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YEATS, W.B. & IRELAND.   Term Paper ID:20383 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Influences of Irish history, myth, culture & politics in poet's plays, focusing on character of Cuchulain.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Influences of Irish history, myth, culture & politics in poet's plays, focusing on character of Cuchulain. Paper Introduction: The purpose of this research is to examine how the history and myth of Ireland, and the politics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, affected the dramatic writing of W.B. Yeats. The plan of the research will be to set the dramatic output of Yeats in historical context, and then to discuss the role that the influences and people with whom he came in contact played in his life and particularly in his work, with special emphasis on the five Cuchulain plays and the character of Cuchulain. To appreciate the impact of the Irish myth on Yeats's plays, it is important to understand how Yeats came to the dramatic form and the depth of his commitment to his theory of drama, which Skene (222) summarizes as being "devoted to the attempt to reestablish ritual verse drama in the modern theatre, in the face Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. This is the Cuchulain that Yeats presents inthe series of plays. This becomes inconsequential because despite Emer's note, and despiteEithne Inguba's expression of ambivalence and grief at his decision,Cuchulain chooses to go to battle, anticipating certain death. . While Yeats was extremely interested in the inspiration that thereclaiming of Irish myth could provide the nationalists, he did not viewthe myth in historiographical terms. The Only Jealousy of Emer, first printed in 1919 and produced in1922, is significant for the influence it portrays of Japanese noh drama.Cuchulain is an important but peripheral character in the action of thisdrama, which focuses on his ever-faithful wife Emer, "heroine and trueimage of her husband's fulfilment, who suffers defeat at the hands of thesupernatural, while the once reckless Cuchulain, now intimidated byexperience, is left to find solace in the illusion of youth and physicalbeauty" (Taylor 137). Afterhis death, he is eulogized by the goddess of war. Moreimportant is Skene's contention, supported by Yeats's own commentary and byother critics, that the five plays were intended to be considered as awhole (Skene ix-x; Gill 31-2 et Passim). Conall takes up the first but not thelast half of the challenge, though he and Laegaire both claim the greenhelmet, which the Red Man tosses to them for the bravest to pick up. Emer, after the manner of Euripides Alcestis, agrees; EithneInguba kisses him, beginning the process of restoring his life, eventuallyconfirmed by his loss of love for Emer. Undoubtedly, the plays suggest a coherent world view. The Variorum Editionof the Plays of W.B. The play is a studyof Irish politics. Elsewhere, Skene says (16) that Cuchulain "was a personage ofconsiderable symbolic importance to the Irish nationalist movement." Thehero was frequently cited on a par with heroes of Greek mythology as asource of inspiration to the nationalists. The situation of caution, or that decisive actions have consequences,is the same in The Only Jealousy of Emer, which finds Emer and EithneInguba essentially at Cuchulain's tomb and in an encounter with thesupernatural ghost of Cuchulain. Cuchulain'sencounter with the potentiality of immortality fills the bill in At theHawk's Well, with the well standing for the fountain of youth. It reveals a move he is going to make over and over in the years tocome as he substitutes Anglo-Irish and aristocratic for popular andCatholic heroes, willfully defines the Irish national tradition, andhurls the new definition into the teeth of modern Ireland (Archibald1 6). Thewhole thing turns out to be a test that the spirit performs from time totime to discover who is bravest in Ireland; Cuchulain's bravery isconfirmed once again. Herdeed is solitary, 'self-delighting and self-affrighting', and by definitioncannot be known to or recognized by the man whom Emer saves" (Ure 74).At the Hawk's Well is the companion piece to The Only Jealousy of Emer,inasmuch as it also exhibits direct influence of Japanese noh drama. . Thestage is bare, only a patterned screen is put against the wall;the number of the players is limited, and one of them is always on thestage-the old man in At the Hawk Well and Emer in The Only Jealousy ofEmer. . Now old, she wraps him in her veil that stands