xv, 243 p. ; 21 cm, Includes the poem, Nineteen hundred and nineteen, Includes bibliographical references (p. [229]-237) and index

ia/yeatsviolence0000wood.pdf

Michael Wood

IRL Press at Oxford University Press

Oxford Institute for Energy Studies

German Historical Institute London

OUP Oxford

The Clarendon lectures in English -- 2008, Oxford, New York, New York State, 2010

Clarendon lectures in English, 2008, 1. publ, Oxford, 2010

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

1, PS, 2010

This book contains pen marking.

Includes the poem, Nineteen hundred and nineteen.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [229]-237) and index.

The night can sweat with terror as before
We pieced our thoughts into philosophy,
And planned to bring the world under a rule,
Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.
W.B. Yeats, 'Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen'
This is a book about how poetry, seen through the instance of a single poem, seeks to make sense of a turbulent and dangerous world. Poetry must introduce order and shape where there is none, and also, in certain crucial cases, remain faithful to the disorder and shapelessness of experience. Many poems manage the first of these tasks; very few manage both. W.B. Yeats 'Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen' (written and first published in 1921) is one of them. It is a work which asks what happens when what is taken to be civilization crumbles. What apocalyptic events wait in the wings? What are history's victims (and executors) to do except mock and mourn?
Successive chapters investigate the six parts of the poem, connecting them to Yeats' broader poetic practice, his interest in the occult and his changing vision of Irish nationalism; to the work of other poets (Irish, English, Russian German); and to Irish and European history between 1916 (the date of the Easter Uprising in Dublin) and 1923 (the date of the end of the Irish Civil War). Theoretical considerations of the shape and meaning of violence, both political and religious, link the chapters to each other.

What Happens When Civilization Crumbles? What Apocalyptic Events Wait In The Wings? These Are The Questions Asked By Yeats's Poem 'nineteen Hundred And Nineteen'. Michael Wood Explores The Life Of This Poem Through Its Form And Historical Context, Examining How It Seeks To Make Sense Of A Chaotic World Whilst Preserving The Disorder Of Experience. Michael Wood. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [229]-237) And Index.

2023-06-28