Otto Bohlmann Auth. Yeats and Nietzsche An Exploration of Major Nietzschean Echoes in The Writings of William Butler Yeats PDF

YEATS AND NIETZSCHE
YEATS AND
NIETZSCHE
An Exploration of
Major Nietzschean Echoes
in the Writings of William Butler Yeats
Otto Bohlmann
Otto Bohlmann 1982
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Fort William, Scotland
For my mother and father
I have written to you little and badly of late I am afraid,
for the truth is you have a rival in Nietzsche, that strong
enchanter. I have read him so much that I have made my
eyes bad again ... I have not read anything with so much
excitement since I got to love Morris's stories which have
the same curious astringent joy ...
Yeats, in a letter to Lady Gregory
[Letters, p. 379]
Contents
List of Plates ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgements XV
List of Abbreviations xvii
1 ENCOUNTER AND KINSHIP 1

2 CONFLICT, WILL, POWER 19
Conflict 19
Will and Power 35
3 THE TRAGIC DISPOSITION 40
Apollo and Dionysus 40
Character and Personality 47
Tragic Wisdom 51
Tragic Joy 53
Where There Is Nothing and the Dionysian 59
4 REASON, AESTHETICS, ART 63
Reason and Instinct 63
Self and Soul 82
Unity of Being 89
Art and Aesthetics 91
Reason, Aesthetics and Art in the Plays 98
5 THE HERO 111
Hero and Ubermensch 111
Objectivity and Subjectivity 125
Mask, Self and Anti-Self 130
The Hero in the Plays 139
6 CYCLICAL HISTORY 156
Ewige Wiederkehr 156
viii Contents
Yeats's 'Stylistic Arrangements' of History 166

Cyciical History in the Poems 177
Cyclical History in the Plays 182
Afterword 190
Notes 191
Select Bibliography 198
Index 203
List of Plates
1-2 Annotated pages from Yeats's copy of Thomas Common's

Nietzsche as Critic, Philosopher, Poet and Prophet (reproduced
with permission of the Special Collections Department,
Northwestern University Library, Evanston, Illinois).
3 Friedrich Nietzsche (Foto Held).
4 John Quinn, New York lawyer and patron of the arts, to
whom Yeats wrote in May 1903 'you have been the first to
introduce me to Nietzsche'.
5 W. B. Yeats, by A. L. Coburn (John Hillelson Collection).
Preface
'I have not read anything with so much excitement', Yeats wrote of
Nietzsche to Lady Gregory late in 1902, 'since I got to love Morris's
stories which have the same curious astringent joy'} It was an
excitement and joy that was to last Yeats right up to the completion
of On the Boiler, his final political testament, published in the year of
his death - with echoes of the German vibrantly audible throughout
his writings of the years between.
It is these echoes, so frequent and so clear, that concern the main
thrust of this exploration, rather than the tangled question of
'influence'. Distinct reverberations can be sounded and
documented; influence always remains clouded with speculation.
Not that Nietzschean echoes in Yeats are echoes only of Friedrich
Nietzsche. They are often just as likely to be echoes of William
Blake. Yeats himself recognises the astonishing similarity between
the two, writing of how 'Nietzsche completes Blake and has the
same roots' [L, p. 379], and of how Nietzsche's 'thought flows
always, though with an even more violent current, in the bed
Blake's thought has worn' [/GE, p. 20 1]. And it is that more violent
current which has impressed itself so forcefully on Yeats's work.
Arthur Symons made an early prediction that Nietzsche, coming
after Blake, would 'pass before Blake passes'. 2 But that has not
proved to be the case in the twentieth century, across which
Nietzsche's voice has carried more stridently than any other -
announcing the death of God, articulating the Dionysian terror of
Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, presaging the 'nausea' ofthe Theatre of
the Absurd and other existentialist writing. It is this rampant voice
that echoes through the maturing Yeats; Blake, having consumed
Yeats's interest between 1889 and 1892, was superseded by a new
'enchanter' [L, p. 379], who emerges in A Vision as the type of
Yeats's admired hero [cf. V, pp. 126-9].
Even with the considerable evidence of Yeats's pencilled jottings
xii Preface
on Nietzsche and the presence of Nietzschean parallels throughout

his work, it remains impossible (and so spurious) to determine
beyond all doubt the point at which similarities cease to be
coincidental and become testimony to direct influence. We should
not rush to conclude that Yeats, having discovered Nietzsche, did
indeed 'put on his knowledge with his power' ['Leda and the Swan',
CP, p. 241]. Yeats was an incipient Nietzschean (in so far as one can use
the term) long before he encountered Nietzsche. We should not forget,
either, the fatuousness of post hoc, ergo propter hoc reasoning.
This element of caution is not to deny the fascination and
importance of the repeated correspondences in Yeats's and
Nietzsche's thinking, nor does it diminish the fervour with which
Yeats devoured Nietzsche. Certainly one could speak of Nietzsche as
having influenced Nietzsche when one understands influence as
including the stimulation and confirmation of ideas, and the
fostering of attitude and tone. Here Nietzsche's influence was
considerable and lasting - yet even here Yeats would claim that it
was not Nietzsche or Blake who had most 'shaped my life', but
Shelley ['Prometheus Unbound' (iv), E&/, p. 424]. Nietzsche should
only occasionally, and with reservation, be hailed as the 'parent and
original' of aspects in Yeats that recall him.
Yeats's reputation as a poet is secure; Yeats the playwright has not
been as enthusiastically adopted. But, since Yeats and Nietzsche both
approach life in a distinctly theatrical and dynamic manner, it is
fitting to lend the edge of emphasis in this study to the dramatic side
of the poet. Hence, in Chapter 3 we chart Nietzsche's sentiments on
tragedy in plays such as Where There Is Nothing, and in Chapter 4
his attitudes to reason, aesthetics and art in At the Hawk's Well, A
Full Moon in March, The Herne's Egg, The Only Jealousy of Emer,
The Player Queen and The Resurrection. Chapter 5 looks at
Nietzschean views on the hero and superhero in At the Hawk's Well,
Calvary, The Death ofCuchulain, The King's Threshold, On Baile's
Strand and The Only Jealousy of Emer, and Chapter 6 points to
elements of Nietzsche's ewige Wiederkehr in Yeats's view of cyclical
history in The Cat and the Moon, The Death of Cuchulain, The
Player Queen, Purgatory and The Resurrection. I have prefaced this
concentration on the plays with two chapters that look more closely
at the compass of the Yeats-Nietzsche linkage and the nature of the
philosopher's appeal for Yeats, and their shared Weltanschauung of
existence as a remorseless interplay of chaotic forces, of conflicting
wills to power.
Preface xiii
These are the regions of kinship that yield most interest, amply
evidenced as they are in Yeats's private correspondence, essays,
lectures and autobiographical writings, in A Vision, and, of course,
in the poems and plays. Recourse to the broader body of Yeats's
work while looking more closely at specific texts will, I hope,
provide a good combination of what has been called the 'lemon
squeezer' approach and the compilation of a shopping list. Though
this policy of J.LT70EV &yav might violate Nietzsche and Yeats's
enthronement of 'excess', 'measure' does remain an important
attribute of the Ubermensch! [cf. WP (940) p. 495].3
The hero is probably the crucial element in the relationship
between Yeats and Nietzsche, but it is based on various other points
of correspondence in their philosophy and it is thus best to delay
discussion of this aspect until Chapter 5, once we have dealt with the
concepts germane to an understanding of the hero and Ubermensch.
Provision of basic familiarising material is always essential before in-
depth discussion can usefully take place. Similarly, some retelling
and overlapping are needed for reinforcement, even though certain
points of orientation might have been made by others elsewhere
before. I have generally avoided the marshy byways of conflicting
criticism on Yeats wherever it has not been indispensable to venture
in; recitation of comparative views so often merely makes for
imbroglio digression.
Nietzsche's impact on Yeats again raises the question of the
differences between art and philosophy. Among the replies which
approach an answer to this question is that good poetry seldom
drives home a unilateral point of view, while philosophy usually
does. Art which pictures only one aspect of a situation becomes
sheer didactic philosophy. As D. H. Lawrence says of the novelist,
when he 'puts his thumb in the scale, to pull down the balance to his
own predilection, that is immorality'. 4 By this criterion Lawrence
would criticise Yeats for ultimately coming down on the side of (for
example) the non-rational, but the poet is redeemed in this case by
the tremendous conflict he registers in reaching his bias. Also, he is
superb at lending philosophical ideas poetic form; Nietzsche is not -
though he would fain have written his Birth of Tragedy as a poet:
'What I had to say then- too bad that I did not dare say it as a poet:
perhaps I had the ability'[' Attempt at a Self-Criticism' (3), BT, p. 20].
Stefan George's poem 'Nietzsche', too, feels that 'it should have
sung, not spoken, this new soul'. The unsuccessful imagery and
poetic confusion of Thus Spake Zarathustra suggest otherwise,
xiv Preface
however, and, masterful though Nietzsche's prose is widely

acknowledged to be, one is inclined to share F. D. Luke's opinion
when he doubts that Nietzsche's 'prose style is at its best where it
approaches the nature of poetry', and that 'he is certainly at his
worst when writing verse'. s
In Yeats again the philosophy appears too nakedly at times - not
something he would unswervingly regard as a fault, as we see in
'The Symbolism of Poetry' (i): 'Goethe has said, "a poet needs all
philosophy, but he must keep it out of his work", though that is not
always necessary', a sentiment Yeats repeats in a letter to Ethel
Mannin as late as October 1938 [&/, p. 154; L, p. 917]. Not that it
falls within the domain of this exploration to take issue with either
the soundness of Nietzsche and Yeats's philosophy or the artistic
merit of their writing. It is their kinship that will always be our main
point of focus.
The mining of literary kinships can make for the sinking of very
narrow shafts, and we have already had Yeats and Shelley, Yeats
and Blake, Yeats and Castiglione. But Nietzsche's vein is so rich, its
importance so central, that it dare not go untapped, and it is the
intention of this investigation to reveal new depths to a relationship
noted more fleetingly often enough before. And I shall always be
grateful to the many people who participated in many ways in the
conception, gestation and giving birth of this rewarding study: to my
teachers and my loving friends and family for their buoyant interest;
to Philip Birkinshaw for our talks at Gale House as Blaauwberg's
Dionysian Atlantic surged below us, and for our Norfolk walks; to
Mac and Val, in the warmth of whose home the final drafts were
composed; and to my mother and father, to whom I dedicate the
work.
Cambridge, O.B.
September 19 79
Acknowledgements
The author and publishers wish to thank the following who have
kindly given permission for the use of copyright material:
George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd, for the extract from Thus
Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Thomas
Common.
Encounter Ltd, for the extract from 'A Craving for Hell' by Michael
Hamburger.
Gordon Press Publications Ltd, for the extract from The Dawn of
Day, vol. IX of The Complete Works by Friedrich Nietzsche,
translated by J. M. Kennedy.
Macmillan Company of Canada Ltd, for the extract from Yeats and
the Theatre, edited by Robert O'Driscoll and Lorna Reynolds.
Nonesuch Press (The Bodley Head Ltd), for the extracts from Poetry
and Prose of William Blake, edited by Geoffrey Keynes.
Penguin Books Ltd, for the extracts from Beyond Good and Evil,
Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ by Friedrich Nietzsche, all
translated by R. J. Hollingdale.
Random House Inc., for the extracts from The Birth of Tragedy by
Friedrich Nietzsche, translated with commentary by Walter
Kaufmann; The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by
Walter Kaufmann; and The Will to Power by Friedrich Nietzsche,
translated by Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale.
Anthony Sheil Associates Ltd, on behalf of the estate of Joseph M.
Hone, for the extract fromJ. B. Yeats: Letters to his Son W. B. Yeats
and Others, 1869-1922, edited by Joseph Hone, published by Faber
& Faber Ltd.
A. P. Watt Ltd, on behalf of Michael and Anne Yeats, and
Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., New York, for the extracts from the
works of William Butler Yeats: Essays and Introductions, 1961
by Mrs W. B. Yeats; Collected Plays, 1934 and 1952; Explor-
xvi Acknowledgements
ations, 1962 by Mrs W. B. Yeats; Autobiographies, 1916,

