Joseph Skipsey, the ‘peasant poet’, and an unpublished letter from W. B. Yeats

Abstract

This article examines an unpublished letter from Yeats to the 'pitman-poet' Joseph Skipsey, which gives new insight into the early career of Yeats and a deeper understanding of the possibilities and capabilities of the Victorian working-classes. It argues that, in Skipsey, Yeats found an English equivalent to the Irish peasant poet, a figure whose life and poetry was central to Yeats's vision of Ireland and his nation's literary revival. The article contends that, following the discovery of a letter from Yeats, Skipsey's poetry and influence should be considered outside the bounds of the Pre-Raphaelite clique within which he is usually located.

Making emergency responders visible: working-class responses to industrial disaster in 19th-century journalism and poetry

“…The Robinson Library Special Collections, Newcastle University SW1/16/44, Spence Watson Papers, Rossetti, ‘Letter to Joseph Skipsey’, 29 October 1878, p. 2. Cited in Gordon Tait (2016), “Joseph Skipsey, the ‘peasant poet’, and an unpublished letter from W. B. Yeats,” Literature and History 25, no. 2: 134-149.…”