Cuchulain, Christ, and the Queen of Love: Aspects of Yeatsian Drama

Extract

Yeats stands out among the poets of this century who have attempted poetic drama because of his life-long struggle to make the drama serve both his own and his country's purposes. From Vivien and Time (1884) to The Death of Cuchulain (1939) he labored at the often uncongenial task of giving voice (or mask) to conflicting attitudes within the scope of a dramatic action. The dramatic discipline he came to see as a necessity for his own development as a man and poet, and as a possible means of transforming the vulgar or sentimental patriotism he despised into a defense of the Irish heroic ideal which could arouse his countrymen and earn the respect of his literary friends and rivals too.