for awinding sheet. London: Hutchinson, 1988.Jeffares, A. Six Symbolist Plays of Yeats. New Haven: Yale UP, 1976.Ure, Peter. It accurately compresses Yeats's sense of Ireland in1913. Gill (31-2)cites Yeats's statement in an introduction to The Only Jealousy of Emer ofa conscious search for expression in the Irish/Celtic myth in drama, bywriting "for some country where all classes share in a half-mythological,half-philosophical folk-belief which the writer and his small audience liftinto a new subtlety. Taylor points out (139) that in virtuallyall confrontations between Cuchulain and the supernatural, Cuchulainexperiences loss. W.B. The Irish warrior hero Cuchulain of Muirthemne is variouslyidentified with Hercules and Achilles in Greek mythology (Gill 32; Gregory,Cuchulain 267; Bulfinch 637), Siegfried in German mythology, and Krishna inIndian mythology (Gill 32). As the myth andYeats tell the story, Cuchulain is a far from morally exemplary incharacter, except in respect of his extraordinary bravery andaggressiveness not just in battle but toward life itself. Cuchulain, who has come to terms with death, is finallykilled by a Blind Man who has agreed to do the deed for 12 pennies. This, together with thetheatricality of the plays, lends stature and significance to the works andlifts them out of the realm of mere chronicle, pointing toward thetroubling psychological and emotional ambiguities of myth. It is unfair and tactless but, like Keats's street brawl, itsenergy is fine. Yeats died within a year of the play's completion. At the Hawk's Well andThe Only Jealousy of Emer are frankly in Japanese noh style (Skene ix), butthe others, while highly stylized and presentational in conception andthough consistent with the adumbration of mythic ideas, are not as faithfulto the form. Gill says that Cuchulain in this play "is the projection ofYeats's self. Reid (15 ) says that Yeats andno other writer was associated so strongly with the so-called CelticRenaissance, which was itself associated with the movement for Irishnationalism in the early 2 th century. Norman, and Knowland, A.S. Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 195 .Bulfinch, Thomas. Like the objects seen in a dream, life is unreal"(Gill 56). . The Cuchulain cycle of plays demonstrates Yeats's stated mission tocelebrate and give voice to the special quality of Ireland. Ure cites acontemporary note from Yeats in this regard: "I am writing a play on thedeath of Cuchulain, an episode or two from the old epic. New York: Macmillan, 1966.Archibald, Douglas. Yeats. . This does notmean that Yeats left the Cuchulain myth out of his other work; in Dierdre,Red Branch ruler Conchubar is a central figure. There are also similarities to Morte d'Arthur,a fact alluded to by Yeats himself (Yeats, Preface, Cuchulain ofMuirthemne.MDNM 15). Then the silentGuardian of the Well becomes possessed by the hawk, the terrible life ofthe deity slides through her veins and reveals itself to Cuchulain inthe gaze of the hawk's eyes. . The Oriental model is a very simple ritual of spirit possession andexorcism in which a vengeful ghost is the personification of an emotion sointense that it has become an autonomous agent" (Taylor 14 ). He is aided by Aiofe, mother of the son he killed in OnBaile's Strand. This is true of both At the Hawk's Well and The OnlyJealousy of Emer, as well as of On Baile's Strand. Yeats: A Study. 19 4; Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 197 .Jeffares, A. Yeats, being a nationalist and patriot, stresses theneed for unity among his countrymen" (Gill 37). To appreciate the impact of the Irish myth on Yeats's plays, it isimportant to understand how Yeats came to the dramatic form and the depthof his commitment to his theory of drama, which Skene (222) summarizes asbeing "devoted to the attempt to reestablish ritual verse drama in themodern theatre, in the face of public preference for melodrama, realism andsatire." And for how this came about in Yeats's career one must turn to hispersistent attachment to his Irish heritage--specifically that familyheritage vis-a-vis British rule of Ireland. According to Ure, the irony of TheOnly Jealousy of Emer is that "Emer's renunciation of Cuchulain's love isher greatest act of love towards him. Hismembership in the Irish senate is another. Yeats. There is also a chorus, consisting of threemusicians or singers, who in lyrical verses, at the beginning of theplay, introduce us to the scenery and theme of the drama, and at the endsum up the meaning and aim of the play (Bjersby 38). The Cuchulain myth and Yeats's retelling of it in the Red Branchcycle of plays can be seen as the hub of his work in respect of Ireland'shistorical experience during his lifetime. The loving wife must act so,for that is the ground of her being, but the act itself cancels out allhope of fulfilment for the loving nature from which it sprang . . Bulfinch's Mythology Illustrated: The Age of Fable;The Age of Chivalry; Legends of Charlemagne. Gill says that in this play Cuchulain "is the embodiment ofintelligence which dispels the dangerous mist of disharmony and disunityamong the fighters. