J. Finneran - The Irish Dramatic Movement

Mary FitzGerald Richard J. Finneran

SCRIBNER
NEW YORK LONDON TORONTO SYDNEY SINGAPORE

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF W. B. YEATS

VOLUME VIII

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF W. B. YEATS

Richard J. Finneran and George Mills Harper, General Editors

V OLUME I T HE P OEMS

ed. Richard J. Finneran

V OLUME II T HE P LAYS

ed. David R. Clark and Rosalind E. Clark

V OLUME III A UTOBIOGRAPHIES

ed.William H. ODonnell and Douglas Archibald

V OLUME IV E ARLY E SSAYS

ed. George Bornstein and Richard J. Finneran

V OLUME V L ATER E SSAYS

ed.William H. ODonnell

V OLUME VI P REFACES AND I NTRODUCTIONS

ed.William H. ODonnell

V OLUME VII L ETTERS TO THE N EW I SLAND

ed.George Bornstein and Hugh Witemeyer

V OLUME VIII T HE I RISH D RAMATIC M OVEMENT

ed. Mary FitzGerald and Richard J. Finneran

V OLUME IX E ARLY A RTICLES AND R EVIEWS

ed. John P. Frayne and Madeleine Marchaterre

V OLUME X L ATER A RTICLES AND R EVIEWS

ed. Colton Johnson

V OLUME XI M YTHOLOGIES

ed.Warwick Gould and Deirdre Toomey

V OLUME XII J OHN S HERMAN AND D HOYA

ed. Richard J. Finneran

V OLUME XIII A V ISION (1925)

ed. Margaret Mills Harper and Catherine Paul

V OLUME XIV A V ISION (1937)

ed. Margaret Mills Harper and Catherine Paul

SCRIBNER
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2003 by Anne Yeats

Editorial notes, introduction, and compilation copyright 2003 by Richard J. Finneran

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

SCRIBNER and design are trademarks of Macmillan Library Reference USA, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, the publisher of this work.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales: 1-800-456-6798 or business@simonandschuster.com

Text set in Sabon

Manufactured in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 1865-1939.

The Irish dramatic movement W. B. Yeats ;

edited by Mary FitzGerald and Richard J. Finneran.

p. cm.(The collected works of W. B. Yeats ; v. 8)

Includes index.

1. English dramaIrish authorsHistory and criticism. 2. TheaterIrelandHistory. 3. IrelandIntellectual life. 4. IrelandIn literature. I. FitzGerald, Mary, 1946-2000. II. Finneran, Richard J. III. Title.

PR5900.A2 F56 1989 vol. 8 [PR5900.A5]

821.8 sdc21 [792.09415] 2002044669

ISBN 0-684-80706-8
eISBN-13: 978-1-439-10612-9

To George Bornstein, friend of us both

As early as 1919, Yeats hoped to see his early dramatic criticism, first published in a series of pamphlets and collected only as part of one of the volumes in an expensive collected edition in 1908, available in a separate, regular edition. Although more often than not successful in his dealings with publishers, in this instance Yeats eventually had to be content with The Irish Dramatic Movement as a section of the 1923 Plays and Controversies. If either of the two expensive collected editions planned in the 1930s had come to fruition, The Irish Dramatic Movement would have still been denied a volume of its own, sharing space with the early prose fiction. After Yeatss death the work was finally published in a rather miscellaneous collection of prose, Explorations (1962). The present edition is thus a belated fulfillment of Yeatss wish. To The Irish Dramatic Movement as Yeats last approved it has been added the uncollected material from the original pamphlets.

As with any editorial endeavor, this volume would not have been possible without the assistance of many others. We are especially indebted to Joseph Black; George Bornstein; D. Allen Carroll; Kathleen Clune; Morris Eaves; Robert Essick; Nora FitzGerald; Ed Folsom; Roy Foster; John Frayne; Stan Garner; Nancy Moore Goslee; John E. Grant; George Mills Harper; Margaret Mills Harper; Thomas Heffernan; George Hutchinson; K. P. S. Jochum; Mary Lynn Johnson; Declan Kiely; J. C. C. Mays; Jerome McGann; William H. ODonnell; Morton Paley; Alan Raitt; Peter Robinson; Ann Saddlemyer; Ronald Schuchard; Colin Smythe; Mary Speer; Wayne Storey; Jeff Tamaroff; Joseph Trahern; Anne Yeats; and Michael B. Yeats. We are also grateful to the staffs of the Berg Collection, New York Public Library; the British Library; the National Library of Ireland; the University of North Carolina Library; and the University of Tennessee Library. A special thanks goes to my graduate students Stephen Holcombe and Lauren Todd Taylor for their tireless efforts in tracking down some of Yeatss obscure allusions.

We are also grateful to Sarah McGrath at Scribner for her support of this edition and to John McGhee for his care in seeing the manuscript through the press.

Mary FitzGerald died from metastatic breast cancer on 8 August 2000, before this edition could be finished. It has been my privilege to bring it to completion. To her many students, friends, and colleagues, Mary was known as a superb teacher, a generous and loving companion, and a fine scholar. Only Richard Edmond, Catherine Anne, and I also knew her as the very model of a mother and a wife. As Yeats once wrote,

time may bring Approved patterns of women or of men But not that selfsame excellence again.

R.J.F.
Wildwood, Missouri
15 March 2002