Divinity and Nihilism in W. B. Yeats’s A Vision

Abstract

Abstract This article analyses the place of nihilistic philosophy in W. B. Yeats’s notoriously opaque work A Vision. Despite often being cast as a failure, A Vision is considered fundamental to a comprehension of Yeats and his writings. While much work has been done to illuminate this obscure text, criticism has not yet adequately addressed a trio of integral philosophical influences on Yeats and their presence in A Vision. This article shows that Yeats employs the ‘old’ nihilistic attributes present in Baruch Spinoza’s substance monism, Immanuel Kant’s transcendental idealism and Georg Hegel’s Absolute Spirit to propose a foundational metaphysical system and reimagine the concept of ‘deity’. Yeats enthusiastically read each of these three philosophers, counting them amongst the most significant thinkers he studied. By interrogating the deific properties of the Thirteenth Cone, this article argues that old nihilism shapes Yeats’s system in A Vision and, more broadly, illustrates the poet’s understanding of generative nothingness, a concept that Spinoza, Kant and Hegel considered the underpinning of epistemological reality.