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1963.----------------------- 2 My 'privatephilosophy' is there but there must be no sign of it; all must be like anold faery tale'" (Ure 77). Yeats,. The notion of pain as a central aspect of the character Cuchulain isa point to which we shall return. He stares into them, and so becomessubjected to the curse predicted by the Old Man . The madness that Cuchulainexperiences is the consequence of rash, unreasoned, pointless action, andthis fact lifts the play and the character to the stature of tragicinsight. In At the Hawk's Well, "the hero's courageput out of reach for ever the prize which courage [in this case Cuchulain'scourage to look the hawk in the eye] was designed to win" (Ure 74). Also, thedepth of ironic meaning can be seen in "Easter 1916": "A terrible beauty isborn." The Golden Helmet was an early version of The Green Helmet, which hasbeen seen as the most direct analogue of the Irish troubles of any of theCuchulain cycle. When he began to discover as ayoung man how much of the mythological heritage of Ireland was lost to themodern Irishman, he became convinced that the restoration of thatheritage was the most important contribution he could make to the cause of Irish nationalism (Skene 2). Bjersby adds that "this art form appealed so much to [Yeats] becausemany of its ideas agreed with his own thoughts" (Bjersby 39). Works CitedAlspach, Russel K., and Alspach, Catharine C., eds. His only chance to awaken--so his ghost tellsEmer--is for Eithne Inguba to kiss him, at which point he will forget histrue love, Emer. . If the fact thatdecisive actions have consequences can be taken from these plays andapplied to the situation of the Irish revolutionaries contemporary withYeats, then the notion that the achievement of independence would carrywith it many costs might be a defensible subtext of the play. . The first and most complex play of the cycle (Gill 33),it concerns the killing by Cuchulain, who has been deceived about theidentity of his opponent in a battle, of his own illegitimate son by thequeen Aoife, a rival of Ulster. Yeats the Playwright: A Commentary on Character and Design in theMajor Plays. WhenCuchulain picks it up they are angry, but his solution is not to claim itfor himself as bravest but to declare that it should be a cup of peace. The Cuchulain Plays of W.B. The Death of Cuchulain is the last in the Red Branch cycle andcelebrates the warrior's ultimate expression of courage in hopeless odds,confirming his immortality in memory. Itis about the courage without which there can be no Heroic desire, butwhich is made the means to thwart it. London: Macmillan, 1975.Moody, T.W., and Martin, F.X., eds. EithneInguba is torn between which she desires more--Cuchulain's glory or hisbed. Skene sees five principal areas of influence on Yeats's fiveCuchulain plays: mysticism, in particular his idea for an Irish MysticalOrder; the Celtic revival and Irish nationalism that was contemporary withYeats; the theme of the burning wheel of love and a universal theory ofwheels and moon phases; the interplay of personal and impersonal elementsof Yeats's life; and Yeats's theories of theatre (x et passim). The most satisfactoryexplanation is given by Gill, who says that the play is Yeats's late-in-life philosophical meditation on "the illusive--the unreal nature ofworldly existence. The common theme of the plays is Cuchulain courage; this can becompared to Ireland's courage to break away from England, and it can alsobe taken as a cautionary tale. ThisUlster myth is treated in detail in two of Lady Gregory's compilations ofvarious versions, and the material was used extensively by Yeats, whocollaborated with her in writing and in the founding of the Abbey Theatre.In Cuchulain of Muirthemne, Gregory compiles "the best of the stories, orwhatever parts of each will fit best to one another, and in that way togive a fair account of Cuchulain's life and death" (Gregory, Cuchulain 5).This also describes Yeats's approach in the Cuchulain series