Saturday, July 28, 2012

From Lapham's Quarterly: W.B. Yeats, Magus

http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/essays/wb-yeats-magus.php?page=all


W.B. Yeats, Magus


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"If the paramount project of W. B. Yeats’ professional life was the perfection of the art of poetry, it was intertwined with a personal preoccupation, the study and practice of magic— not in any metaphorical sense, but the dedicated pursuit of supernatural powers based upon the ancient traditions of alchemy and necromancy, which began in his youth and persisted to the end of his long life.
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Yeats’ vehement claim to John O’Leary that the mystical life was the center of all that he did and thought and wrote didn’t mean that he was fascinated by magic; he was getting at something essential. Yeats believed that magic gave him the power to write verses that would partake of the eternal. The proof is in his poetry, for the reader to judge."

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