1935, renewed 1944, 1963 by Bertha Georgie Yeats; Where There Is
Nothing, 1959 by Mrs W. B. Yeats; and The Letters of W. B.
Yeats, edited by Allan Wade, 1953, 1954 by Anne Butler Yeats.
List of Abbreviations
Auto Yeats, The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats (New

York: Macmillan, reissued 19 53), or Autobiographies
(London: Macmillan, 1955); page references are to both,
in this order.
B Yeats, On the Boiler (Dublin: Cuala Press, 1939).
BGE Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trs. R. J. Hollingdale
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 197 3; repr. 197 4).
BT Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, trs. Walter Kaufmann
(New York: Vintage Books, 1967).
C Yeats's copy of Nietzsche as Critic, Philosopher, Poet and
Prophet: Choice Selections from His Works, compiled by
Thomas Common (London: Grant Richards, 190 l ).
CP Yeats, Collected Poems, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan,
1950; repr. 1965).
CPl Yeats, Collected Plays, 2nd edn (New York: Macmillan,
1953), or Collected Plays, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan,
1952; repr. 1966); page references are to both, in this
order.
EH Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, trs. Walter Kaufmann and R. J.
Hollingdale (New York: Vintage Books, 1967).
E&I Yeats, Essays and Introductions (New York: Macmillan,
1961).
Expl Yeats, Explorations (New York: Macmillan, 1962).
GM Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trs. Walter
Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage
Books, 1967).
GS Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trs. Walter Kaufmann (New
York: Random House, 1974).
GOA Nietzsche, Grossoktavausgabe, 2nd edn (Leipzig: Kroner,
1901-13).
IGE Yeats, Ideas of Good and Evil (New York: Russell and
xviii List of Abbreviations
Russell, revised 1903, reissued 1967).

JBYL J. B. Yeats: Letters to his Son W. B. Yeats and Others,
1869-1922, ed. Joseph Hone (London: Faber and Faber,
1944).
K Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. Geoffrey Keynes
(London: Nonesuch Press, 1948).
L Yeats, Letters of W. B. Yeats, ed. Allan Wade (London:
Rupert Hart-Davis, 1954).
Myth Yeats, Mythologies (London: Macmillan, 1959; repr. 1962).
P&C Yeats, Plays and Controversies (London: Macmillan, 1927).
TI Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, trs. R. J. Hollingdale
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968; repr. 1974).
TSZ Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, trs. Thomas Common
(New York: Random House, Modern Library Series).
v Yeats, A Vision, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan, 1937;
reissued 1962).
VP The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W. B. Yeats, ed.
Peter Alit and Russell K. Alspach (New York: Macmillan,
1957).
VPl The Variorum Edition of the Plays of W. B. Yeats, ed.
Russell K. Alspach assisted by Catherine C. Alspach (New
York: Macmillan, 1966).
WP Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trs. Walter Kaufmann and
R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Random House, 1967).
WTIN Yeats, Where There Is Nothing (New York: Macmillan,
1903).
1 Encounter and Kinship
There can be no certainty as to exactly when it was that William

Butler Yeats 0865-1939) first encountered the ideas of Friedrich
Wilhelm Nietzsche ( 1844-1900). He would undoubtedly have been
aware of his work by 1896, in April of which year The Savoy
included the first in Havelock Ellis's 'Friedrich Nietzsche' series
alongside Yeats's 'Rosa Alchemica' and 'Two Poems Concerning
Peasant Visionaries'. Yet in a letter of 15 May 1903 Yeats
categorically tells John Quinn, the New York lawyer and patron of
the arts, 'you have been the first to introduce me' to Nietzsche [L,
p. 403].
This might well have been a diplomatic remark made for Quinn's
benefit; letters can never be taken as gospel at face value. It was very
probably Quinn, though, who first made Yeats a gift of Nietzsche's
writing. According to his biographer, B. L. Reid, Quinn sent the poet
his own copy of Thus Spake Zarathustra, as well as copies of The
Case of Wagner and A Genealogy of Morals, in mid September
1902, 1 and editor Allan Wade tentatively assigns the date of 26
September 1902 to the letter in which Yeats speaks of Nietzsche as
'that strong enchanter' who promotes such 'curious astringent joy'
[L, p. 379]. To press a pedantic point for a moment longer, there are
indications (which David Thatcher raises 2) that Yeats penned the
letter slightly later than this, but a letter from Lady Gregory to Quinn
dated with certainty 9 October 1902 confirms that Yeats had
received his gift at least by that date. 3 Yeats was also given a volume
entitled Nietzsche as Critic, Philosopher, Poet and Prophet,
containing 'Choice Selections from His Works' compiled by an early
exponent of the German with the inappropriately unaristocratic
name of Thomas Common, later a major contributor to the Oscar
Levy English edition of Nietzsche's Werke. And, whenever it was
that Yeats first became acquainted with Nietzsche, it is with his
reading of Common's anthology that his consuming interest in him
2 Yeats and Nietzsche
begins- as the notes he scrawled in the margin of his copy testify.

Underlined sentences, marked passages, scribbled comments,
queries, disagreements: all proclaim Nietzsche's forceful and
spellbinding impact. 4 The voracious enthusiasm with which he
devoured Nietzsche necessitated an apology to Lady Gregory for his
having 'written to you little and badly of late ... , for the truth is you
have a rival in Nietzsche, that strong enchanter. I have read him so
much that I have made my eyes bad again ... '[L, p. 379].
Previous references to Yeats's jottings in Common have not been
entirely satisfactory. EHmann and Wilson record only a smattering
of them and their transcriptions are sometimes truncated; Thatcher's
transcriptions are fuller, but amend Yeats's punctuation and spelling.
Fragmentary and hurriedly written though the annotations are, I
have for the sake of accuracy and interest chosen to transcribe them
exactly as Yeats pencilled them - at least, as far as his notorious
handwriting permits! My deciphering does differ here and there
from earlier accounts.
All the comments except one appear in Common's section on
'Nietzsche as Philosopher', particularly in the part entitled 'Ethics'.
Yeats gives little evidence of having been struck by Nietzsche the
poet- though Quinn had specifically felt he 'would find Nietzsche's
"wonderful epigrammatic style" of use in his own writing', despite
the fact that Quinn personally 'found "abhorrent" the German's
"so-called philosophy ... of the exaltation of brutality" '. 5 Most of
the selections that stirred Yeats's pencil are from Beyond Good and
Evil and On the Genealogy of Morals; other passages that caught his
eye come most frequently from The Dawn of Day, The Gay Science,
The Anti-Christ and Thus Spake Zarathustra. Published by Grant
Richards in London in 1901, Common's Nietzsche served as
something of a proselytising introduction of the German's writings
to the English-speaking world, aided by Shaw's sponsorship of it. It
certainly also gained Yeats's approval, as we see him engaged in his
jottings by Nietzsche's attitudes to Christianity, the Jews, morality,
thought and instinct; by his ideas on Rangordnung or gradation of
rank among men, on the noble virtues of his 'higher men', on pity,
obligation, affirmation, denial, the mask. What these ideas entail we
shall see in a moment. We also find him developing much of the
symbolism that was soon to emerge in his work: the One and the
Many, Christ and Homer, night and day, soul and self.
His reading of Common's Nietzsche thus clearly confirmed or
stimulated Yeats's approach to rationality, to the attributes and
Encounter and Kinship 3
morality of the hero, to the conflict of self and soul, to the cyclical
nature of history. The scribbled notes he made also indicate, as we
shall see, some points at which Yeats modified or went beyond
Nietzsche. But they do not by any means define the limitations of
Yeats's debt to him, as EHmann so nimbly concludes. Yeats
continued to read Nietzsche until the very end of his life, as Mrs
Yeats was to confirm. 6 In addition to Common's selections, he
acquired at least six books by Nietzsche, as Thatcher reports, 7 and
also a biography of him by his own biographer, J. M. Hone. With
wider reading, Yeats would have come across Nietzsche's ideas on
tragedy and what constitutes aesthetic pleasure, on art as the
sublimation of cruelty, on civilisation as the suppression, rather than
the utilisation, of dark instincts and thus destined for apocalypse. He
would have absorbed his interpretation of the Dionysian and
Apollinian myths, and his notions of objectivity and subjectivity -
all to be explored in the chapters ahead.
Yeats's interest in Nietzsche was consequently by no means
momentary, and it is Nietzsche who regularly hovers in the
foreground of Yeats's mind when he writes of Blake [IGE, p. 201], 8
of Synge [Auto, p. 311 I 511 ], 9 of Indian families such as the Tagores,
whose thoughts convey to him 'a sense of visible beauty and
meaning as though they held that doctrine of Nietzsche that we must
not believe in the moral or intellectual beauty which does not sooner
or later impress itself upon physical things' ['Gitanjali' (i), &/,
p. 389]. It is Nietzsche whom he appropriates to bolster his dramatic
criticism, as when he complains of poets who use their works for
conventional moralising, 'which Nietzsche has called an infirmary
for bad poets', 10 or when he dismisses as 'exhausted' the bloodless
dramatic situations of drawing-room pieces, exhausted 'as Nietzsche
thought the whole universe would be some day' ['A People's
Theatre', Expl, p. 247]. 11
Over the years Nietzsche would crop up in Yeats's arguments
with his father [cf. L, p. 650], in discussion with his friends, 12 even in
his public addresses - such as at a meeting commemorating the
centenary of Thomas Davis on 20 November 1914, when, as the
Irish poet Austin Clarke recalls, Yeats 'brought in irrelevantly the
name of Nietzsche, for the German poet and philosopher of the
Superman was regarded with horror in all our pro-British press'. 13
Even in the 1930s Nietzsche's name continues to surface in Yeats's
correspondence. A letter to Lady Gregory from Rapallo in 1930 [L,
p. 773] makes mention of the tenement house 'where Nietzsche lived
for some months and boasted to his friends of having found a place
where there were eight walks', and Hone recounts how Yeats
decided that 'such leisure as he had should be reserved for the study
of local memories of Nietzsche'. 14 Lady Gregory even suggested that
the only book Yeats would require on a trip to Italy would be Thus
Spake Zarathustra. 1s
Apart from these references which so clearly reveal Nietzsche's
prominence at the threshold of Yeats's thought, and the more
specific regions of similarity between them, there is also the
phenomenon of the harshening tone in Yeats's work following his
enthralment with Nietzsche. A pale Nietzschean to start with, Yeats
progressively develops a fiercely Nietzschean idiom, fervid with all
the vatic eloquence, arrogance and harsh Weltanschauung that
course through Nietzsche's writings. He responds more and more to
his poetic flavour, seasoning even the gentler aspects of their
philosophy with harshness and brutality. When urging an
Umwertung aller Werte, Nietzsche might have a spiritual
transvaluation of all values foremost in mind to usher in a new era
of the 'strong'. But the language that conveys his thought is pungent
and full of rage. It is this brutal, bloody taste - with some spiritual
and aesthetic sauce to complement it - that imparts such a curious,
ambiguous savour to Nietzsche's work, and to much of Yeats's.
Friedrich Nietzsche has proved to be all things to all men. Most of
his readers, though, can be divided into two camps, the 'harsh'
Nietzscheans and the 'gentle'.t 6 The harsh interpreters are found
primarily among early-twentieth-century Germanophobes, and
among those pointing to the example of Nazi ideologists, who had
wrongly claimed Nietzsche as their own. Their legacy has been an
emphasis on the cruel elements in Nietzsche, and certainly there are
many horrors which might well result from dogmatic application of
Nietzsche's aesthetic thought in the world of action. But Nietzsche,
as Michael Hamburger reminds us, insists that only what is personal
remains for ever incontrovertible, foreseeing what could happen
were his works ever to be taken as impersonal dogma. 17 Indeed, he
strove to circumvent political misappropriation of his views. Karl
LOwith points to this in a note forming part of The Will to Power
which describes the work as a 'book to stimulate thought, no
more .... I wish I had written it in French, so that it could not be
used to support German nationalist aspirations of any kind'. 18
History has proved his fears to be well founded: it was precisely the
principle of power that Hitler and his ilk latched on to and deformed.
The gentle Nietzscheans seek to provide an antidote to the harsh

