2010
Web
# | Year | Text | Linked Data |
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1 | 1892-2000 |
W.B. Yeats and China : general. Aintzane Legarreta-Mentxaka : In my view, the evidence of the exhaustive research undertaken by Yeats, and his failure to mention Taoist thought and yin yang theory, do not prove his ignorance of them, but rather suggest that he must have been aware of both and chose to omit his sources for some unknown reason. Yeats applies the theory of the gyres to elements only tangentially associated to historical changes. His A vision, as well as a number of examples from his poetry and drama, reflect not only yin yang theory, but also other concerns and stylistic features associated with Taoist philosophy. Yeats could have come in contact with Taoism through a variety of sources, the most likely of which is the work of Oscar Wilde. Madison Morrison : Yeats's China is predominantly daoist. China represents for him a philosophical view and a civilization seen broadly as alternatives to those of the West. |
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2 | 1915 |
Yeats, W.B. Reveries over childhood and youth. (Churchtown, Dundrum, Ireland : Cuala Press, 1915). http://books.google.ch/books?hl=de&id=nQ6A_QpI4YwC&q=chinese#v=snippet&q= chinese&f=false. "We knew that he [grandfather William Pollexfen] had been in many parts of the world, for there was a great scar on his hand made by a whaling-hook, and in the dining-room was a cabinet with bits of coral in it and a jar of water from the Jordan for the baptising of his children and Chinese pictures upon rice-paper and an ivory walking-stick from India that came to me after his death… I can remember no other pictures but the Chinese paintings, and some coloured prints of battles in the Crimea upon the wall of a passage, and the painting of a ship at the passage end darkened by time… When we had learned our lesson well, we were allowed to look at a sword presented to her father who had led troops in India or China and to spell out a long complimentary inscription on the silver scabbard." |
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3 | 1921 |
Yeats, W.B. When Loie Fuller's Chinese dancers enwound. In : Yeats, W.B. Thoughts upon the present state of the world. In : Dial ; vol. 71, no 3 (Sept. 1921). http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31959/31959-h/31959-h.htm When Loie Fuller's Chinese dancers enwound A shining web, a floating ribbon of cloth, It seemed that a dragon of air Had fallen among dancers, had whirled them round Or hurried them off on its own furious path; So the platonic year Whirls out new right and wrong Whirls in the old instead; All men are dancers and their tread Goes to the barbarous clangour of gong. Madison Morrison : Yeats's figure of the dragon combines its destructive western with its restorative Chinese powers. |
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4 | 1938 |
Yeats, W.B. Lapis Lazuli. In : Yeats, W.B. Eight poems. In : The London mercury ; vol. 37, no 221 (March 1938). http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/777/. http://dropo59.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/6-lapis-lazuli-william-butler-yeats/. … Two Chinamen, behind them a third, Are carved in lapis lazuli, Over them flies a long-legged bird, A symbol of longevity; The third, doubtless a serving-man, Carries a musical instrument. Every discoloration of the stone, Every accidental crack or dent, Seems a water-course or an avalanche, Or lofty slope where it still snows Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch Sweetens the little half-way house Those Chinamen climb towards, and I Delight to imagine them seated there; There, on the mountain and the sky, On all the tragic scene they stare. One asks for mournful melodies; Accomplished fingers begin to play. Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes, Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay. In 1935, the poet Harry Clifton gave his friend William Butler Yeats a stone carving of a Chinese scene. Madison Morrison : Readers of the poem have sometimes been led, perhaps by Yeats's description of their eyes as 'ancient', to regard the Chinese figures as belonging to the past. But the figures for Yeats's are very much alive in the present. |
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