Yeats's ghosts : the secret life of W.B. Yeats / Brenda Maddox.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Maddox, Brenda.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 1865-1939.

Yeats, W. B.

Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 1865-1939--Knowledge and learning--Occultism.

Occultism.

Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 1865-1939--Marriage.

Poets, Irish--20th century--Biography.

Poets, Irish.

Marriage.

Spiritualists--Ireland--Biography.

Spiritualists.

Ireland.

Occultists--Ireland--Biography.

Occultists.

Yeats, Georgie, -1968.

Yeats, Georgie.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xviii, 474 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : HarperCollins Publishers, [1999]

Summary:

Brenda Maddox, the award-winning, world-renowned biographer, looks at one of the towering literary figures of the twentieth century, W. B. Yeats, through the lens of the Automatic Script, the trancelike communication with supposed spirits that he and his much younger wife, George, conducted during the early years of their marriage. The full transcript of this intense occult adventure was not available until 1992 and remains virtually untouched by biographers. The vision papers covered more than 3,600 pages of writing, symbols and obscure diagrams penned by Yeats's wife during their 450 sittings of automatic writing. Maddox finds the scripts to have been a ghostly form of family planning--as well as one of the most ingenious ploys ever used by a wife to take her husband's mind off another woman.

This revealing biography flashes back to Yeats's early years (1865-1900), to the least-examined important woman in his life: his silent, dreamy mother, whose Irish ghost stories steered him onto his occultist path. The book then returns to the mature Yeats, to analyze, with new information and a sharp feminine perspective, his public career in Ireland, his sexual rejuvenation operation and his obsession with several younger women--and relates them all to the triumph of his late poetry.

Contents:

1 An Astrological Deadline (January-March 1917) 3

2 Counting (March-May 1917) 24

3 Mother or Daughter (August-September 1917) 41

4 Soror and Frater (October 1917) 57

5 Folie a Deux (November-December 1917) 73

6 An Adventure (January-March 1918) 94

7 What Rough Beast? (March 1918-February 1919) 108

8 Only One More (March 1919-May 1920) 135

9 Waiting for J. B. (May 1920-July 1922) 163

10 The Silent Woman (1865-1900) 189

11 Politics and Potency (1922-1928) 215

12 Politics and Potency, Con't. (1928-1934) 251

13 "This Is Baghdad" (April 1934-December 1935) 277

14 O My Dears (January 1936-March 1937) 303

15 Such Friends (April 1937-January 1938) 330

16 A Working Year (January 1938-January 28, 1939) 352

Epilogue: Laid to Rest? 383.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [447]-459) and index.

ISBN:

0060174943

OCLC:

40776727