Some Aspects of the Rewriting of W. B. Yeats's “Red Hanrahan's Song About Ireland.”

Abstract

“Red Hanrahan's Song” exists in three different versions. It originally appeared in an early version of one of the Red Hanrahan stories, and the different versions of the poem correspond to various stages in the textual history of these stories. The poem was, in fact, revised as a result of changes in Yeats's editorial policy regarding Irish place names. It has for long been well known that an English translation of Uilliam Dall Ò hIfearnàin's “Caitilìn Nì Uallachàin” influenced Yeats's poem, but the nature of that influence has not been properly understood. Yeats's use of this source is discussed and reassessed: one stanza in Mangan's translation of one version of Ò hIfearnàin's poem supplied Yeats with all the possible parallels. Yeats later moved away from his source when revising the poem. In the second version, Yeats introduced ‐ and applied correctly ‐ the medieval Irish concept of the colours of the winds. The concept only left traces in the third and final version, but Yeats's preoccupation with it helped him in working out the wind symbolism of the poem. This symbolism only developed gradually, but the seeds of it can be seen already in the first version.