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This book asserts that Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) was a major precursor of W.B. Yeats (1865 - 1939), and shows how Wilde's image and intellect set in train a powerful influence within Yeats's creative imagination that remained active throughout the poet's life. The intellectual concepts, metaphysical speculations and artistic symbols and images which Yeats appropriated from Wilde changed the poet's perspective and informed the imaginative system of beliefs that Yeats formulated as the basis of his dramatic and poetic work.
Section One, 'Influence and Identity' (1888 - 1895), explores the personal relationship of these two writers, their nationality and historical context as factors in influence. Section Two, 'Mask and Image' (1888 - 1917), traces the creative process leading to Yeats's construction of the antithetical mask, and his ideas on image, in relation to the role of Wilde as his precursor. Finally, 'Salomé: Symbolism, Dance and Theories of Being' (1891 - 1939) concentrates on the immense influence that Wilde's symbolist play, Salomé, wrought on Yeats's imaginative work and creative sensibility.
List of contents
Section I Influence and Identity.-1.Introduction: "An Echo of Someone Else's Music".-2.Establishing Influence.-3."A Provincial Like Myself": Yeats, Wilde and the Politics of Identity.-Section II Mask and Image.-4.Metaphysics and Masks (1908-1917).-5.The Idea Incarnate: Mask and Image (1915-1917).-Section III Salomé : Symbolism, Dance and Theories of Being.-6."Surface and Symbol": Wilde's Salomé, French Symbolism and Yeats (1891-1906).-7.Yeats's Creative Use of Wilde's Salomé in his Revisions of The Shadowy Waters, On Baile's Strand and Deirdre .-8."Drama as Personal as a Lyric": The Centrality of Wilde's Concepts of Dance, Desire and Image to Yeats's Developing Aesthetic (1916-1921).-9."There Must Be Severed Heads": Yeats's Final Transumption of Oscar Wilde (1923-1939).-10.Conclusion.
About the author
Noreen Doody is a writer and former Senior Lecturer at the School of English, Dublin City University, Ireland. She studied at University College Dublin and at the University of Dublin, Trinity College. Her most recent publication is
The Moon Spun Round: W.B. Yeats for Children (2016).