early view of Nietzsche, with Walter Kaufmann as possibly the most
generous applier of temperate pastels to the fiery picture that had
gone before. 19 Others, such as Eric Bentley, take an overview which
perceives the presence of both qualities in Nietzsche, explaining his
brutal masculine stance as a reaction to his essentially feminine
psyche (to the extent that one can speak of 'masculine' and
'feminine'). 20 It is this third approach that does most justice to the
philosopher who recognised so penetratingly the terrible beauty in
the 'enigmatic nature of existence', and the psychic conflict of the
individual which makes for a condition in which 'Each is furthest
from himself [GM (Preface, l) p. 15]. Hamburger quotes a late letter
of Nietzsche's which points eloquently to these very inner
antagonisms within the man himself, as he scrawled just before his
mental collapse: 'I decidedly do not wish to appear to men as a
prophet, savage beast and moral monster. Even in this respect the
book [Ecce Homo] could do some good; it may save me from being
confused with my anti-self. 21 Hamburger deliberately renders
Gegensatz (antithesis) by Yeats's term 'anti-self, considering it to
convey most accurately the antithesis Nietzsche had in mind, a
division of the psyche and the adoption of masks which will receive
fuller discussion in the chapter on the hero.
As it is, we recall the man whose mouthpiece - Zarathustra -
considers pity to be his last sin 22 as having, shortly before his
collapse, flung his arms in tears around the neck of a cart-horse
being maltreated by its owner. We find him writing in a letter of
August 1883 to Malwida von Meysenbug, the motherly friend he
had met at the May festivals of Bayreuth,
Schopenhauer's 'pity' has always been the main cause of trouble

in my life.... this is not only a softness which any magnanimous
Hellene would have laughed at - it is also a grave practical
danger .... one has to keep a nice tight rein on one's sympathy
to exert a creative influence. 23 A year earlier he had complained to

Franz Overbeck, the professor friend with whom he had once shared
a house, 'Pity, my dear friend, is a kind of hell - whatever the
Schopenhauerians may say.' 24 Moreover, amid 'the last agonising
throes' of his relationship with Lou Salome, the young Russian girl
he had once hoped to marry, he cries, I am being broken, as no
other man could be, on the wheel of my own passions ... a tension
between opposing passions which I cannot cope with.' Nietzsche

was no Zarathustra - as he himself would have recognised, writing
as he does in On the Genealogy of Morals that 'a Homer would not
have created an Achilles nor a Goethe a Faust if Homer had been an
Achilles or Goethe a Faust' [GM (m :4) p. 10 I]. And William Butler
Yeats reveals himself to have had a 'timid heart' hidden beneath that
exterior 'ruffled in a manly pose' ['Coole Park, 1929', CP, p. 274].
Friedrich Nietzsche had a dread of being misunderstood. The very
subtitle of Thus Spake Zarathustra bears concise testimony to this,
describing it as 'A Book for All and None'. 'Have I been
understood?' he asks with an anxious refrain in Twilight of the Idols,
Ecce Homo and The Will to Power. 'When one is misunderstood as a
whole', runs one of his maxims, 'it is impossible to remove
completely a single misunderstanding.' 25 In The Will to Power [(958)
p. 503] comes his declaration 'I write for a species of man that does
not yet exist: for the "masters of the earth".' He certainly did not
write for the likes of his sister Elisabeth, who snorts in a letter of
October 1888, 'A fine lot of scum it will be that believes in you. ' 26
Yeats's father clearly belonged (with Quinn) to the camp of harsh
Nietzscheans. In a letter of 24 March I 909 he registers his concern
over Nietzsche's continuing influence on his son almost seven years
after the spell was first cast, declaring that 'the whole of Nietzsche' is
'malign',
so are aristocracies and pessimists . . . so are College Dons and

their retinue; but so were not Shakespeare or Shelley ....
Wordsworth was malign, so was Byron and so is Swinburne.
These people could not get away from their self-
importance. [JB YL, p. II 7]
He considered William's talent 'benign', like Shakespeare's and

Shelley's: 'This benign quality you get from me; I say this
remembering my father's family' [JBYL, p. 117]. In spite of his
aversion to Nietzsche and aristocracies, the elder Yeats did, none the
less, not find it incongruous to underline Ireland's need to 'keep up
the supply of great men' [JBYL, p. 135].
Yeats's mention in A Vision of 'Arguments with my father' [V,
p. 12], which he repeats in On the Boiler [pp. 14-15], suggests a
tendency in him to explore whatever J. B. Yeats might have
condemned as 'malign', and so to submit eagerly to the spell of the
'strong enchanter' and his 'curious astringent joy'. It was a
fascination that contributed significantly to the development of ideas

contrary to much of what his father believed, and in this sense
Nietzsche really did have an influence on Yeats. But did the
attraction lie in what J. B. Yeats called his 'malign' quality, or was
William a gentle Nietzschean?
His describing the kind of 'joy' he found in Nietzsche as 'curious'
and 'astringent' suggests that Yeats was attracted to him primarily by
his aura of harshness. But he was by no means unconcerned about
the brutal implications of that philosophical harshness, as is shown
by the cautious reflections he scrawled next to so many passages in
Common. For example, his questioning pencil was quickly activated
by Nietzsche's assertion that
The morality of the ruling class ... is more especially foreign and
irritating to the taste of the present day, owing to the sternness of
the principle that one has only obligations to one's equals, that
one may act towards beings of a lower rank, and towards all that
is foreign to one according to discretion, or 'as the heart desires',
and in any case 'beyond Good and Evil'. [C, p. 111]
Underlining the words 'only obligations' and 'to discretion', Yeats

remarks,
Yes, but the necessity of giving remains. When the old heroes
praise one another they say 'he never refused any man.' Nitzsche
means that the lower cannot create anything, cannot make
obligations to the higher [Ibid.]
Is this what Nietzsche means? Whatever the answer to that, it is this

kind of caution that keeps Nietzsche's feverish tone less heated in the
more reflective Yeats - though Wilson would claim that the
turbulent Nietzsche in fact 'taught Yeats to think calmly' !27 At most,
Nietzsche surely provided calm only in the sense of providing
substantiation and a stable base for ideas Yeats might have felt
unsure of.
As for the question of'the necessity of giving', Nietzsche's 'noble'
man would give to one of 'lower' rank not through any outside
constraint, but purely through his 'superabundance of power', his
'consciousness of riches which would fain give and bestow' [C,
p. II O]. There is no necessity or obligation at work on him other
than his own magnanimous sense of responsibility. It is this inner

kind of noblesse oblige that Yeats recognises in Lady Gregory with
'her sense of feudal responsibility, not of duty as the word is
generally understood, but of burdens laid upon her by her station
and her character' ['Dramatis Personae, 1896-1902' (iv), Auto,
p. 239/395].
Another jotting by Yeats on the 'noble' man states that 'In the last
analysis the "noble" man will serve or fail the weak as much as the
"good" man, but in the first case the "noble" man creates the form
of the gift [,] in the second the weak' [C, p. 113]. Yeats's critical
reading here ultimately endorses Nietzsche; it does not reject him, as
EHmann claims. Like Nietzsche's, his noble man will be
magnanimous at his choosing, not through any oppressive sense of
'duty as the word is generally understood'. Nietzsche's 'good' man
in contrast feels bound by external pressure to exercise the 'morality
of utility', with its demands of 'the kind helping hand, the warm
heart, along with sympathy, patience, diligence, submissiveness, and
friendliness' [C, p. 112].
Yeats's initial wariness of certain Nietzschean propositions often
tends to wear off with the passage of time, the restrained
Nietzschean in him growing ever more rampant. In 'Upon a House
Shaken by the Land Agitation' from his 191 0 Green Helmet
collection of poems, Yeats speaks in gentle terms of a noble
aristocracy, a house able 'to breed the lidless eye that loves the sun',
and of
The sweet laughing eagle thoughts that grow

Where wings have memory of wings, and all
That comes of the best knit to the best.
[CP, p. 106]
Here is Nietzsche's vision of a caste possessing 'The rare gifts that

govern men' and 'a written speech Wrought of high laughter,
loveliness and ease', with no mention of 'the sternness of the
principle that one has only obligations to one's equals'. The next
poem in the collection repeats these gently aristocratic sentiments
maligning the average man, as 'These Are the Clouds' speaks of how
The weak lay hand on what the strong has done ...
And all things at one common level lie.
And therefore, friend, if your great race were run

And these things came, so much the more thereby
Have you made greatness your companion,
Although it be for children that you sigh:
These are the clouds about the fallen sun,
The majesty that shuts his burning eye.
[CP, pp. I 07-8]
There is still little evidence of' sternness' here, just as there is none in
this poem of December 1912 in Responsibilities, 'To a Wealthy Man
Who Promised a Second Subscription to the Dublin Municipal
Gallery if It Were Proved the People Wanted Pictures':
What cared Duke Ercole, that bid

His mummers to the market-place,
What th' onion-sellers thought or did ... ?
And Guidobaldo, when he made
That grammar school of courtesies
Where wit and beauty learned their trade
Upon Urbino's windy hill,
Had sent no runners to and fro
That he might learn the shepherds' will.
[CP, pp. 119-20]
Here the aristocrat's lack of concern about what the peasant thinks
leads not to 'sternness', but to a 'Delight in Art whose end is peace'.
There is, though, a trace of discomfort in the injunction to
give
What the exultant heart calls good
That some new day may breed the best
Because you gave, not what they would,
But the right twigs for an eagle's nest!
Gentle Nietzscheans - or Yeatsians - would view that eagle only in

terms of a nobly soaring free spirit, ignoring its riving beak and
talons. Nietzsche's eagle of courage, who longs for the depths and is
able to grasp the abyss of despair produced when truths erodes away
illusion, is also an iconoclast who would itself shatter illusion by
shattering comforting values.
The 1933 Winding Stair collection of poems contains no such

evasions, no such gently-phrased aristocratic sentiments. In these
poems stands bared the harshening of Yeats's tone over the
intervening twenty years. The opening stanza of 'Blood and the
Moon' presents us with a voice full of all the pungency of a fierce
Nietzschean:
A bloody, arrogant power

