W. B. Yeats : From Pre-Raphaelites to Vorticism

The purpose of this study is to trace Yeats's attitude toward the visual arts through his poetic career. He learned of the Pre-Raphaelites from his father who affected his idea about art and life. In the eighties Yeats grew up in the last phase of the Pre-Raphaelitism. In "The Wanderings of Oisin" Yeats clearly attempted to transfer into poetry the decorative colour and pattern that attracted him in the tapestries of William Morris. We can see the decrease in visual detail and the increase in symbolic power in Yeats's poems of the 1890s. Yeats was influenced by the symbolic engravings of Palmer and Calvert. The years from around 1911 to 1925 were, for Yeats, a period of transition. Through the acquaintances with "Blast group" such as Pound, Wyndham Lewis and Gaudier=Brzeska, he became interested in sculpture and vorticism. The metaphor for creative activity and major visual motif, the vortex, bears some relation to Yeats's gyre. Moreover, he attempts to place the system of his A Vision in modern movement.3KJ00004272293論文Articledepartmental bulletin pape