of plays. Yeats's basic source was the so-called Red BranchSaga, the name given to Cuchulain's portion of the Celtic myth. "September, 1913" makes two angry assertions, the obvious onethat romantic Ireland's dead and gone, the less obvious one that romanticand heroic Ireland was never what "you" thought it was. Itis a politically "metaphysical" poem in Dr. Johnson's terms: a violentyoking together of apparent opposites, and the violence is a politicalact. Taylor (188)sees Cuchulain's decision to do battle as instinctive, reckless. Ure'ssummary of the elements of plot points up the symbolic nature of the playas such as well as the confirmation, in this play, of Cuchulain's lot asheroic-warrior, but nevertheless mortal: [T]he tragedy of heroic circumstance is revived once more in thethird of the Cuchulain plays, At the Hawk's Well (finished in 1916). Yeats. But in TheOnly Jealousy of Emer, the exorcism of death and of the ghost comes aboutbecause of a heroic self-sacrifice on the part of Emer, who chooses theabstraction of life quite as much as she chooses the life of Cuchulain overthe love he has for her. Taylor disagrees as far as The Only Jealousy of Emer is concerned, sayingthat "Yeats's insistence on a changeling and the direct revelation of aseparate, supernatural world is hardly attributable to the old Irishromance, and . "that you willbe so maddened that you kill [your children] with your own hand." . Nor is the theatricalconception of all the plays in the cycle the same. New York: Russel & Russell, 1946.---. AsTaylor has it, "The extraordinary achievement of Yeats's play is indelineating and balancing the passion of both hero and heroine; inextending the themes of sexual and spiritual conflict to project a completephilosophical system, a perception of human psychology and of order in theuniverse" (Taylor 143). If the play can beread as the indictment of the central figure in listening to the voices ofothers, then the play can be read in part as a working-out of the emotionalcontent of the love competition for Maud between MacBride and Yeats, whohad been less than aggressive in pursuing his own interests; in On Baile'sStrand, Cuchulain fails to pursue the identity of his son until he is aboutto kill him. Yeats, whodoes make clear that Conchubar has deceived Cuchulain into performing thedeed, will slaughter Cuchulain only in The Death of Cuchulain, which waswritten in the last year of Yeats's life. One version of the myth has Cuchulain killing himself inthis fight, but that is not plainly stated in On Baile's Strand. In otherwords, the reader must bring some sensibility to the play, which is writtenin an elliptical style, in order for it to truly make sense. As well, in presenting the imperfecthero of Irish myth and legend, he repeatedly pointed toward or implied theinevitable imperfections of Ireland itself. Townland may rail at townland till all have gone to wrack, Thevery straws may wrangle till they've thrown down the stack; The very door-posts bicker till they've pulled in the door, The very ale-jars jostle till the ale is on the floor, But this shall help no further. . His long friendshipwith and courtship of flamboyant activist Maud Gonne is one index of this,although this was not an unmixed blessing in his personal life. The play takes up where On Baile's Strand left off,with Cuchulain fighting the waves madly, only to fall into a deep sleep,which is the sleep of death. .Shouldering his spear, he leaves the sacred mountain to confront withcourage the bitter life of war (Ure 7 ). In the court ofUlster, he woos and wins the faithful Princess Emer, later forsaking herfor her rival Eithne Inguba, and is finally defeated by treachery in battleagainst the men of Ireland (Gregory, Cuchulain, passim). The beginning of scene two finds Cuchulain withsix wounds, and preparing to bind himself to a pillar so that he will diestanding up. . Ure (8 )cites "the reckless energy of the hero, seeking glory in a fight againstthe odds and behaving with generous forbearance to the woman whom he thinkshas tried to bring about his death." In The Death of Cuchulain, deathtransfigures everything. Into the: 'unfaltering, moistened eyes' he dares not look .. . Gillcontinues, Yeats's swan song is not a war on God but a song of joy-Cuchulain is not afraid of death; he willingly embraces it, for he isaware of the reality--the life after death. Bjersby, Skene, and Gillall connect this Cuchulain to Yeats himself. Bjersby agrees,identifying Cuchulain's role as mediator and the rivalry between thewarriors and between their wives as "an allusion to the permanent enmitiesbetween Ireland and England--something which is even more conspicuous inthe first version of the play, the prose drama The Golden Helmet, in whichIreland and its problems are freely alluded to" (Bjersby 83). Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1983.Bjersby, Birgit. Instead of a curtain, a cloth is used whichcan be folded or unfolded, according to the needs of the action. Cuchulain of Muirthemne: The Story of the Menof the Red Branch of Ulster. New York: Haskell House Publishers Ltd., 1972.Skene, Reg. The plan of theresearch will be to set the dramatic output of Yeats in historical context,and then to discuss the role that the influences and people with whom hecame in contact played in his life and particularly in his work, withspecial emphasis on the five Cuchulain plays and the character ofCuchulain. It was not that I do not love order," he recalled hisstruggle to write a coherent Irish novel, "or that I lack capacity forit, but that--and not in the arts and in thought only--I outrun mystrength. A Commentary on the Collectyed Plays of W.B. According to Skene, On Baile's Strand is the pivotal work in theCuchulain cycle. . Yeats: A New Biography. What is critical about the antiheroic sentiment of "September, 1913"is that its anger is vindicated in the more victorious vein in "Easter1916," and that it appeared in the crucial years surrounding the victory ofHome Rule. So he becomes a man of many masks and sometimes of merecontradictions; he is supple and resourceful, and makes conflictingstatements, including many about England and Ireland, nationalism andthe Ascendancy (British Protestant rule of Ireland] world, forms ofnational identity. Critics disagree about Cuchulain's motives. Cuchulain'sseries of adventures, which include his attempting to gain immortality andhis killing of his son in battle, teaches him some (though not enough)wisdom along the way. In this play, Cuchulain isdriven mad by knowledge of what he has done, and he is made to fight thewaves of the sea. This ends scene one. Upsala; A.-B. The shift from 1913, a low point in therevolution when the Irish nationalist O'Leary was killed, to 1916, the timeof the Easter revolution. Yeats moves beyond the penultimate considerationsof Irish politics and his love relationships to make a highly individuatedplay that expresses the whole of his theory of drama. On the other hand, Skeneargues that the phases of life that Cuchulain experiences in the cycle ofplays resemble the phases on the wheel of fate, from birth to death toimmortality. But he never shrinks from a challenge or from anopportunity for battle, and his behavior pattern is persistently heroic; hereadily faces consequences. Yeats. The Course of Irish History. Norman. Skene'sclassification may be argued as arbitrary, inasmuch as wheels and moonphases seem to intersect with mysticism on one hand and Yeats's fairlypersistent courtship of Maud Gonne on the other. And in Yeats's Cuchulain plays written or produced at thistime, Cuchulain is the very embodiment of romantic Ireland, as far as themythos of "Irishness," as it were, is concerned. . Skene (227-8) seesCuchulain's dismissal of Eithne Inguba's pleas as cynical. They all wear masks or have their faces made up to resemblemasks, and their movements are supposed to be like those of puppets. The Only Jealousy of Emer, which first appeared in 1919,deals with the Cuchulain-Eithne Inguba-Emer love triangle and can be readpartly as his poetic working-out of the love interests to whom he hadproposed at some time in the period just previous: his wife Georgie, Maud,and her daughter Iseult. . In either case, there is a nobility about Emer inthis play that far transcends even the heroism of Cuchulain himself. . Yeats's own comment onthis play is that it "is a kind of cross-road where too many interests meetand jostle for the hearer to take them in at a first hearing unless helisten carefully, or know something of the story of the other plays of thecycle" (Yeats, in Jeffares and Knowland 99). Skene says that On Baile'sStrand, first performed in 19 4 but revised in 1916, which deals in mythicterms with the unwitting slaying by Cuchulain of his son, "owes much to theeffect upon Yeats of receiving the shocking news that Maud Gonne hadmarried (political activist] John MacBride" (Skene 81) . He has been deceived into an oath ofloyalty to his ruler Conchubar, who insists that Ulster's children must bedefended by Cuchulain's battle with the foe. It is in this play, the most comic of the cycle, thatCuchulain plays the unusual role of peacemaker in