Books in Brief: Memoirs

Memoirs, by William Butler Yeats, ed. Denis Donoghue (Macmillan, 318 pp., $7.95). Here, published for the first time, are Yeats’s 1916 draft of an Autobiography covering the years 1887 to 1897, and his daily journal, most of whose entries are from 1908 to 1910, although there are a few sporadic notes from as late as 1930. In the Autobiography, Yeats attempts to analyze, in retrospect, his relations with various friends and enemies —Maud Gonne; Johnson, Symons, Dowson, and other members of the Rhymers’ Club; Wilde; Moore; O’Leary; Synge; Lady Gregory. He also dwells on his conflict between wanting to be purely a poet and thinker and wanting also to be a man of action. The Journal narrates day-to-day problems as they occurred (such as the complicated politicking at the Abbey Theatre); adumbrates poetic and philosophic theories; and gives many ideas for poems, as well as poems in various stages of revision. Thus, the Autobiography concentrates on Yeats’s view of current controversies; the Journal tends more to show how a poet’s mind—or at least this poet’s mind—works. Each in its own way is valuable. There are, of course, disappointments. One may have suspected that Yeats was humorless and this book confirms that suspicion. He was also more than a little pompous: The high, formal style that works so well in his poetry works much less well in accounts of table-turning and crystal-ball reading. And we learn more than I, at least, wished to know about his sexual frustrations. Nonetheless, students of Yeats and of the Irish renaissance generally must read these memoirs. However, readers who don’t already know something about the period should start elsewhere. Yeats was writing here for himself. So, even with the editor’s helpful, copious notes, if you don’t already know what he’s talking about, you still won’t when you’ve finished.

LB

About the Author

L. Bridges

Featured Tags

Memoirs, by William Butler Yeats, ed. Denis Donoghue (Macmillan, 318 pp., $7.95). Here, published for the first time, are Yeats’s 1916 draft of an Autobiography covering the years 1887 to 1897, and his daily journal, most of whose entries are from 1908 to 1910, although there are a few sporadic notes from as late as 1930. In the Autobiography, Yeats attempts to analyze, in retrospect, his relations with various friends and enemies —Maud Gonne; Johnson, Symons, Dowson, and other members of the Rhymers’ Club; Wilde; Moore; O’Leary; Synge; Lady Gregory. He also dwells on his conflict between wanting to be purely a poet and thinker and wanting also to be a man of action. The Journal narrates day-to-day problems as they occurred (such as the complicated politicking at the Abbey Theatre); adumbrates poetic and philosophic theories; and gives many ideas for poems, as well as poems in various stages of revision. Thus, the Autobiography concentrates on Yeats’s view of current controversies; the Journal tends more to show how a poet’s mind—or at least this poet’s mind—works. Each in its own way is valuable. There are, of course, disappointments. One may have suspected that Yeats was humorless and this book confirms that suspicion. He was also more than a little pompous: The high, formal style that works so well in his poetry works much less well in accounts of table-turning and crystal-ball reading. And we learn more than I, at least, wished to know about his sexual frustrations. Nonetheless, students of Yeats and of the Irish renaissance generally must read these memoirs. However, readers who don’t already know something about the period should start elsewhere. Yeats was writing here for himself. So, even with the editor’s helpful, copious notes, if you don’t already know what he’s talking about, you still won’t when you’ve finished.