Yeats, Coleridge and the Romantic Sage

230 Pages·2000·1.35 MB·English

by  Matthew Gibson (auth.)

Yeats, Coleridge and the
Romantic Sage
Matthew Gibson
Yeats, Coleridge and the Romantic Sage
Yeats, Coleridge and the
Romantic Sage
Matthew Gibson
First published in Great Britain 2000 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-41066-8 ISBN 978-0-230-28649-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230286498
First published in the United States of America 2000 by
ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-23022-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gibson, Matthew, 1967–
Yeats, Coleridge, and the romantic sage / Matthew Gibson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-23022-7 (cloth)
1. Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 1865–1939—Knowledge—Literature. 2. Yeats,
W. B. (William Butler), 1865–1939—Philosophy. 3. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor,
1772–1834—Philosophy. 4. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772–1834—Influence. 5.
English poetry—19th century—History and criticism. 6. Romanticism—Great
Britain. 7. Metaphysics in literature. 8. Philosophy in literature. I. Title.
PR5908.L5 G53 2000
821'.8—dc21
99–046990
©Matthew Gibson 2000
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2000 978-0-333-74625-7
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written
permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright
Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P0LP.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained
forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
List of Abbreviations viii
A Note on the Text xi
Introduction 1
Part I Personality 9
1 Phantasmagoria: the Personality of Coleridge
in the Earlier Prose of Yeats 11
2 ‘Escaped from Isolating Method’: Coleridge as
Sage in Yeats’s 1930 Diary 29
Part II Transcendence and Immanence 55
3 Reason and Understanding: Coleridge’s
Philosophical Influence on Yeats 57
4 ‘Wisdom, Magic, Sensation’: Coleridge’s ‘Supernatural’
Poems in the Later Poetry of Yeats 86
Part III Metaphor 115
5 ‘Natural Declension of the Soul’: Yeats and the Mirror 117
6 Towards ‘Berkeley’s Roasting Spit’: Coleridge and
Metaphors of Unity 149
Conclusion 175
Appendix: Yeats’s Coleridge Collection 177
Notes 184
Bibliography 208
Index 216
v
Acknowledgements
I should like to extend thanks to the following for the help they
have given me in preparing this book: Michael Baron, Carol Peaker,
Svetlana Salowska, Deirdre Toomey and Anne Varty, all of whom, in
different ways, have helped with either the collection of material or
with the preparation of the manuscript.
Special thanks are due to the library of State University of New York
at Stonybrook, and to John Kelly and Roger Nyle Parisious for provid-
ing me with copies of unpublished material.
Especial thanks, however, are due to Peter Lewis, for having read over
earlier drafts of chapters and suggesting changes when I was first
preparing this work as a doctoral dissertation, and, of course, to
Warwick Gould for his substantial effort when supervising that initial
thesis and for providing subsequent advice.
The author and publishers would like to thank the following for per-
mission to reproduce copyright material:
The extracts from W. B. Yeats, Autobiographies (London: Macmillan,
1955), Essays and Introductions (London and New York: Macmillan,
1961), Explorations, selected by Mrs W. B. Yeats (London: Macmillan,
1962; New York, Macmillan, 1963), The Variorum Edition of the Poems of
W. B. Yeats, ed. Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach (London and New
York: Macmillan, 1966), are reproduced by permission of A. P. Watt
Ltd, on behalf of Michael B. Yeats.
The extracts from Yeats’s manuscript ‘Diary, begun at Rapallo’ (1930)
are reproduced by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd, on behalf of Michael B.
Yeats and Anne Yeats.
The extracts from W. B. Yeats and T. Sturge Moore: Their Correspondence,
1901–37, ed. Ursula Bridge (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; New
York: Oxford University Press, 1953), are reproduced by permission of
Routledge.
The extracts from The Letters of W. B. Yeats, ed. Allen Wade (London:
Rupert Hart-Davis, 1954; New York: Macmillan, 1955), together with
vi
Acknowledgements vii
extracts from unpublished letters, are reproduced by permission of
Oxford University Press.