the contest among himselfand his colleague warriors Laegaire and Conall. New York:Columbia UP, 1974.Taylor, Richard. The quest for "the possible unities" among theseseveral and opposed Irelands is often thwarted, and the most sustainednote is a pained ambivalence (Archibald 79-8 ). In any case, his analysis of the Cuchulain plays (on Baile'sStrand, The Golden Helmet, At the Hawk's Well, The Only Jealousy of Emer,and the Death of Cuchulain) takes each of these areas into account. Yeats. I have nowfound all the mythology and philosophy I need." The so-called Cuchulainplays are not the only ones that involve Irish mythology, but their unityand focus on the figure of Cuchulain are of special significance because ofthe coherent mythic and theatrical view that they express. He sees himself being dramatized since his chance to have ason from Maud Gonne was destroyed" (34). Towards a Mythology: Studies in the Poetry of W.B. Cork: The Mercier Press, 1984.Reid, Forrest. The Drama of W.B. Takentogether the five plays span the life of the hero from his initiation as awarrior to his eventual death" (Skene 25; 168). The symbolism is crystal clear. Ure, who does treat the Cuchulainplays as a unit, does not accept that Yeats began the Cuchulain plays as anintentional cycle but "came to think of [them] as a coherent series" (Ure,Playwright 61). . It is in verse, symbolic and ritualistic, inaccordance with earlier Western drama and the tradition of Japanese Noh.It also offers a developing character in crisis--the stuff of all theatre. . Yeats's family was of Anglo-Irish gentry, lived in both Ireland andEngland, and fell upon hard times in the latter years of the 19th century;this exposed Yeats to both comfortable and straitened circumstances.Archibald characterizes family experience as one of different Irelands andsees a connection between this and Yeats's body of work: [Yeats's family history] leads to the pervasive yearning of theAnglo-Irish artist and intellectual to achieve some kind of unity outof the experience of so many Irelands, a yearning Yeatscharacteristically expresses by first reducing the four Irelands to two:"Preserve that which is living and help the two Irelands, GaelicIreland and Anglo- Ireland, so to unite that neither shall shed itspride . [He throws Helmet into the sea](Yeats, GH, in Alspach & Alspach 448).When the Red Man reappears, Cuchulain offers his head to cut off. It is not so much that I choose too many elements, as thatthe possible unities themselves seem without number, like those angelsthat dance spurred and booted upon the head of a needle." Much of thedrama of Yeats is that of a great talent and agile mind seeking order butfinding antinomies, attempting resolution but being thrown into doubtsand confusion. Several elements must converge in an examination of the scope, form,and content of Yeats's dramas: the myth of Ireland and character ofCuchulain, Yeats's family background, his interest in mysticism andattachment to exemplars of mysticism in Britain, his tangential connectionwith the troubled politics of and sea changes in Ireland, his relationshipwith contemporary Irish activists Maud Gonne and Parnell, his artistictemperament, interest in poetic experimentation, and his detailed interestin Japanese drama. He also displays couragewhen he, unlike they, offers to die as part of a cosmic dare. Skene cites Yeats's enthusiasm forthe land and more important for the "spiritual regeneration of Ireland"(2), which is consistent with the fact that Yeats took as his subjects inplays and poetry alike the Gaelic myths in general and the story ofCuchulain in particular: This association of landscape and legend was for Yeats the veryheart of his sense of Irishness. In this play, Cuchulain is lured into battle by the forces of QueenMaeve, an old enemy of Cuchulain's. W.B. a more probable influence is the Japanese No [play] Aoino ue. Deprived of immortality, Cuchulain carries an additional curse, whichis that he will slay his own; this is a reference to the plot of On Baile'sStrand. But as willbecome evident, Yeats does not stop with celebration in the romantic-heroicmode. It is important to recognize that this was alsothe period of the separation of Ireland from England, as chronicled in thepoem "Easter 1916," wherein "a terrible beauty is born." All of thisoccurred in a context of dramatic shifts and high personal and professionaldrama for both Yeats and Ireland. New York: Avenel Books,1979.Gill, Stephen. Skene quotes Yeats's commentthat the stories of Cuchulain "belong to the wild Celtic idealism ratherthan to the