenced my educational path
perhaps more than she knew. Finally, I thank my entire family for their love and
support.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, I would like to thank my major professor, Dr. Philip Sipiora, for his guidance
and encouragement, which made a seemingly-Herculean task manageable. I
would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Sara Deats, Dr. Tom Ross,
and Dr. Ylce Irizzary for their insightful comments and meticulous care in
recommending revisions. I must also give acknowledgment to Dr. Michael
Angrosino and the late Dr. William Heim, whose courses laid a foundation and
provided inspiration for my work. Thanks also to Dr. John Hatcher, who first
encouraged me to pursue a doctorate in English. Finally, thank you to Dr.
Stephanie Moss, without whose mentoring and support completion of this
dissertation would have been impossible.
i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables ......................................................................................................... ii

List of Figures ....................................................................................................... iii

List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................. iv

Abstract ................................................................................................................ v

Chapter One: Introduction .................................................................................... 1
Review of Literature ................................................................................... 4
Art and Religion ....................................................................................... 11
Yeats, Crowley, and the Occult ................................................................ 17

Chapter Two: The Romantic Idea of Poetry as Religion:
Shelleyan Influence on Yeats and Crowley .............................................. 22

Chapter Three: Prophecy and Belief: Creating Sacred Texts ............................. 31
The Nature of Belief ................................................................................. 34
Reincarnation and Unity ........................................................................... 44
Unity and Ecstasy .................................................................................... 49
The Progression of Ages ......................................................................... 50
Antimonies ............................................................................................... 54

Chapter Four: Ritual and Myth: Performing Religion .......................................... 73
Ritual, Myth, and Art ................................................................................ 78
Yeats’s Celtic Mysteries ........................................................................... 81
Crowley’s Rites of Eleusis ........................................................................ 91

Chapter Five: Invocation and Magic: Performative Language in Religious
and Occult Practice ................................................................................ 113
Crowley’s “Hymn to Pan” ....................................................................... 116
Yeats’s Island of Statues ....................................................................... 130
Invocation, Trance, and Vision ............................................................... 134
Crowley’s The God Eater ....................................................................... 142
Art and Religion ..................................................................................... 144

Works Cited ...................................................................................................... 149

Appendix .......................................................................................................... 160
ii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1: Roles of Ritual Officers ...................................................................... 86

Table 4.2: Ritual Correspondences .................................................................... 88
iii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure A.1: The Tree of Life .............................................................................. 162

Figure A.2: The Four Worlds ............................................................................ 164

Figure A.3: The Flaming Sword ........................................................................ 166

Figure A.4 The Serpent .................................................................................... 166
iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Crowley
EG Equinox of the Gods
Lies Book of Lies
MTP Magick in Theory and Practice
MWT Magick Without Tears

Yeats
AVA A Vision (1925)
AVB A Vision (1937)
E&I Essays and Introductions
YVP Yeats Vision Papers

Mircea Eliade
SP The Sacred and the Profane
v

ABSTRACT

William Butler Yeats and Aleister Crowley created literary works intending
them to comprise religious systems, thus negotiating the often-conflicting roles of
religion and modern art and literature. Both men credited Percy Bysshe Shelley
as a major influence, and Shelley’s ideas of art as religion may have shaped their
pursuit to create working religions from their art. This study analyzes the beliefs,
prophetic practices, myths, rituals, and invocations found in their literature,
focusing particularly on Yeats’s Supernatural Songs, Celtic Mysteries, and Island
of Statues, and Crowley’s “Philosopher’s Progress,” “Garden of Janus,” Rites of
Eleusis, and “Hymn to Pan.” While anthropological definitions generally
distinguish art from religion, Crowley’s religion, Thelema, satisfies requirements
for both categories, as Yeats’s Celtic Mysteries may have done had he
completed the project.
1

Chapter One
Introduction
Art and religion, two of the most important expressions of human culture,
have a complex and changing relationship. Some of the earliest examples of
visual art—the cave paintings and sculptures of the Paleolithic era—were,
according to most archeological theories, created for religious or magical ritual
purposes, and the earliest known dramas are the religious “Passion Play” of
middle-kingdom Egypt and the Greek tragedies associated with the worship of
Dionysus in ancient Athens. As Jane Ellen Harrison affirms, “Athenian theatres
were on holy ground, [and] attendance at the theatre for the Spring Festival of
Dionysus was considered an act of worship” (10). Among many examples of the
linkage between art and religion, she provides one from Egypt:
Countless bas-reliefs that decorate Egyptian tombs and temples
are but ritual practices translated into stone. […] Ancient art and
ritual are not only closely connected, not only do they mutually
explain and illustrate each other, but […] they actually arise out of a
common human impulse. (18)
Purely secular works of art (beyond utilitarian objects) were to evolve later in
human history. When more recent art forms have been linked to religion, they
have often been seen occupying a subservient role: aesthetic expressions of
religious beliefs; however, this assumed position of the arts was questioned in