Rose out of the race
Uttering, mastering it,
Rose like these walls from these
Storm-beaten cottages -
In mockery I have set
A powerful emblem up.
[CP, p. 267]
This reveals Yeats as a harsh Nietzschean, and revelling in it. What it

does not reveal, of course, is to what extent he perceived the possible
ramifications his poetic stance might have held for practical life.
Encouraged by Nietzsche's example, Yeats's vocabulary becomes
one of warfare, raging with brutality and arrogance - but always in
a context jenseits von Gut und Bose. In the introduction to A Vision
Yeats writes, 'I put The Tower and The Winding Stair into evidence
to show that my poetry has gained in self-possession and power' [V,
p. 8]. When we look at the poems in these collections we find power
clothed not in 'spiritual' raiments so much as in dynamic, violent
ones, with 'Blood and the Moon' blessing the 'bloody, arrogant
power' of men of action [CP, p. 267]. Cuchulain's heroism in At the
Hawk's Well is a bellicose display of dominating sexual aggression,
and in The Death of Cuchulain the hero is the supremely self-
possessed master of circumstance who recklessly pursues his own
individual values, thundering with Nietzschean defiance, 'I make the
truth!' [CP/, p. 441 /698].
It is these rampant elements in Nietzsche's attitude to the pursuit
of power among men that are emphasised by Yeats, not his obiter
dicta on the power inherent in gentleness - as when he finds power
in gentle, obliging men and complains of how 'the Germans imagine
that power must reveal itself in harshness and cruelty; then they
submit gladly and with admiration. . . . That there is power in
gentleness and quietness, they do not easily believe'. 28 The Yeats of
The Tower and The Winding Stair does not believe so either. Such a
sentiment would come as a little Picasso flower painted into a scene
of civil war horrors. It would be a whisper drowned by the voice
that shouts so stormily through the late works. But though by
Purgatory Yeats finds hatred and rage indispensable (as Helen
Hennessy Vendler remarks 29), he is not blind to the higher spiritual
dimensions of the harshness prevalent in Nietzsche, just as Nietzsche
recognises the sublime side of Machiavelli:
no philosopher will be in any doubt as to the type of perfection in

politics; that is Machiavellianism. But Machiavellianism pur, sans
melange, cru, vert, dans toute sa force, dans toute son aprete, is
superhuman, divine, transcendental, it will never be achieved by
man, at most approximated. [WP (304) p. 170]
Nietzsche does not expect all his ideas to be capable of practical

realisation and, as we have said before, would warn against
impersonal dogmatic application of his philosophy. His remarks on
Baudelaire and Flaubert reveal that he saw the horror inherent in
impersonal aesthetic absolutism, though he does postulate as a
crucial tenet in The Birth of Tragedy that 'it is only as an aesthetic
phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified' [BT
(5) p. 52; also (24) p. 141].
There is an unmistakably Nietzschean ring to Yeats's words on
pure aestheticism and its potential for apocalypse in 'The Tragic
Generation' (xx):
After Stephane Mallarme, after Paul Verlaine, after Gustave

Moreau, after Puvis de Chavannes, after our own verse, after all
our subtle colour and nervous rhythm, after the faint mixed tints
of Conder, what more is possible? After us the Savage
God. [Auto, p. 210/349]
Would Yeats, though, have seen the darker implications of his

innocuous desire, recorded in a letter to AE (George William
Russell) of 14 May 1903 amid the full flood of his absorption with
Nietzsche, 'to carry the realisation of beauty as far as possible' [L,
p. 402]? Among the things he found beautiful was to toy with the
Dublin Blueshirts. The disturbing consequences of such pursuit of
aesthetic absolutism have given much concern to critics such as
Erich Heller, who points to the sinister dimensions inherent even in
that favourite Yeatsian maxim from Villiers's Axel, a 'sacred book':

'As for living, our servants will do that for us' [Auto, p. 183/305].
Not only do the servants do the living, but they do the dying too, a
dying which might well possess beauty in the eye of the pure
aesthetic beholder, arguing as he would for the destruction of the
world and its rebuilding in the aristocratic images of aestheticism. 30
In 'Discoveries' of 1906 Yeats says, 'I had come to care for nothing
but impersonal beauty' [&/, p. 271]; in The Birth of Tragedy
Nietzsche asserts that 'the purpose of life . . . is the pure aesthetic
delight'- only to speak in the next breath of how 'the ugly and the
disharmonic, the content of the tragic myth, stimulate aesthetic
pleasure' [BT(24) p. 141]. There is an underlying sense of apocalypse
attendant upon their aesthetics, Yeats presenting images of
destruction such as his 'Savage God' and 'rough beast', Nietzsche
recognising the potential beast in beauty, the perverse dimensions
beauty can assume for the aesthete; he is well aware of the
implications of impersonal aestheticism, aware of the terror at the
heart of everything.
Was Nietzsche's appeal for Yeats essentially an aesthetic one? We
have witnessed the mature Yeats revelling in war and power in The
Tower and The Winding Stair without communicating any spiritual
dimensions he might have discerned in them. Gentle Yeatsians
would be quick to insist that they are there none the less, just as
when Nietzsche lauds war and cruelty gentle Nietzscheans would
emphasise that he is 'calling for spiritual struggle and a stern mastery
over the self, in the words ofConor Cruise O'Brien. 31 And to a large
extent this is indeed what Nietzsche has in mind, in spite of the
horrific physical dimensions of war. War, he claims, rejuvenates and
energises. Progression comes only with conflict. All creation entails
destruction. The noble man demands enemies, and Yeats was struck
by these remarks on noble morality in Common's selections:
The capacity and obligation for prolonged gratitude and

prolonged revenge - both only among equals - artfulness in
retaliation, refinement of ideas in friendship, certain necessity to
have enemies (as outlets for the passions of envy,
quarrelsomeness, arrogance - in fact, in order to be a good
friend):- these are all typical characteristics of the noble
morality. [C, p. Ill]
Scribbled at the foot of the page is the comment 'This implies that
victory achieves its end not by mere overcoming but because the joy
of it creates friends - it is a new creation. Victories of mere brute
force do not create.'
Here Yeats is offering a spiritual interpretation of Nietzsche's
praise of warfare, recognising that from destruction can spring new
creation. He would argue that we should love the terror of war for
its renewal of civilisation and changing of belief. War is to be
embraced for the benefits it brings as an agent of renewal, not for
any sheer love of shedding blood - though physical violence is an
arresting manifestation of personal prowess and power. As
grandfather sings in 'Three Songs to the Same Tune', 'a good strong
cause and blows are delight' [CP, p. 321]. As Denis Donoghue
comments, Yeats's imagination celebrates combat, cultivating force
at the risk of aggression and power at the risk of violence, lest death
come at the hands of sloth and satisfaction. 32 Nietzsche, too, lauds
conflict for being a condition of advance rather than through any
love of brute force for its own sake - it must always entail spiritual
dimensions.
For Yeats, the 'terrible beauty' of an Irish revolt would lie both in
its physical violence and its spiritual and intellectual foundations.
And it is in the force of Nietzsche's intellectual power and his
astringent tone that Yeats revels most, much as Nietzsche revels in
Machiavelli's, praising the Italian because he 'lets us breathe the
subtle dry air of Florence and cannot help presenting ... thoughts
protracted, difficult, hard, dangerous and the tempo of the gallop and
the most wanton good humour' [BGE (28) p. 42]. In Twilight of the
Idols he affirms that 'Thucydides, and perhaps the Principe of
Machiavelli, are related to me closely by their unconditional will not
to deceive themselves, and to see reason in reality- not in "reason",
still less in "morality" ' ['What I Owe to the Ancients' (2), TI,
pp. 106-7]. Machiavelli might well, as has been suggested, have
brought Cesare Borgia to the surface of Nietzsche's consciousness,
with Nietzsche bringing him to the surface of Yeats's. When reading
Nietzsche's description of Borgia as a 'beast of prey', 'man of prey'
and 'tropical monster', would Yeats have viewed such passages with
approval? Or would he have qualified them with reservations akin
to those in his copy of Common?
T. S. Eliot says of Machiavelli in For Lance/ot Andrewes that 'he
merely told the truth about human nature. What Machiavelli did not
see about human nature is the myth of human goodness which for
liberal thought replaces divine grace.' Freud voiced the opinion that
Nietzsche had looked more deeply into human nature than anyone
before him. According to his biographer, Ernest Jones, Freud
'several times said of Nietzsche that he had a more penetrating
knowledge of himself than any other man who ever lived or was
ever likely to live'. Just as Machiavelli's refusal to deceive himself
had appealed to Nietzsche, so Nietzsche's facing of man's frightful
inner nature appealed to Yeats. The poet admired 'lean and fierce
minds', wondering in 'Estrangement' (xxxiv) whether he was right
to have shaped so much of his style 'to sweetness and serenity' [Auto,
p. 293/ 482]. 'Become hard!', Zarathustra commands mankind [TSZ
(56.29) p. 240], meeting pity as his last sin [TSZ (62) p. 268]. When
Yeats first encountered Nietzsche lauding the view of the hero in an
old Scandinavian saga which holds that 'he who has not had a hard
heart when young, will never have a hard heart', he added the
qualifying remark, 'So Oscar's heart, but "hard" surely in the sense
of scorning self pity' [C, p. 110].
He is obviously lending weight to the more spiritual side of
Nietzsche's doctrine, in which the 'noble type of man' joyfully
exercises 'strictness and severity over himself [C, p. 110]. Yeats lays
stress on the noble man's self-discipline rather than on his refusal to
see 'precisely in sympathy, in acting for the good of others, or in
desinteressement, the characteristic of morality'. For the noble man,
Nietzsche continues, 'helps the unfortunate, not (or scarcely) out of
sympathy, but rather out of an impulse produced by the
superabundance of power'.
This recalls his earlier remark that the noble man's sense of
obligation springs purely from his inner 'superabundance of power'.
It also reminds us of Nietzsche's unease over the concept of pity. In
The Will to Power he describes his kind of pity as
a feeling for which I find no name adequate: I sense it when I see

precious capabilities squandered, ... when I see anyone halted, as
a result of some stupid accident, at something less than he might
have become. Or especially at the idea of the lot of mankind ....
Yes, what could not become of 'man', if - ! This is a kind of
'compassion' although there is really no 'passion' I share. [WP
(367) pp. 198-9]
He goes on to call
pity squandering of feeling, a parasite harmful to moral

health.... If one does good merely out of pity, it is oneself one

really does good to, and not the other.... The suffering of others
infects us, pity is an infection. [WP (368) p. 199]
William Blake, that great English precursor of Nietzsche's, also

points to pity as always entailing sadness. Once upon a time it was
among the pristine virtues, but became perverted by the restrainer
Reason. Before the onset of Reason's moral codes, neither Covet,
Envy, Wrath nor Wantonness 'impure were deem'd' [The Book of
Los, K, p. 242]. Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love, those 'virtues of
delight' in 'The Divine Image' [K, pp. 58-9], become associated with
sorrow through man's self-interest in 'The Human Image' [K, p. 95].
Urizen, Blake's despised Jehovah-like figure, weeping hypocritically
at the misery he caused in creating the material world, called his
tears 'Pity', a quality unknown in Eternity and one which 'divides
the soul'.
This is one of the many regions of affinity between Blake and
Nietzsche, affinities we shall constantly come across during the
course of charting Nietzschean currents in Yeats. Among these
shared or similar views are their virtual inversion of conventional
virtues and vices such as pity, sin and lust, and their condemnation
of societal morality with its concepts of 'good' and 'evil'. Both
inveigh against reason as the inventor of fictions and the restrainer of
desires, which become perverted and dangerous when thwarted;
both urge excess and enthrone joy. They prefer active 'evil' to
passive 'good', regarding all action as truly virtuous, all restraint as
vicious. They condemn asceticism and rage against society's
infliction of' bad conscience' on man, calling for a harmonious - but
active - embracing of all man's contrary qualities. For both,
progression comes only with conflict.
Yeats was quick to recognise these areas of coincidence, and we
recall his remark that Nietzsche's 'thought flows always, though
with an even more violent current, in the bed Blake's thought has
worn' [IGE, p. 201]. Common's preface talks of Blake as being one
of the forerunners who prepared the way for Nietzsche, and Arthur
Symons too makes early reference to their kinship (through his
conversations with Yeats?). 33 F. A. Lea quite unhesitatingly asserts
of the tragic philosopher that 'His nearest-of-kin, indubitably, was
not Aeschylus, but William Blake ... it is easy to imagine the delight
that Blake might have taken in illustrating Nietzsche's poem. ' 34 We
should thus never lose sight of the fact that echoes of Nietzsche in
Yeats often reverberate all the way back to Blake.

