Prolegomena to the Study of Yeats's Plays

This comprehensive study will be valuable to all Yeatsians and students of the Irish Renaissance in general, as well as anyone seriously concerned with modern drama. This comprehensive study will be valuable to all Yeatsians and students of the Irish Renaissance in general, as well as anyone seriously concerned with modern drama.

This book is, in a sense, complementary to the author's Prolegomena to the Study of Yeats's Poems. Based on the reasonably definitive Collected Plays (London, 1952; New York, 1953), it essays for each play a correction of any error in final dating if such error exists; a full publication record (keyed to a complete bibliography), followed by a reference to Wade's Bibliography for every translation there recorded; notations on first production if the play has had production; a statement of what is known about dates of composition and revision, and relevant concerns; resolution—in careful glosses—of conceivable obscurities; reference to really important critical comment; and pertinent suggestion of parallel passages. Appendices present notes on uncollected or unpublished Yeatsian drama and on the many errors of the 1953 American edition of the plays.

This comprehensive study will be valuable to all Yeatsians and students of the Irish Renaissance in general, as well as anyone seriously concerned with modern drama. Like its sister Prolegomena, it will be a particular timesaver to neophytes in Yeatsian scholarship.

This book is, in a sense, complementary to the author's Prolegomena to the Study of Yeats's Poems . Based on the reasonably definitive Collected Plays (London, 1952; New York, 1953), it essays for each play a correction of any error in final dating if such error exists; a full publication record (keyed to a complete bibliography), followed by a reference to Wade's Bibliography for every translation there recorded; notations on first production if the play has had production; a statement of what is known about dates of composition and revision, and relevant concerns; resolution—in careful glosses—of conceivable obscurities; reference to really important critical comment; and pertinent suggestion of parallel passages. Appendices present notes on uncollected or unpublished Yeatsian drama and on the many errors of the 1953 American edition of the plays. This comprehensive study will be valuable to all Yeatsians and students of the Irish Renaissance in general, as well as anyone seriously concerned with modern drama. Like its sister Prolegomena , it will be a particular timesaver to neophytes in Yeatsian scholarship. Prefatory Note Contents The Countess Cathleen The Land of Heart’s Desire Cathleen Ni Houlihan The Pot of Broth The King’s Threshold The Shadowy Waters (Acting Version) Deirdre At the Hawk’s Well The Green Helmet / An Heroic Farce On Baile’s Strand The Only Jealousy of Emer The Hour-Glass The Unicorn from the Stars The Player Queen The Dreaming of the Bones Calvary The Cat and the Moon Sophocles’ King Oedipus Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus The Resurrection The Words upon the Window-Pane A Full Moon in March The King of the Great Clock Tower The Heme’s Egg Purgatory The Death of Cuchulain Appendix I: Notes on Uncollected or Unpublished Drama Appendix II: Note on First American Printing of Definitive Collected Plays