Yeats and Modern Poetry

Abstract

Scholars and critics commonly align W.B. Yeats with Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and the modernist movement at large. Th is incisive study from renowned poetry critic Edna Longley argues that Yeats's presence and infl uence in modern poetry have been sorely misunderstood. Longley disputes the value of modernist critical paradigms and suggests alternative perspectives for interpreting Yeats-perspectives based on his own criticism, and on how Ireland shaped both his criticism and his poetry. Close readings of particular poems focus on structure, demonstrating how radically Yeats's approach to poetic form diff ers from that of Pound and Eliot. Longley discusses other twentieth-century poets in relation to Yeats's insistence on tradition, and off ers valuable insights into the work of Edward Th omas,

“Speech delighted with its own music”: Birds as Symbols of the Creative Process in the Poetry of W.B. Yeats and Edward Thomas

“…Edna Longley (2013) is one of the few critics who have recognized certain, though not obvious, parallels between Yeats and Thomas: "his [Thomas's] poetry throws into relief dimensions of Yeats's poetry that recede when Yeats is consigned, with Eliot and Pound, to the file marked 'modernism '" (2013: xiii). This ambiguous status of both poets can be attributed to their original and highly individual way of connecting tradition with modernity.…”

“…As Longley (2013) observes, Thomas is seldom compared to Yeats, "despite the felt affinities suggested by his reviews of Yeats's work" (2013: 68), which show his deep-felt admiration for Yeats's mastery of style and prove the notable impact of Yeats's sensibility on Thomas's mind. Quoting the lines from the king's speech opening The King's Threshold in a review of Yeats's play from 18 th June 1904, Thomas observes: "'Speech delighted with its own music' is the best definition of Mr Yeats's verse" (quoted in Longley 1981: 81).…”