The echoes do, of course, come back containing something of
their reflector. Both Blake and Nietzsche are always subject to
Yeats's own individual reading of them. Not that either is easily
understood or capable of facile interpretation, Blake with the
labyrinthine splendour of the prophetic books, Nietzsche with his
elusive and highly symbolic language. Both hold themselves beyond
complete elucidation - for a purpose, perhaps: Bernard Blackstone
feels that Blake 'preferred to be obscure and elusive rather than
suffer the fate of final and permanent misinterpretation', 35 and from
Nietzsche comes the cry 'I wish to defend myself against the
credulous and fanatical! ' 36
But, whatever the ways in which Blake and Nietzsche are
reflected in specific terms by Yeats, their voices can always be heard
in the background. And it is Nietzsche's voice, as the stormier, that
informs more thoroughly the mood of Yeats's work, gaining throat
with the passing years. We have already noted the increase in
harshness that occurred in Yeats's tone between the early years of
the century and the 1930s, and Nietzsche certainly made an
important contribution to that growing abrasiveness. In 1904, just a
year an a half after receiving his edition of Common's Nietzsche,
Yeats wrote to AE that he now found his earlier lyric verse, and that
in The Land of Heart's Desire,
an exaggeration of sentiment and sentimental beauty which I have

come to think unmanly .... I have been fighting the prevailing
decadence for years ... it is sentiment and sentimental sadness, a
womanish introspection. . . . Let us have no emotions . . . in
which there is not an athletic joy. [L, pp. 434-5]
There are few places Yeats would have found womanish

sentimentality more virulently despised, and harsh masculinity more
exultantly extolled, than in the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche.
We should not, of course, ignore other factors which might have
induced the increasingly muscular tone in the maturing Yeats;
Nietzsche by no means single-handedly altered the tenor of Yeats's
work. We realise, for example, that the poems completed in the
early years of the century prior to the First World War owe their
burgeoning severity in some measure to events in Yeats's life which
shortly preceded their composition. Maud Gonne married MacBride
in 1903, O'Leary died in 1907, Synge (one of those men Yeats
would have considered to have had a 'bitter mind') died in 1909,

Yeats's favourite uncle George Pollexfen following him in 191 0.
The newspaper attacks on him strengthened his aristocratic leanings
by consistently showing up the Dublin mobile vulgus, prompting
him to quote Goethe: 'The Irish always seem to me like a pack of
hounds dragging down some noble stag' ['Estrangement' (xxxv),
Auto, p. 293/483]. Nietzsche would have nurtured such sentiments
further, breeding in Yeats an inclination towards arrogance and
fierceness which might well otherwise have wilted. Incitement of
embryonic beliefs in Yeats was distinctly part of Nietzsche's legacy,
though his impact certainly extends beyond merely 'providing
authority and reassurance for Yeats's somewhat more hesistant and
uncertain thinking', which is the most Alex Zwerdling would
allow. 37 This may be true in a general sense, but it does not
sufficiently acknowledge Nietzsche's role in Yeats's growing
hardness of outlook and tone or in his formulation of certain
theories and ideas.
Ezra Pound noted this hardened stance when reviewing
Responsibilities of 1914, commenting that 'here is a new robustness;
there is the tooth of satire which is, in Mr. Yeats's case, too good a
tooth to keep hidden .... There are a lot of fools to be killed and Mr.
Yeats is an excellent slaughterman .... ' 38 The 'new robustness' is
not hard to find: in 'A Coat' the whole texture of the poem is
informed with Yeats's toughening attitude, his determination to
view the world with 'unmoistened eyes', as the poet discards his
garment embroidered 'Out of old mythologies' - finding more
purpose 'In walking naked' with a 'sterner conscience' [CP,
pp. 142-3]. Again, if anyone viewed the world with 'unmoistened
eyes', it was Friedrich Nietzsche with his admiration of the Greeks'
'intellectual predilection for the hard, gruesome, evil, problematic
aspect of existence' ['Attempt at a Self-Criticism' (I), BT, p. 17].
Once again, though, we must caution ourselves against making
claims for any direct influence of Nietzsche on Yeats, and reiterate
that we can point with certainty only to patterns and resonances of
literary relationship. In 'If I Were Four-and-Twenty' (iv), for
example, we find Yeats expressing a Nietzschean sentiment which is
actually an Indian proverb: 'The passionate-minded love bitter food'
[Exp/, p. 272]. Nietzsche was but one of many quarters in which
Yeats found incitement of his views. Another important promoter of
astringency was Synge. That Yeats admired his compatriot's 'hunger
for harsh facts, for ugly surprising things, for all that defies our
hope' reveals Synge as having been a significant contributor to the

support Yeats was discovering in Nietzsche for his own views of the
world as harsh and tragic. 39
Even if we cannot point beyond doubt to the specifics of
Nietzsche's influence on Yeats, it is clear that the German provided
him in a sense with the mask he sought to help him efface the visage
of the 1890s. He had an instinctive empathy with Nietzsche's
attitude and tone, and his interest was often one of obsessive
preoccupation and thrall. Indeed, Denis Donoghue is not
extravagant to claim Nietzsche as 'the crucial figure in Yeats's poetic
life, if any single figure may be named'. 40 Yeats drew from his
example the impetus and incitement to pursue, rather than suppress,
his own germinating ideas, to develop confidence in his own
outlook. He found in him justification for his proclivities which
flowed so counter to the prevailing current, gleaning substantiation
for many familiar concepts he had come across elsewhere and
occasionally also the seeds of notions he had not yet encountered -
all of which remains to be probed in the chapters ahead. One cannot
accredit Nietzsche with having initiated all the echoes in Yeats
which recall him. But, whatever the collective sources of those
Nietzschean echoes, they are echoes that resound more resonantly
than any others.
2 Conflict, Will, Power
All events, all motion, all becoming

. . . a determination of degrees and
relations of force ... a struggle. ...
- Nietzsche, The Will to Power
(522) p. 299.
I saw the world as a conflict. ...

- Yeats, A Vision, p. 72.
CONFLICT
'The total character of the world . . . is in all eternity chaos',

Nietzsche declares in The Gay Science [(1 09) p. 168]. In A Vision
Yeats complains of Shelley that he 'lacked the Vision of Evil, could
not conceive of the world as a continual conflict, so, though great
poet he certainly was, he was not of the greatest kind' [V, p. 1441.
And in one of the last letters to come from his pen he tells Ethel
Mannin, 'To me all things are made of the conflict of two states of
consciousness, beings or persons which die each other's life, live
each other's death' [20 Oct 1938, L, p. 918].
He is speaking here of his final play, The Death of Cuchulain, but
the doctrine already appears explicitly in The Resurrection, begun in
1925 or 1926: 'God and man die each other's life, live each other's
death' [CP/, p. 373/594]. A note on the play elaborates,
There was everywhere a conflict like that of my play between two

principles or 'elemental forms of the mind', ... everywhere that
antimony of the One and the Many that Plato thought in his
Parmenides insoluble, though Blake thought it soluble 'at the
bottom of the graves'. [VPI, p. 934]
Antinomy of this kind is fundamental to Yeats's view of existence,

just as for Nietzsche all life, down to the tiniest organism, is
characterised by Gegensiitze- antitheses. Man's very soul itself is a
zone of battle, and Nietzsche's first book, The Birth of Tragedy,
remains his most eloquent account of the two warring tendencies
within the human psyche: man's Apollinian impulse towards
illusion and artifice which produces myth, and his Dionysian
impulse to see life as tragic and so gain a deeper, more
comprehensive view of the world in the way the Greeks did.
(Nietzsche's word Apollinisch is often rendered as 'Apollonian' in
English; since the terms are employed here in their Nietzschean
sense, however, I find it preferable to follow such commentators as
Kaufmann and Morgan in their use of 'Apollinian', which retains
Nietzsche's 'i'.) Not that Nietzsche was alone in appropriating
Apollo and Dionysus to symbolise these antagonistic impulses. In
his discussion of The Works of Plato, Thomas Taylor as early as
1804 calls the twofold work of the derniurges 'Dionysiacal and
Apolloniacal ', 1 and Nietzsche himself would in all probability have
noted the use of the deities in a similar way by Schlegel, Feuerbach,
MUller, Bachofen, Welcker and Creuzer. 2
The Birth of Tragedy [(1) p. 33] speaks of how
Through Apollo and Dionysus, the two art deities of the Greeks,
we come to recognize that in the Greek world there existed a
tremendous opposition, in origin and aims, between the
Apollinian art of sculpture, and the non-imagistic, Dionysian art
of music .... they continually incite each other to new and more
powerful births, which perpetuate an antagonism ....
This is Yeats's identification of consciousness with conflict given

nurture, if not birth. Nietzsche regards the Apollinian as having been
born out of the Dionysian subsoil, the Hellene's victory over his
Asiatic beginnings, and we find Yeats writing to his poet friend AE
in May 1903, just months after receiving Common's selections of
Nietzsche,
I feel about me and in me an impulse to create form, to carry the

realisation of beauty as far as possible. The Greeks said that the
Dionysiac enthusiasm preceded the Apollonic and that the
Dionysiac was sad and desirous, but that the Apollonic was joyful
and self sufficient. [L, p. 402]
Conflict, Will, Power 21
Though there is some misrepresentation of Nietzsche in this, it is a

distinct reverberation of The Birth of Tragedy, and the likely source
of Yeats's interest in the Dionysian and Apollinian myths.
Yeats would also have found Ibsen utilising the myths in Emperor
and Galilean, where he proposes a fusion of Apollo and Dionysus as
a replacement for Christianity. Margery Morgan has noted further
the similarity of The Resurrection to Ibsen's play in its use of 'spirit
manifestations and background music and dancing by dionysiac
revellers', and in its formal development being 'determined by the
conflict of ideas'. 3
Yeats now resolved to fashion his art afresh, to discard the
aesthetic pose of the 18 90s and to celebrate sensual life. His 'impulse
to create form, to carry the realisation of beauty as far as possible' by
no means entails a denial of Dionysian joy in iconoclasm, in vast and
throbbing natural rhythms full of stimulation and danger. 'Live
dangerously!' Nietzsche exhorts in The Gay Science: 'Build your
cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted
seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves!' [GS (283) p. 228].
Life's inherent will to power is never satisfied unless it has
opponents and obstacles. Even the smallest organism is a
multiplicity of wills to power in mutual strife: '"Life" would be
defined as an enduring form of processes of the establishment of
force, in which the different contenders grow unequally' [WP (642)
p. 342].
The relationship between command and obedience too is
essentially one of contenders hostile to each other, since 'there is in
commanding an admission that the absolute power of the opponent
has not been vanquished, incorporated, disintegrated. "Obedience"
and "commanding" are forms of struggle' [WP(642) p. 342]. Hence
the high pitch of tension between master morality and slave morality
[cf. in particular BGE (260)], and also the Damoclean tenseness
within master-morality oligarchies themselves which spurs them to
achievement. While slave morality derives a sense of security from
organised groups,
the instinct of the born 'masters' (that is, the solitary, beast-of-prey
species of man) is fundamentally irritated and disquieted by
organisation. The whole of history teaches that every oligarchy
conceals the lust for tyranny ... constantly trembles with the
tension each member feels in maintaining control over this
lust. [GM (m.l8) p. 136]
Every kind of organism is a kind of social hierarchy in perpetual

