The Mask of Derision in Yeats’s Prologue to A Vision (1937)

Yeats’s prologue to the 1937 edition of A Vision conceals important occult knowledge under the cloak of irony and self-derisive wit. Wit or humour has not been targeted very often in criticism of Yeats’s work and A Vision might be deemed a dubious place to start. However a few critics have attempted to tackle the issue, and I have based a substantial part of this essay on the work of Steven Helmling, Haz ard Adams and Eugene Korkowski. All three have commented upon the predominantly humoristi..