The extracts from A Vision by W. B. Yeats; copyright 1937 by W. B.
Yeats; copyright renewed © 1965 by Bertha Georgie Yeats and Anne
Butler Yeats, are reproduced by permission of Simon & Schuster.
The extracts from Mythologies by W. B. Yeats, copyright © 1959 by Mrs
W. B. Yeats, are reproduced by permission of Simon & Schuster.
The extracts from Autobiographies by W. B. Yeats, copyright 1916, 1936
by Macmillan Publishing Company, copyrights renewed © 1944, 1964
by Bertha Georgie Yeats, are reproduced by permission of Simon &
Schuster.
The extracts from Explorationsby W. B. Yeats, copyright © 1962 by Mrs
W. B. Yeats, are reproduced by permission of Simon & Schuster.
The extracts from Essays and Introductions by W. B. Yeats, copyright ©
1961 Mrs W. B. Yeats, are reproduced by permission of Simon & Schuster.
The extracts from the poems ‘His Bargain’, ‘The Tower’, ‘An Acre
of Grass’, ‘The Seven Sages’, ‘Meditations in Time of Civil War’,
‘Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931’, ‘Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen’,
‘Byzantium’, ‘Vacillation’, ‘To Dorothy Wellesley’, ‘Supernatural Songs’,
‘The Phases of the Moon’ and ‘Long-legged Fly’ are reproduced by per-
mission of Simon & Schuster from The Variorum Edition of the Poems of
W. B. Yeats, ed. Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach; copyright 1928 by
Macmillan Publishing Company; copyrights renewed © 1956 by
Georgie Yeats; copyright 1933, 1934 by Macmillan Publishing
Company; copyright renewed © 1961, 1962 by Bertha Georgia Yeats;
copyright 1940 by Georgie Yeats; copyright renewed © 1968 by Bertha
Georgie Yeats, Michael Butler Yeats, and Anne Yeats.
The extracts from The Variorum Edition of the Plays of W. B. Yeats, ed.
Russell K. Alspach, copyright © 1966 by Russell K. Alspach, are repro-
duced by permission of Simon & Schuster.
Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders, but if any
have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to
make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.
viii List of Abbreviations
List of Abbreviations
The standard works by W. B. Yeats and S. T. Coleridge listed below are
cited in the text by standard abbreviations, including volume number
where appropriate, and page number. Works listed here are not
included in the Bibliography at the end of the book.
Yeats
Au Autobiographies(London: Macmillan, 1955).
AV B A Vision(London: Macmillan, 1962).
CM W. B. Yeats: A Census of the Manuscripts, by Conrad A.
Balliet with the assistance of Christine Mawhinney
(New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1990).
Col. L1,3 The Collected Letters of W. B. Yeats, vol. 1: 1865–1895, ed.
John Kelly and Eric Domville; vol. 3: 1901–4, ed. John
Kelly and Ronald Schuchard (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1986, 1994).
CV A A Critical Edition of Yeats’s A Vision (1925), ed. George
Mills Harper and Walter Kelly Hood (London:
Macmillan, 1978).
E&I Essays and Introductions (London and New York:
Macmillan, 1961).
Ex Explorations, sel. Mrs W. B. Yeats (London: Macmillan,
1962; New York: Macmillan, 1963).
L The Letters of W. B. Yeats, ed. Allan Wade (London:
Rupert Hart-Davis, 1954; New York: Macmillan, 1955).
LTSM W. B. Yeats and T. Sturge Moore: Their Correspondence,
1901–1937, ed. Ursula Bridge (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul; New York: Oxford University Press, 1953).
Mem Memoirs: Autobiography – First Draft, journal transcribed
and edited by Denis Donoghue (London: Macmillan,
1972; New York: Macmillan, 1973).
Myth Mythologies(London and New York: Macmillan, 1959).
MYV1,2 The Making of Yeats’s ‘A Vision’: A Study of the Automatic
Script, by George Mills Harper, 2 vols (London:
Macmillan, 1987).
viii
List of Abbreviations ix
NC A New Commentary on the Poems of W. B. Yeats, by
A. Norman Jeffares (London: Macmillan, 1984).
NLI MS Manuscript, National Library of Ireland (to be followed
by number).
