Yeats in Fascist Italy

Abstract

Abstract Yeats’s visits to Rapallo, Italy, between 1928 and 1934 coincided with the consolidation of the Italian fascist regime. Unlike Pound, who wholly embraced Mussolini and his government, Yeats’s proximity to the increasing totalitarianism of the regime resulted in his turning away from overtly fascist political structures, even while ‘aesthetic fascism’ continued to inform his work for the rest of his life. A close study of Yeats’s interest in Italian fascism shows the fluidity of his attitude to Mussolini and the regime as well as the steadfastness of his authoritarian commitment in his aesthetics. While he dismissed Italian fascism’s ‘dry sticks’, Yeats remained interested in totalizing mythologies, not only the System in A Vision but also in the theatre. Although Yeats ultimately rejected Italian fascism as a political model in its party-political manifestation and his conversations in Rapallo about fascist political thought, it remained a powerful presence in Yeats’s late work.