tension.
Thus Nietzsche's entire Weltanschauung centres on the principle
of antagonistic opposites, a principle much stressed by Heraclitus.
Murray early on recognised Nietzsche's affinity with Heraclitus,'
whom Bentley calls 'the pre-Socratic great-grandfather of Heroic
Vitalism', and whom Yeats quotes in A Vision as having named
Discord or War 'God of all and Father of all' [V, p. 67]. A few pages
further on he mentions that, his mind 'full of Blake from boyhood
up', he 'saw the world as a conflict' [V, p. 72]. 'Without Contraries',
runs Blake's famous assertion in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,
'is no progression.' We need the antinomy of heaven and hell, of
reason and imagination, of the conscious and the unconscious.
Though we should embrace within ourselves these contraries,
whose mutual strife promotes them both, their fusion should be a
dynamic one, not static synthesis that stultifies thesis and antithesis.
And, since Yeats feels that 'Nietzsche completes Blake' [L, p. 379],
the German would unquestionably have lent added authority to
Yeats's Blake-nurtured beliefs.
Yeats would have encountered similar insistence on universal
antagonisms in Schopenhauer, just as Nietzsche had before him.
After reading Schopenhauer':; The World as Will and Idea,
Nietzsche felt that 'the full celestial eye of art gazed at me; here I saw
illness and recovery, banishment and refuge, hell and heaven'. And,
as Bentley comments, 'Between these polar opposites Nietzsche
oscillated for the rest of his life. ' 5 This conflict within himself led him
- as we shall elucidate later - to develop his theory of the tragic
divided self, and subsequently to formulate the comforting and
compensatory doctrine of eternal recurrence. Psychologists would
recognise in Nietzsche's loss of his father in early childhood a
resultant life-long search for some form of father substitute, and for
many years Nietzsche had an excessive love for his mother and for
his sister, Elisabeth. Yeats (whose younger sister was, coincidentally,
named Elizabeth) was to experience periods of alienation from his
father, his arguments with whom would certainly have had their
psychological repercussions. For Nietzsche, the circumstances of his
childhood thus aggravated the subsequent conflict he experienced
between his opposing impulses towards 'an heroic paternal ideal and
towards a loving and maternal ideal'. 6 In his lecture notes for
'Friends of My Youth', Yeats says of Lionel Johnson that
he made his poetry out of the struggle with his own soul which
the sword of Fate had as it were divided in two. All the great
things of Life seem to me to have come from battle, and the battle
of poetry is the battle of a man with himself. 7
And in 'J. M. Synge and the Ireland of His Time' he again says that
all noble things are the result of warfare; great nations and classes,
of warfare in the visible world, great poetry and philosophy, of
invisible warfare, the division of a mind within itself, a victory,
the sacrifice of a man to himself. I am certain that my friend's
noble art, so full of passion and heroic beauty, is the victory of a
man who in poverty and sickness created from the delight of
expression. [&/, p. 321]
The friend he is writing of is John Synge. He might just as easily

have been writing of Friedrich Nietzsche.
In On the Genealogy of Morals Nietzsche points out that, among
the conflicts within the psyche are those produced by the hostility
between man's natural instincts and his 'bad conscience',
exacerbated by the Church, but first produced
when he found himself finally enclosed within the walls of society

and of peace. The situation that faced sea animals when they were
compelled to become land animals or perish was the same as that
which faced these semi-animals.... they had to seek new and, as
it were, subterranean gratifications.
All instincts that do not discharge themselves outwardly turn
inward- this is what I call the internalisation [Verinnerlichung] of
man: thus it was that man first developed what was later called
his 'soul' .... Hostility, cruelty, joy in persecuting, in attacking, in
change, in destruction - all this turned against the possessors of
such instincts: that is the origin of the 'bad conscience' ... thus
began the gravest and uncanniest illness, from which humanity
has not yet recovered, man's suffering of man, of himself- the
result of a forcible sundering from his animal past . . . [GM
(n.l6) pp. 84-5]
It is an attitude to 'conscience' that Yeats would have found also in

Blake, for whom restraining conscience perverts man's pure
energies. Conscience is always bound up with the prohibitions of
moral good, that 'snowy cloud' of the 'Fiend of Righteousness' [K,

p. 558].
A sense of bad conscience thus sets man at war with himself, and
sterns from various restraints imposed by society and the external
world at large, Yeats's 'Body of Fate'. The individual is always
engaged in battle with an environment which seeks to frustrate his
desires. In trying to establish his 'chosen Image', the admired mask
he wishes to assume (and in Yeats usually the opposite of what one
considers oneself to be), the hero is in conflict with the 'fated Image'
imposed by the external world - despite his longing for the union of
the two images: 'Life is an endeavour, made vain by the four sails of
its mill, to come to a double contemplation, that of the chosen
Image, that of the fated Image' [V, p. 94].
With this as our cue, we come to see the well of At the Hawk's
Well as one of the obstacles present in the Body of Fate which denies
the individual his longed-for sense of fulfilment and completion.
Though it means much more besides, the well is what Wilson calls
'any ambition inimical to human happiness, any unattainable goal,
spiritual or sexual'. 8 Cruelly, it is also what Peter Ure calls 'the one
precious and mysterious gift' that Cuchulain believes will release
him 'from the bitter entanglements of the heroic fate, from the
divided and thwarted life of the hero of On Baile's Strand'. 9 In
seeking the well, we ironically seek something hostile to our
yearnings for wholeness. The opening lyrics of The Only Jealousy
of Emer find man, much as he longs for the eternity of the
perfect moment, bound to the turning 'Wheel of Life', 'A fragile,
exquisite, pale shell beside the 'centuries spent' 'In toils of
measurement I Beyond eagle or mole' [CPl, p. 184/282]. Such a
perfect moment would come with 'Unity of Being', which 'The
Phases of the Moon' describes as 'Too lonely for the taffic of the
world' [CP, p. 185]. It is a unity possible only beyond life and the
antinomies that make life possible. 10
The roots of his theory of dynamic conflict firmly entrenched
within his own psychological make-up, Nietzsche relentlessly
pursues the theory into all its endless ramifications, from the
organism to the self to moralities to war. For him the world consists
of 'change, becoming, multiplicity, opposition, contradiction, war'
[WP (584) p. 315]. It is 'a monster of energy, ... a sea of forces
flowing and rushing together, eternally changing, eternally flooding
back' [WP (1 067) p. 550].
It is a view of the world as perpetual flux well known to antiquity
(witness rravra /JEi ), but in Nietzsche's hands it receives an added
dose of fury. It is this flux of perspectives that lends existence its
'enigmatic character', its sphinx-like seductiveness, its riddles and
dangers which are for Nietzsche its prime attractions. For him, a
tame, stable society is less likely to kindle the spark of genius than
one in which conflict and chaotic passion flourish. Chaos, in all its
varying forms, is indispensable for keeping stagnation in check.
Mental conflict, for example, is a form of inner turbulence essential
to the growth of the individual: 'one must still have chaos in one, to
give birth to a dancing star'. The 'happy man' with his bovine desire
for contentment is a 'herd ideal' [WP (696) p. 370]:
One isfruitful only at the cost of being rich in contradictions; one

remains young only on condition the soul does not relax, does not
long for peace .... Nothing has grown more alien to us than that
desideratum of former times 'peace of soul', the Christian
desideratum. ['Morality as Anti-Nature' (3), TJ, p. 44]
Yeats speaks of this inner chaos of the individual in A Vision, where

his esoteric system (as earlier - 1917 - in 'Per Arnica Slientia
Lunae') includes various 'Discords, Oppositions and Contrasts',
which cause the being to become 'conscious of itself as a separate
being' as they vie for predominance. 'Without this continual
Discord ... there would be no conscience, no activity ... ' [V,
pp. 93-4].
The Birth of Tragedy points out that procreation itself depends on
the duality of the sexes and their attendant perpetual strife. Yeats
echoes this in a letter of 2 March 1929 to his friend Olivia
Shakespear (Lionel Johnson's cousin, whom he met in 1894), in
which he quotes Blake's contention that 'sexual love is founded
upon spiritual hate' [L, p. 758], having spoken in 'Anima Hominis'
twelve years earlier of sexual strife as an image of the warfare
between man and his 'Daimon' or 'Anti-Self. 11 Vendler finds the
Blakean maxim also in the second curse of which the Old Man
speaks in At the Hawk's Well:
That curse may be
Never to win a woman's love and keep it;
Or always to mix hatred in the love ....
[CP/, p. 141] 12
In 'Crazy Jane Grown Old Looks at the Dancers' we are told that
'Love is like the lion's tooth' [CP, p. 295], and in A Vision that all
sexual passions contain 'cruelty and deceit' [V, p. 237]. This
Nietzschean view of sex as 'involving perpetual strife with only
periodically intervening reconciliations' [BT(l) p. 33], is bellowed by
the Cuchulain of On Baile's Strand:
I have never known love but as a kiss

In the mid-battle, and a difficult truce
Of oil and water, candles and dark night,
Hillside and hollow, the hot-footed sun
And the cold, sliding, slippery-footed moon -
A brief forgiveness between opposites
That have been hatreds for three times the age
Of this long-'stablished ground.
[CPI, p. 170/259]
Of himself Yeats writes, 'My outer nature was passive ... but I
know my spiritual nature was passionate, even violent.' 13
Nietzsche recognises yet another form of strife in the development
of moralities, which entails a succession of antithetical ideals. Once
an 'evil' principle establishes itself, it becomes the 'good', much as in
the Hegelian doctrine of the rising negative becoming the positive
when it has reached the apex of its ascendancy. Here there is no
Hegelian synthesis, however, because once the new good is
established strife continues, since in the transition from one ideal to
the next, the older is destroyed both by outside forces and by its own
self-transcendence. 'Every generation is against its predecessor',
Yeats concurs in On the Boiler [p. 15], later to quote Nietzsche's
'transvaluation of all values' directly [B, p. 25]. In Chapter 6 we shall
see how Yeats applies this process to historical eras, which he
considers to be superseding opposites engendering an antithetical
impulse at their mid-points.
Nietzsche's theory of the dialectical evolution of values posits the
'evil' man as innovator. It is through his evil that he is able to
destroy the old to create the new. Life demands both friendliness and
hostility:
For every strong and natural species of man, love and hate,
gratitude and revenge, good nature and anger, affirmative acts and
negative acts, belong together. One is good on condition one also
knows how to be evil; one is evil because otherwise one would

not understand how to be good. [WP (3 51) p. 1911
These (as we shall see in Chapter 5) are the conflicting attributes

which the hero accommodates within himself. He welcomes his evil
impulse, since for everyone to become
'good human beings', herd animals, blue-eyed, benevolent,