OBMV The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1895–1935, chosen by
W. B. Yeats (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936).
UPAN The Ten Principal Upanishads, trans. Shree Purohit Swa¯mi
and W. B. Yeats (London and Boston: Faber & Faber,
1937).
UP1 Uncollected Prose by W. B. Yeats, vol. 1, ed. John P. Frayne
(London: Macmillan; New York: Columbia University
Press, 1970).
UP2 Uncollected Prose by W. B. Yeats, vol. 2, ed. John P. Frayne
and Colton Johnson (London: Macmillan, 1975; New
York: Columbia University Press, 1976).
VP The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W. B. Yeats, ed. Peter
Allt and Russell K. Alspach (New York: Macmillan,
1957). To be cited from the corrected third printing of
1966 or later printings.
VPl The Variorum Edition of the Plays of W. B. Yeats, ed.
Russell K. Alspach assisted by Catherine C. Alspach
(London and New York: Macmillan, 1966). To be cited
from the corrected second printing of 1966 or later
printings.
VSR The Secret Rose, Stories by W. B. Yeats: A Variorum Edition,
ed. Warwick Gould, Phillip L. Marcus and Michael J.
Sidnell (London: Macmillan, 1992). To be cited from
this second edition, revised and enlarged from the 1981
Cornell University Press edition.
WWB1,2,3 The Works of William Blake, Poetic, Symbolic, and Critical,
ed. with lithographs of the illustrated ‘Prophetic Books’,
and a memoir and interpretation by Edwin John Ellis
and William Butler Yeats, 3 vols (London: Bernard
Quaritch, 1893).
YA Yeats Annual, ed. Warwick Gould (London: Macmillan,
1982– ), to be followed by volume number.
YAACTS Yeats: An Annual of Critical and Textual Studies 4, ed.
Richard J. Finneran (Ann Arbor: UMI Press, 1986), to be
followed by volume number.
YL Edward O’Shea, A Descriptive Catalog of W. B. Yeats’s
Library (New York and London: Garland Publishing,
x List of Abbreviations
1985). To be followed by item number (or page number
preceded by ‘p.’).
YVP1,2,3 Yeats’s VisionPapers(London: Macmillan, 1992), George
Mills Harper (General Editor) assisted by Mary Jane
Harper, vol. 1: The Automatic Script: 5 November 1917–
18 June 1918, ed. Steve L. Adams, Barbara J. Frieling and
Sandra L. Sprayberry; vol. 2: The Automatic Script: 25 June
1918–29 March 1920, ed. Sandra L. Sprayberry; vol. 3:
Sleep and Dream Notebooks, Vision Notebooks 1 and 2,
Card File, ed. Robert Anthony Martinich and Margaret
Mills Harper.
Coleridge
AP Anima Poetae, from the Unpublished Note-books of Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, ed. Ernest Hartley Coleridge (London:
William Heinemann, 1895).
BL1,2 Biographia Literaria, ed. James Engell and W. Jackson Bate,
2 vols (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1983); Collected Works of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Kathleen Coburn, vol. 7.
CL1,2,etc. The Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Earl Leslie
Griggs, 6 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956).
CN The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Kathleen
Coburn (and Merton Christensen, vols 3 and 4), 4 vols
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957–90).
CP The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. James
Dykes Campbell (London: Macmillan, 1925 [YL404]).
EOT1,2,3 Essays on His Times, ed. David V. Erdmann, 3 vols
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1978); Collected Works, vol. 3.
LL1,2 Lectures, 1808–1819, ed. R. A. Foakes, 2 vols (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul; Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1987); Collected Works, vol. 5.
LPR Lectures 1795 on Politics and Religion, ed. Lewis Patton and
Peter Mann (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971); Collected Works,
vol. 1.
TT Table Talk and the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel,
etc., Morley’s Universal Library (London & New York:
George Routledge & Sons, 1884 [YL406]).