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Letters on Poetry from W.B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley
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Letters on Poetry from W. B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO 1940 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMEN HOUSE, E C 4 London Edinburgh Glasgow New York Toronto Melbourne Capetown Bombay Calcutta Madras HUMPHREY MILFORD PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY Printed in Great Britain FOREWORD THESE letters, making a continuous correspondence on the subject of poetry, are published with the full consent and approval of Mrs. Yeats. Not only do they contain many of Yeatss views on the technique of verse, but they also reflect the fresh informal workings of his mind on a variety of subjects. Here may be seen, month by month, often week by week, the spontaneous flow of his extraordinary intellectual vitality during the last four years of his life those years when he showed not only that his creative power was as vigorous as ever, but also that he was still reaching forward into new forms of expression., It is for this reason, and because of the great impression his later work has made upon the new generation of writers, that this correspondence has been thought to have sufficient interest to justify its publication. It lifts a curtain on the creative processes of a great poet. I have inserted in two places notes of conversations and observations recorded at the time, and have added a short account of his last days. Passages from a certain number of my own letters have been included when this seemed the simplest way to explain the allusions in his. They may help to emphasize the personal character of this book, which seeks to preserve the freshness of a living personality. Yeatss characteristic spelling has been preserved throughout his letters. Penns in the Rocks, DOROTHYWELLESLEY. 939- NOTE THE poems by Mr. Yeats quoted in this book are reprinted by permission of Mrs. Yeats and of Messrs. Macmillan Go. Ltd., the publishers of his works. In the footnotes to pages 91, 93, 103, and 159 the title should be Last Poems and Plays, 1940. CONTENTS PAGE FOREWORD ....... v LETTERS soth May 1935 to 22nd December 1935 . i COMMENTS AND CONVERSATIONS .... 50 LETTERS i 6th January 1936 to 8th July 1938 . 53 COMMENTS AND CONVERSATIONS . . . .188 LETTERS i3th July 1938 to ist December 1938 . 199 LAST DAYS . . . . . . .211 ILLUSTRATIONS W. B. YEATS READING .... Frontispiece PENNS IN THE ROCKS ..... To face p. 50 FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM W. B. YEATS . . 112 Vll LETTERS IN the spring of 1935 W. B. Yeats was engaged in a wide reading of contemporary poetry for the purpose of making his anthology of Modern Verse for the Oxford University Press. During his reading he came one day across a poem of mine called Horses. It happened that, on that same day, he was visited by Lady Ottoline Morrell and he asked her if she happened to know the author. She replied that she knew me slightly, that I lived in the country and sel dom came to London, and she offered to bring him down to Penns in the Rocks. This explains the opening letter, which followed an explanatory letter from Lady Ottoline. D. W. London, May 30 1935. Dear Lady Dorothy, Will you be in Sussex in say the first week in July. If so I would like to postpone my visit until then. I want to get back to Dublin in a few days, and conserve my vitality for the journey. If you will not be in Sussex in July I will go down on the nearest day that suits Lady Ottoline after Saturday next. I was reading your poetry last night, parts ofthe poems about horses and flowers and the whole of that about fishes to Sean O 5 Casey. I gave your poems as an example of nobility of style the noblest style I have met of late years. I thank you for your invitation. Yours, W. B. Yeats. 1 W. B. Y. was well aware that this was not correct. But he disliked the name Gerald, particularly Lady Gerald, and usually preferred to call me Lady Dorothy until it became Dorothy. D. W. B I Letters Telegram. 30 May, 1935. Lady Dorothy Wellesley Withyham Sussex. Can Ottoline and I come down Monday for night... |
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