'beautiful souls' - or as Mr Herbert Spencer would have it,
altruistic - would deprive existence of its great character and
would castrate men and reduce them to the level of desiccated
Chinese stagnation. ['Why I am a Destiny' (4), EH, p. 330]
Thus Nietzsche champions 'evil' as an active, creative force in the

midst of its destructiveness, denigrating passive 'good' as reducing
man to 'desiccated Chinese stagnation'. Here he is of course at one
with Blake, in whom Yeats would have found this approach to evil
long before ever reading Nietzsche. Blake shares Nietzsche's
denunciation of conventional morality and his call for its overthrow,
but, while the German would demand a sheer Umwertung al/er
Werte and speaks of his Obermensch as being 'a devil' in the eyes of
current morality [TSZ (43) p. 159], Blake's reassessment of moral
values is somewhat more complex. We should immediately take
issue with Shaw and those who would claim with him in his preface
to The Devil's Disciple that Blake was 'an avowed Diabolonian: he
called his angels devils and his devils angels'. As Harold Bloom
makes clear, Blake is no Milton's Satan on Mount Niphates
declaiming, 'Evil be thou my Good'; he denies the orthodox
categories altogether, opposing himself to both moral good and
moral evil, those mere inventions of society. 14 Let us stop for a
moment longer to consider these attitudes to good and evil.
Like Nietzsche, Blake associates good and evil with societal codes
of conduct. In his system, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and
Evil was planted by Urizen, the principle of Reason and creator of
the material world, who named the tree 'Moral Virtue and the Law'
[Jerusalem, in K, p. 467]. The tree denies the metaphysical truth,
which art so perfectly expresses, that good and evil are merely
invented fictions born of 'Serpentine Reasonings' [K, p. 577]:
Serpent Reasonings us entice

Of Good & Evil, Virtue & Vice.
In his engraving of the Laocoon (a father and two sons struggling

against serpents), humanity appears as entangled by irrelevant
reasonings about ideas of good and evil, which turn man's energies
into the hostile powers of self-strangulation. s This does not,
however, prevent Blake from applying the terms to states or qualities
of which he himself approves or disapproves. He certainly does not
utterly abolish the use of the words, though what he would apply
them to is usually opposite to what a traditional moralist would.
Whatever serves society might be seen as morally good, but never as
really good. Thus being cautious and prudent and subservient can be
regarded as examples of moral good but not of real good. So Blake
continues to speak of good and evil for the purposes of his own
private categorisation (though such terminology is largely symbolic),
despite his assertion that notions of good and evil are ultimately
nothing but the fallacious products of reason.
In The Marriage ofHeaven and Hell, Blake contends that from the
contraries he regards as so essential to human life 'spring what the
religious call Good & Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason.
Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is
Hell' [K, p. 181]. As Nietzsche would agree, conventional evil,
springing from energy, is active, appearing evil only to those unable
to act against society's codes. For Blake, 'Active Evil is better than
Passive Good' [K, p. 721]. He would, with characteristic hyperbole,
'Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires' [K,
p. 185].
Blake is hardly being revolutionary in associating evil with
passion rather than passivity. But, while conventional religion
would condemn passion, to Blake 'Energy' (conventional evil) 'is
Eternal Delight' [K, p. 182]. 'Energy' has for him all the positive and
desirable associations the word 'good' usually connotes. Such
energetic good is not necessarily superior to passive good in a moral
sense, but it is superior in an intrinsic, life-affirming one. Reason
might not be evil in itself, but its domination and perversion of
energy is. With all its abstractions, reason is unable to direct really
good conduct, since no abstract, absolute moral laws exist for
eternal, rigid application to every situation. The unconscious, the
divine within man, pays no heed to abstract formulations - and it is
the non-rational imagination, rooted in the body, which has access
to higher 'Vision' such as that at the Last Judgement, 'when all those
are Cast away who trouble Religion with Questions concerning
Good & Evil' [K, p. 637]. With such vision men will no longer be
engaged in 'talking of what is Good & Evil, or of what is Right or

Wrong, & puzzling themselves in Satan's Labyrinth' [K, p. 647].
They will have moved jenseits von Gut und Bose.
Where Blake and Nietzsche part company most often is on the
matter of Christianity. Though widely critical of Christianity, Blake
does place its doctrine of forgiveness among the greatest of true
virtues: 'The Gospel is Forgiveness of Sins & has No Moral
Precepts; these belong to Plato & Seneca & Nero' [Watson's Apology,
K, p. 766]. For him, 'The Glory of Christianity is To Conquer by
Forgiveness' [K, p. 498]. His Christ is also a conqueror of tired
values, and to the established good of His day His creative
destruction of conventional codes would have appeared evil. While
Nietzsche appreciates the tension Christianity produced by setting its
values against pagan ones - a splendid tension of spirit which kept
Europe alive - he despises modern Christianity for increasingly
becoming a comfortable religion of the flock, depriving existence of
its 'great character'. He denies any existence of God, as George
Allen Morgan comments, since he sees no evidence for Him because
all experience is evidence against Him, given that all happening is
neither kind, nor intelligent, nor absolutely true. 16 Rather
simplistically, he regards psychological and historical explanations
as providing effective refutation: God is the projected wish-
fulfilment of human needs baffled by the real world.
Many such Nietzschean views on Christianity find favour with
Yeats, a maverick Irish Protestant: 'I am a member of the Church of
England but not a Christian', we read in a letter of 3 May 19 36 to his
friend Dorothy (Lady Gerald) Wellesley, whom he had met the year
before. His condemnation of Christianity is by no means as virulent
as Nietzsche's, however. His pencilled remarks in Common reveal
his wariness of Nietzsche's single-minded attack, as when he
questions his insistence on Christianity's darker, more distasteful
elements: 'But why does Nitzche [sic] think that the night has no
stars, nothing but bats and owls and the insane moon?' [C, p. 124].
As we shall see more fully later, Yeats does categorise Christianity as
one of the 'night' religions with 'one god', and so as a form of
'objectivity' at the 'inferior' pole of his system. But he would also
recognise the attraction of those dimensions of Christianity which
belong to a higher form of objectivity - its vast, enveloping sense of
oneness, for example- just as Nietzsche sees the higher dimensions
of the Dionysian with its joyous absorption of the separating ego.
Thus Yeats places both Christianity and the Dionysian at his
objective pole, contrasting Jesus and Apollo in much the way

Wagner does, though he might not put them on an equal footing as
the composer would when he urges that we 'erect the altar of the
future, in Life as in the living Art, to the two sublimest teachers of
mankind: - Jesus, who suffered for all men, and Apollo, who raised
them to their highest dignity'. 11
Nietzsche's attack on Christianity also prompted this scribbled
speculation by Yeats: 'did Christianity create commerce by teaching
men to live not in the continuous present of self-revelation but to
deny self and present for future gain, first heaven and then wealth?'
[C, p. 124]. Here we find Yeats forming a link between Christians
and men engaged in 'business', regarding both as 'unfree', the
former serving God, the latter 'things'. They serve something other
than 'life', as a later annotation reiterates [C, p. 135].
Nietzsche, for all his condemnation of Christian values, does
acknowledge indebtedness to the Christian heritage for having
sharpened and deepened the soul and mind, especially in terms of
psychological insight and moral scepticism. Christianity gave
suffering a meaning and spiritualised cruelty. 'The ascetic ideal', in
George Morgan's paraphrase, 'made man evil and profound,
therefore more interesting; modern science is the fruit of its austere
will to truth at any price'. 18 Man's desire to know the truth about
existence is in conflict with his desire to be deluded and so to
survive, and this opposition appears in The Birth of Tragedy as the
antagonism of Socrates and Greek tragedy, of science and art [cf. in
particular sections 14 to 24, and 'Attempt at a Self-Criticism']. Yet
art can lead to an even more comprehensive truth about existence
than rational science can, lending recognition of a vaster world
where life surges unaltered beneath the surface change of 'human
history'. Without claiming his own knowledge to be absolute,
Nietzsche considers himself able to shake off man's need for the
static and the permanent to see beyond what appears permanent to
the larger world of perspectivity and flux. And Yeats surely includes
Nietzsche among those mysterious 'instructors' who prompted Mrs
Yeats's 'automatic writing', on which her husband drew for A
Vision:
My instructors identify consciousness with conflict, not with

knowledge, substitute for subject and object and their attendant
logic a struggle towards harmony, towards Unity of Being.
Logical and emotional conflict alike lead towards a reality which
is concrete, sensuous, bodily. [V, p. 214]
In On the Genealogy of Morals Nietzsche describes the logical

concepts 'subject' and 'object' as 'errors, nothing but errors!', being
mere remnants of language's 'subject', 'predicate', and 'object'
which remain inherent in rational thought processes [GM (m.l2)
p. 118]. Such divisions are products of the conscious mind, and
subconsciously we with our divided psyche yearn immeasurably to
become whole.
Nietzsche regards the trim uniformities described by science as
only local and temporary when seen against the total chaos and flux
of the universe. The so-called 'fixed laws' foisted on nature will
perish under pressure of change. They are merely part of a transient
current model. The eternal, invincible, exact Natural Law posited by
the nineteenth-century scientist is but another shadow of God, a
desire for stability and permanence. A prolonged conflict is seen
over the short term as something enduring, and so the world is also
regarded as being made up of enduring phenomena. With his vivid
sense of the multifariousness of existence and of the varied
interpretations one might apply to it, Nietzsche is quick to stress that
no scheme can contain all possible alternatives. Schematisation tends
to falsify and constrict: 'I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them.
The will to a system is a lack of integrity' [ 'Maxims and Arrows'
(26), TI, p. 25]. Systems select, exclude, organise. No system can deal
with the full multiplicity of existence: 'I am not narrow enough for a
system - and not even for my system', Nietzsche declares,l 9
reminding one of Blake's determination to make his own system
simply so as not to be enslaved by another man's.
One is reminded too of Walt Whitman's assertion 'I am large, I
contain multitudes.' The multiplicity of the human self- as manifold
as that of the universe - cannot be reduced to systematic formulae,
and Nietzsche is painfully aware of the darker elements that form
part of that multiplicity. The Birth of Tragedy speaks of how terrible
and revolting to current moral standards the unconscious urges at
the heart of human nature are. Man has 'the most savage natural
instincts ... , including even that horrible mixture of sensuality and
cruelty which has always seemed to me to be the real "witches'
brew" ' [BT (2) p. 39]. Freud was actually frightened of reading
Nietzsche in the face of such insights. Yeats, in a letter of 5 August
1936 to Dorothy Wellesley, writes,
All depends on the . . . stirring of the beast underneath .... The

moon, the moonless night, the dark velvet, the sensual silence, the
silent room and the violent bright Furies. Without this conflict we
have no passion only sentiment and thought. 20
Penned almost thirty-four years after Yeats's reading of Common's

Nietzsche, the letter shows none of the unease betrayed in that early
pencilled question 'But why does Nitzche think that the night has no
stars, nothing but bats and owls and the insane moon?' [C, p. 124].
Instead, the annotation now calls to mind Zarathustra's Second
Dance Song: 'Here are caves and thickets: we shall go astray! -
Halt! Stand still! Seest thou not owls and bats in fluttering fray?'
[TSZ(59.l) p. 253].
The Yeats of the 1930s is less hesitant to endorse Nietzsche's
views of the more unpleasant aspects of Christianity with its
spiritualised cruelty. He certainly does not shy from depicting the
fearful qualities lurking beneath the whitewash of civilisation, as in
The Player Queen, where the Big Countryman's quota of'primordial
soup' boils over the checking brim of religion when he turns to the
Bible for supposed sanction to murder: 'The Bible says, Suffer not a
witch to live. Last Candlemas twelvemonth I strangled a witch with
my own hands' [CP/, p. 252/393].
The Birth of Tragedy symbolises this beast in the man by the
bearded satyr, the Greek choric representative of the natural
Dionysian man [BT, as in (2) and (7), pp. 39, 58]. In a way that
prefigures Freud, Nietzsche maintains that the loftiest things in
human culture - religion, philosophy, art - are sublimations of such
passions as lust and cruelty, and Yeats agrees in 'Meditations in
Time of Civil War' that grace and beauty depend on power and
violence:
Some violent bitter man, some powerful man

