Abstract
Stung by Edward Dowden’s reluctance to endorse the Irish Literary Revival, W. B. Yeats distanced himself publicly from the TCD Professor. This act of distancing has largely been accepted by subsequent scholarship as a reflection of Dowden’s lack of influence on Yeats. Despite obvious disagreements on some key points, this essay will argue that Yeats is close to Dowden on a number of issues, by tracing their intimate dialogue about the writings of George Eliot, Shakespeare and Goethe. The concept of formation of character—an English translation of the German Bildung—will prove central to their related responses to the question of what sort of life is best suited to further the development of literary gifts. These findings are framed by a discussion of Yeats’s profound, and often underestimated, indebtedness to Victorian culture and ideas, and the essay also traces the biographical background to these two writers’ changing relationship.
Highlights
Stung by Edward Dowden’s reluctance to endorse the Irish Literary Revival, W
This essay will use the context of post-Victorian reckonings with literary and familial precursors to frame Yeats’s own autobiographical account of his relationship to the Irish critic and poet Edward Dowden (1843-1913),1 and as a lead to question the comprehensiveness and, to a certain extent, accuracy of that account
As a leading critic of his day, Dowden was an authority on many writers either embraced or dismissed by Yeats as influences on his own career: in this essay, comparisons of their
Summary
Stung by Edward Dowden’s reluctance to endorse the Irish Literary Revival, W. This essay will use the context of post-Victorian reckonings with literary and familial precursors to frame Yeats’s own autobiographical account of his relationship to the Irish critic and poet Edward Dowden (1843-1913),1 and as a lead to question the comprehensiveness and, to a certain extent, accuracy of that account.
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