About the Book
The figures of Michael Robartes and Owen Aherne appear throughout the writing of the great Irish poet W.B. Yeats, featuring in his poems, short fictions, dialogues and as authorities in notes to his work. Bringing together into one volume published and unpublished writings featuring these two enigmatic figures, W.B. Yeats’s Robartes-Aherne Writings traces their history and the development of Yeats’s mystical thought that culminated (twice) in the publication of his visionary work A Vision (1925, 1937).
Including reproductions of manuscript and notebook pages as well as transcriptions and extracts from a wide range of Yeats’s mystical writings and substantial commentary and annotation throughout, this book is an essential resource for scholars of Yeats’s thought, his stylistic evolution and the esoteric influences on modernist writing in the early 20th century.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Part One: 1896-1897, The Secret Rose Triptych: Early Tales of Michael Robartes and Owen Aherne
1. “Rosa Alchemica” (1896)
2. “The Tables of the Law” (1897)
3. “The Adoration of the Magi” (1897)
Part Two: 1917-1920, Unpublished Dialogues and Extracts: The Resurrection of Robartes and Aherne
1. Imaginary Conversations, “The Phases of the Moon,” and the Robartes Monologue in The Wild Swans at Coole (“Anglo Ireland: a conversation,” NLI 30,103)
2. Creating Story in “The Discoveries of Michael Robartes, 1917-1920 (NLI 36,263/7/1-2
3. On Developing The Great Diagram of Giraldus in the “Appendix by Michael Robartes,” 1918 (NLI 36,263/7)
Part Three: 1919-1925, Published Poems, Notes and Extracts
1. “Ego Dominus Tuus,” “The Phases of the Moon” and “The Double Vision of Michael Robartes” from The Wild Swans at Coole (Macmillan, 1919), with text and note from Later Poems (Macmillan, 1922)
2. The Preface and Notes for Michael Robartes and the Dancer (Cuala, 1920), consisting of complete texts of the following:
(a) the Preface, “Michael Robartes and the Dancer”
(b) the poems “An Image from a Past Life” and “The Second Coming” with their Notes
3. Complete texts of Notes from three plays in Four Plays for Dancers (Macmillan, 1921):
(a) “Note on ‘The Only Jealousy of Emer’”
(b) “Note on ‘The Dreaming of the Bones’”
(c) “Note on ‘Calvary’”
4. Complete text of “The Gift of Harun-Al- Rashid,” “The Lover Speaks” and “The Heart Replies”
(later “Owen Aherne and his Dancers” I and II) with respective Notes from The Cat and the Moon and Certain Poems (Cuala, 1924)
5. Inventions and Extracts for A Vision: An Explanation of Life founded upon the Writings of Giraldus and upon certain Doctrines Attributed to Kusta ben Luka (1925), or A Vision A:
(a) “Introduction by Owen Aherne,
(b) from Book I: What the Caliph Partly Learned, “1. The Wheel and the Phases of the Moon” (omitted) and “2. The Dance of the Four Royal Persons by Owen Aherne”
(c) from Book II: What the Caliph Refused to Learn, “1. Desert Geometry or the Gift of Harun al-Raschid” (omitted) and “The Cones—Higher Dimensions” (deferring to the authority of Aherne on eggs turning inside out, later by Robartes in 1931 Stories)
(d) from Book IV: The Gates of Pluto, Interjections on “IX. Beatitude,” “X. The States before Birth. . . ,” and “XIII. Communications with Spirits and the Nature of Sleep”
Part Four: 1929-1931, The Making of Stories of Michael Robartes and his Friends; omitting The Resurrection), with complete texts of:
1. The Holograph Draft of Notebook NLI 13,577 (in facsimile facing literatim transcriptions)
2. Related Entries in the White Vellum Notebook (“Huddon, Duddon and Daniel O’Leary”)
3. The Cuala Press Printing of 1931, with Edmund Dulac’s Figures (collated against the corrected page proofs as well as later printings in Yeats’s lifetime).
Part Five: 1932-1937, Afterword: Unpublished and Published Additions Prepared for A Vision B
1. “Michael Robartes Foretells”: A Rejected Ending (NLI 36,272/33 w/ transcription)
2. Denise’s Story: W. B. Yeats, Dorothy Wellesley, and the Remaking of “Stories of Michael Robartes and His Friends” (NLI 30,390 and 13,593(16, p. “B”).
Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
Wayne K. Chapman is Professor Emeritus of English at Clemson University, USA and formerly Executive Editor of Clemson University Press. He is Editor Emeritus of the South Carolina Review and the author of several books, including Yeats's Poetry in the Making (2010).
Review :
A fascinating trajectory of the Robartes-Aherne characters, replete with biographical information on Yeats and commentary on their relevance for the later poems and both versions of A Vision.
This meticulously edited collection frames a large portion of canonical Yeats through the development of the literary
personas of Michael Robartes and Owen Aherne ... An invaluable collection for any student of Yeats, particularly those interested in his more overtly occult inspired works.
The editor does a fantastic job of documenting, detailing, and describing the uses, interactions, and character development of these two literary creations throughout Yeats’s published and unpublished output, providing the reader with a unique glimpse into the intricate mind of one of the greatest writers in recent history.
In this volume, Chapman brings together the many pieces through which we see them in a fine patchwork. Including both crafted wholes and unpolished fragments, part of the charm lies in the disparateness of the elements, and it gives a more complete picture of this aspect of the phantasmagoria than has been possible before.
