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Yeats ....and conflict
Someone on this comments page said that Irish history is "safer" now. Don't believe a word of it. I hardly ever get my comments posted on a BBC site. I thought that my comments on Yates and his relationship to Irish history were totally innocuous but apparently not. I have been teaching Irish history and literature at University level for 20 years - not in the UK I hasten to add - but the BBC seems to be terrified to address anything that even suggests there ever was a conflict in Ireland where we had Brits behaving badly. "Don't mention the war" - the Irish War of Independence - is alive and well at the BBC apparently. Where is motley worn?Don't suppose this will get posted either.
Janet sawyer............ Yeats
Last October I spent two weeks at the Yeats International Summer School in Sligolistening to the most fascinating lectures about Yeats....... well, Yeats and everything! I was in the company of 170 Yeatsian scholars from 22 different countries. The Yeats Society will be celebrating its 50th Year in 2009. This wonderful society continually seeks to explore the Yeats enigma.I was so enthused that I decided that our Arts Society in our tiny village should link with the Yeats society this year, the European Year of Inter-cultural dialogue. I wrote to Seamus Heaney who took the time to write back to me, giving not only his permission but also his blessings for the FSA to perform his play, The Burial at Thebes, in the grounds of our village church. Seamus Heaney wrote The Burial at Thebes for the centenary of the Abbey Theatre, founded by Yeats. I have organised a three day itinerary for members of the Yeats Society to explore the Devon Yeats Connection. Yeats mother's ancestral home was Kitley manor in Devon. The Yeats family spent their one holiday at Branscombe (facsimiles of the Yeats children drawings can be seen in Roy Foster's book The Apprentice Mage. Jack B Yeats lived and painted in Devon and married a Devon artist named Cottie. This tour we hope will be the beginning of an ongoing exploration of these unknown links........the link will be celebrated when the Yeats members attend the first night of our play on May 20th. So Yeatsian don't you think?Do look on our website for more info:www.fsadevon.co.uk or look for Farringdon Society of Arts..... Hope you are all inspired to come along following this mornings fabulous discussion.............................
Cameron Hawke-Smith W B YEATS
Yeats was a sustainer of liberal values, despite his intellectual attraction to extreme ideas. He moved in the highest circles of English society, funded the Abbey Theatre from a staunch Protestant Unionist and still furthered the cause of Irish independence-politically very astute. Was Auden right to say 'poetry makes nothing happen'? Thankyou for a perceptive discussion.
Yeats
A more critical (insiders) view of both Yeats and Maude Gonne is given in Francis Stewart's fictional autobiography Black List, Section H. Stewart, who endured a tormanted marriage to Maude Gonne's daughter is, in my opinion, one of the most neglected writers of our times. Black List gives some refreshingly frank accounts of their lives. He was also a born loser with an anti-Midas touch - evrything he touched turned to dross - but this is recounted without self-pity and accepted as the natural, inevitable, course of events. It is one of the most extraordinary books I have read. He deserves to be rediscovered. Geoffrey Greenhalgh
Sharman: Yeats
A very good discussion hampered a bit by time.I was a bit amused to listen to Melvyn's desire to tease out from the ambiguities of Yeat's poetry and the Yeatsians speaking on his behalf just where Yeats stood on i)the first world war,ii)Republicanism,iii)democracy,iv)fascism,v)eugenicism. As Yeats said:"out of the quarrel with others comes rhetoric,out of the quarrel with oneself you get poetry".He was primarily a poet moved by Irish folklore and the Gaelic Revival to identify with Nationalist causes,later becoming a Senator poet,a "smiling public man".He was likeDH Lawrence inspired by Neitsche's willto power,"a lonely impulse of delight".Lawrence too as one of a group of reactionary modernists,including Ezra Pound,TS Eliot,Wyndam Lewis,largely avoided the Great War as a subject.But the point was brought out by Roy Fosterthat Yeat's poetry was very much part of it's context e.g. Easter 1916 brought out in a samistat edition and circulated privately,but waiting until1920 to publish it publically after the War,so it could have maximum impact on the move for independence of Ireland.It's a pity Melvyn didn't have time to go onto Yeats influence say on English poets like early Larkin.Also the effect of his drama on Irish drama.
Professor Robert Giddings
This was all fair enough. I was not persuaded to shift my regard for WBY to any extent. His dismissal of the War Poets from his notorious Oxford Book of 20th Verse with a wave of his hand is inexplicable. I do not find him congenial. I sometimes feel the tendency to adulate WBY is very much at the expence of a really wonderful Irish writer, Sean O'Casey, whose reputation has been entirely eclipsed by the phenomenal status yielded to WBY.Robert Giddings
Paul Evelyn
This programme took me back to school days and spending two terms studying Yeats at A level because our teacher was so enamoured of his poetry. Thankyou for enlivening a frustrating drive on my way to deliver an assembly to 300 Junior school students.Perhaps being anglo irish helps understand the man.
JH K-H WB Yeats
Fab programme in consistently excellent series. Time for a movie about Yeats (Irish history "safer" topic now) and Daniel Day Lewis should play him.
Peter Bolt : Yeats
A measure of the disillusion of his later years is obvious in the poem "Why not should old men be mad ?"The feeling of hurt unfairness is palpable.
Nick Lloyd
There seemed to be a bit of an elephan t in the room - the association to European fascism politely understated (and so not a problem) and the implication that art has a direct ability to affect politics extraordinary and not demonstrated or did I stop listening somewhere ?
Richard Palmer - Yeats
This is an unashamed aknowledgment of the beauty of Fran Brearton's voice. Heavenly.PS I am enjoying the content of the programme. Thank you BBC, thank you Melvyn.
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