careful, practical ways of the Saxon" (Skene 16). "Around this central play,"says Skene who cites the irony in the death of Cuchulain's child thatUlster's children might live, "Yeats placed the four others. Yeats: A Critical Study. Undoubtedly it is not too daring to say that Yeatsexploited each of these elements for dramatic purposes from time to time,some perhaps more directly than others. . The Old Man has been waiting bythe well for fifty years for a chance to drink the mysteriously flowing water, but each time the water has bubbled out he has been cheatedof it by the 'deceivers', the dancers who guard the well in the formof hawks. This play, according to Skene,depends on knowledge of the others in the cycle and on a more generalknowledge of Irish myth, "for The Death of Cuchulain is not an isolatedwork" (Skene 224). . As a modern dramatist should, he inserts plenty of conflict and, asvarious critics point out, much irony. The instrument is his mistress EithneInguba, whom Maeve has entranced and sent with oral instructions to sendCuchulain into battle, and whom Emer has sent with a note and withinstructions to go to his bed to keep him from going into battle. This is the price the gods exact for clemency forCuchulain. In his early twenties (1886),Yeats began to seriously read the Irish poets and sagas, and thisexperience appears to have affected the whole of his subsequent literaryoutput, both poetic and dramatic (Jeffares and Knowland xv-xvi; Archibald76ff). AsBjersby explains: The technique of the two Yeats plays, At the Hawk's Well and TheOnly Jealousy of Emer, shows striking similarities with the Japanese Noh.The plays are written for a small audience, to be performed in adrawing-room or the like. Yeats: Irish Myth and the Japanese No. In otherwords, there was in Yeats's mission to portray the Irish myth in a poeticalstyle something congenial about Japanese noh drama form used to express it. The Interpretation of the Cuchulain Legend in theWorks of W.B. The present point is that Yeats'sdramatic work in particular appears to reflect a wish for a thinkableuniverse on one hand or a wish to portray the content of a random universeon the other. Jeffares and Knowland describe confluence of Irish-myth and Japanese-noh interests in At the Hawk's Well as well, in the fact of the "situationfor [Yeats's] hero, similar to the kind which he found in the Noh plays,where 'the adventure itself is often the meeting with ghost, god, orgoddess at some holy place or much-legended tomb'" (87). Cornwall, Canada: Vesta Publications, Ltd., 1978.Gregory, Isabella Augusta. . . He did, however, act invarious ways on the Irish movement toward nationalism. The play depicts Cuchulain's consciousness of himself and thereality after the end of life on earth (Gill 57). The plotconcerns the appearance of the Red Man, a spirit who has challengedLaegaire and Conall to cut off his head and then submit the following nightto having their own heads cut off. . Cuchulain enters and learns this story. For romanticIreland is associated not with O'Connell or Davis, not even withCathleen and Cuchulain, and certainly not with Healy and Murphy, butwith O'Leary, Parnell, Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone--all Anglo-IrishProtestants, two from the aristocracy and two from the landed gentry. In either case, Yeats thought in mythic terms; Irish mythand poetic (i.e., usually not prose) language were a natural choice for him--though not the only one he made, as exemplified in such mature plays asCalvary and his Sophocles plays. All my life I have longed for such a countrysubtlety. Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha de Danaan and of theFianna of Ireland. 19 2; Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe,197 .---. The story of Cuchulain's life and death is the story of theadventurous and amorous Ulster-Irish warrior demigod whose fate it is toface constant challenges and repeatedly prove his bravery. In any case we know from Yeats's personal historythat at this point Maud Gonne was lost to him forever. All my life I have longed for such a country . Indeed, the whole ofYeats's Cuchulain cycle is at pains to declare the special qualities ofCuchulain, which in context must stand for Ireland itself--imperfect,romantic, spoiling for action, always heroic, but not always successful. The purpose of this research is to examine how the history and mythof Ireland, and the politics of the late nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies, affected the dramatic writing of W.B. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.