Called architect and artist in, that they,
Bitter and violent men, might rear in stone
The sweetness that all longed for night and day,
The gentleness none there had ever known ....
[CP, p. 225]
An even more remarkable echo of Nietzsche's view that art entails

the sublimation of cruelty and lust comes in Yeats's letter to Dorothy
Wellesley of 4 December 19 36 with its assertion that 'my poetry all
comes from rage or lust' [L, p. 871].
In 'The Spur' from the Last Poems we read
You think it horrible that lust and rage

Should dance attention upon my old age;
They were not such a plague when I was young;
What else have I to spur me into song?
[CP, p. 359]
And thus spake Zarathustra: Voluptuousness, passion for power, and

selfishness: these three things have hitherto been best cursed, and
have been in worst and falsest repute - these three things will I
weigh humanly well' [TSZ (54.1) p. 208].
Lust is the bridge between present and future, thirst for power
propels the lofty from self-sufficient solitude to exercise command
over the lowly and to initiate advance, and selfishness distinguishes
what is good from what is worthless for the individual, stimulating
self-rejoicing [cf. TSZ (54) pp. 207-12]. For Blake, lust is
objectionable only when it is removed from full humanity. Raw
sexual energy is to him potential plenitude: 'The lust of the goat is
the bounty of God' [K, p. 183]. Hypocritical chastity corrupts pure
sexual desire :
a man dare hardly to embrace

His own Wife for the terrors of Chastity that they call
By the name of Morality.
[K, p. 478]
Chastity would turn Blake's Oothoon into a 'knowing, artful, secret,

fearful, cautious, trembling hypocrite' [K, p. 199]. It means restraint,
that great vice [cf. K, p. 735]; sexual love brings fulfilment: it is 'holy
Jerusalem, Image of Regeneration'.
When the powerful natural passions are denied, Blake, Nietzsche
and Yeats contend, they become negatively destructive. If utilised
and channelled creatively, they become beautiful, the raw energy
through which art is produced - art, the 'saving sorceress' who
turns 'nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence
into notions with which one can live: these are the sublime as the
artistic taming of the horrible, and the comic as the artistic discharge
of the nausea of absurdity' [BT(7) p. 60]. It is in these terms- which
precurse the attitudes of the Absurd - that Nietzsche describes how
the profound Hellene, uniquely susceptible to the tenderest and

deepest suffering, comforts himself, having looked boldly right
into the terrible destructiveness of so-called world history as well
as the cruelty of nature, and being in danger of longing for a
Buddhistic negation of the will. [BT (7) p. 59]
And Yeats feels that we can only see the true nature of existence
accurately amid spiritual terror, or when everything that holds life
together begins to disintegrate. When such insight is too hard to
bear, art comes to the rescue, as in the case of Hamlet, whom
Nietzsche considers to have
looked truly into the essence of things. . . . Knowledge kills

action; action requires the veils of illusion: that is the doctrine of
Hamlet . . . man now sees everywhere only the horror or
absurdity of existence ....
Here, when the danger to his will is greatest, art approaches as
a saving sorceress, expert at healing. [BT (7) p. 60]
Nietzsche is deeply intrigued by the 'inner antagonism' of the

'two art deities' Apollo and Dionysus within the 'profound Hellene',
wondering
why precisely Greek Apollinianism had to grow out of a

Dionysian subsoil .... The immoderate, disorderly Asiatic lies at
his roots: the bravery of the Greek consists in his struggle with his
Asiaticism; beauty is not given to him, as little as is logic or the
naturalness of customs - it is conquered, willed, won by struggle
-it is his victory.... [WP (1050) pp. 539-40]
The Hellene 'was the first great union and synthesis of everything
Near Eastern, and on that account the inception of the European
soul' [WP (1051) p. 542].
With all their tremendous inner energy, the Greeks developed
their competitive institutions as 'protective measures designed for
mutual security against the explosive material within them. The
tremendous internal tension then discharged itself in fearful and
ruthless external hostility' ['What I Owe to the Ancients' (3), TI,
p. I 07]. The &ywv, or contest, created a propelling desire for
achievement and also provided rivals able to check the individual's
compulsion towards tyranny- his will to political power, just one of
the innumerable warring wills to power that constitute a world

which Yeats characterises as 'a conflict'. It is these rival wills to
power that impart a tragic antagonism to every single aspect of
existence.
WILL AND POWER
The cardinal tenet of the world as a conflict is allied in both

Nietzsche and Yeats to the doctrine of willing, whether as an
unconscious desire for a certain goal or a deliberate postulation of
that goal - to be followed by a strife-tom endeavour to attain it.
Every such goal is some form of coveted power, attainment of it the
attainment of power. It is to this compulsive urge for power
displayed by all things that Nietzsche applies his comprehensive
formula, der Wille zur Macht: 'This world is the will to power- and
nothing besides!' [WP (1067) p. 550].
The idea for this all-embracing doctrine burst upon him one day
while he was serving as an ambulance attendant during Bismarck's
1870 war. Elisabeth Nietzsche recalls how, exhausted, her horror-
fatigued brother suddenly heard the thunder of horses behind him
and turned to see the awesome charge of fresh Prussian cavalry
eager for combat. As Bentley relates, Nietzsche
felt for the first time that 'the strongest and highest will to life does
not find expression in a miserable struggle for existence but in a
will to war, a will to power, a will to overpower.... What a good
thing it is that Wotan lays a hard heart in the breasts of
commanding generals, otherwise how could they bear the awful
responsibility of sending thousands to death in order to raise their
people and themselves to dominion.' 21
Through this flash of insight, prompted by the observation of

external warfare between nations, Nietzsche perceived the strife
germane to every aspect of existence.
Thus in Nietzsche the term 'will to power' is adopted as the most
accurate description of the primal life-force:
All 'purposes', 'aims', 'meaning' are only modes of expression

and metamorphoses of one will that is inherent in all events: the
will to power.... willing in general, is the same thing as willing

to be stronger, willing to grow - and, in addition, willing the
means to this .... valuation itself is only this will to
power. . . . [WP (675) p. 356]
Zarathustra describes life's secret as 'that which must ever surpass

itself [TSZ (34) p. 125]: life sacrifices itself for the attainment of
greater power. Therefore, as Paul Tillich encapsulates it, 'it is wrong
to speak of "will to existence" or even of "will to life"; one must
speak of "will to power", i.e. to more life'. 22 History is a harsh
record of bloody struggles of the will to power in its most blatant
form - men, families, cities, nations, empires, all wrestling for
primacy and advancement of self. The entire cauldron of existence
boils down to the fight for power. As the final words of The Will to
Power ring out, 'you yourselves are also this will to power- and
nothing besides!' [WP (1067) p. 550].
The law of Rangordnung applies to different wills to power as
much as to anything else. And, according to Nietzsche's grading,
philosophy ranks as 'the most spiritual will to power' [BGE (9)
p. 211. Nor does Nietzsche unequivocally espouse will to power as
desirable in itself. He merely recognises its presence as an essential
part of all existence, and so cannot deny it as a necessary means to
the advancement of life. Machiavelli recognises the necessities of
power politics in much the same way without personally desiring
them. As Hollingdale comments,
In reality Nietzsche does not advocate 'will to power' at all: he

says that the basic drive in living things is the drive to
aggrandizement and augmentation of power . . . and that every
action is an expression of this drive at a higher or lower stage of
sublimation .... Ultimately, of course, he cannot condemn even
brute force - he cannot call it 'evil' - but he can and does say of it
that it is a very low expression of will to power ... an atavism. 23
We remember Yeats realising this in a note in his copy of Common:

'Victories of mere brute force do not create' [C, p. 111].
When Nietzsche views every organism as consisting of conflicting
'dynamic quanta', he ascribes such dynamism to the fact that every
drive within the organism is 'a kind of lust to rule' [ WP ( 481) p. 26 7],
which makes for battle between them. Each 'will to power can
manifest itself only against resistances; therefore it seeks that which
resists it' [WP (656) p. 346]. Man, as an organism, is no different,

continually vying with others of his kind. His ego 'subdues and kills:
it operates like an organic cell: it is a robber and violent. It wants to
regenerate itself- pregnancy. It wants to give birth to its god, and
see all mankind at his feet' [WP (768) p. 403].
Yeats also recognises this power of the ego, and cites Nietzsche
when describing Synge's ego- remarking that 'He had that egotism
of the man of genius which Nietzsche compares to the egotism of a
woman with child.' This comment appears in 'The Death of Synge'
(xviii) of 1909 [Auto, p. 311 I 511 ]. In a letter to Lady Gregory written
two years before, Yeats says of his fellow playwright,
I don't really think him selfish or egotistical, but he is so absorbed

in his own vision of the world that he cares for nothing else. But
there is a passage somewhere in Nietzsche which describes this
kind of man as if he were the normal man of genius. 24
InA Vision, 'Will' appears as man's 'normal ego' which is shaped

out of 'all the events of his present life, whether consciously or not'
[V, p. 83]. Yeats shares Nietzsche's belief that conscious willing is
often the product of unconscious willing, and that the purporting of
motives is a very dubious practice. Supposedly unegotistic sacrifice,
for example, has hidden motives that benefit the self. Utterly
unegotistic action is impossible: 'the individual loves something of
himself, a thought, a desire, a production, more than anything else of
himself; ... he therefore divides his nature and to one part sacrifices
all the rest. ... 25
To Nietzsche, 'No egoism at all exists that remains within itself
and does not encroach - consequently . . . allowable', 'morally
indifferent' egoism ... does not exist' [WP (369) p. 199]. Not that
conscious willing is merely desire, as 'Schopenhauer's superstition'
would have it, and we can never speak of 'willing' an Sich:
There is no such thing as 'willing', but only a willing something:

one must not remove the aim from the total condition - as
epistemologists do. 'Willing' as they understand it is as little a
reality as 'thinking': it is a pure fiction. 26
We thus always have a will to something, and willing entails a

strong element of self-command: 'A man who wills - commands
something in himself which obeys, or which he believes obeys'
[BGE (19) p. 30]. Willing involves the exertion of power over

ourselves. We mould ourselves to a chosen image of ourselves,
Nietzsche maintains, and Yeats after him, as we will ourselves to be
this or that. And the chosen image mankind should will itself to
attain is the Ubermensch. For Yeats (who had also encountered
strengthening of the will as a teaching of 'The Order of the Golden
Dawn', a society whose interests centred around magic),
'Personality, no matter how habitual, is a constantly renewed
choice' [V, p. 84]. His father expresses the opinion in a 1910 letter
that character is will-power in action, and personality 'human
nature when undergoing a passion for self-expression' [JBYL,
pp. 124-5].
Two years after receiving his copy of Common's Nietzsche, Yeats
wrote to AE that 'We possess nothing but the will and we must
never let the children of vague desires breathe upon it nor the waters
of sentiment rust the terrible mirror of its blade. ' 27 In A Vision he
classifies man 'according to the place of Will, or choice, in the
diagram' [p. 73], will being man's 'Is' and 'Mask' his 'Ought'.
Similarly, Nietzsche urges man as he exists today to gird his will to
becoming as he ought to be in the future, to pursue as his mask the
Ubermensch. In 'Anima Hominis' [cf. Myth, pp. 336-40], Yeats
presents the sentient man in a willed and dynamic search for his
daimon or anti-self: the saint and the sage will their successful
victories over their historical cycles (which we shall look at further
in Chapter 6). But such victories entail conflict as they strive for
power over their body of fate.
It is such conflict as the product of antagonistic opposites and the
strife of competing wills to power that forms the very marrow of
Nietzsche and Yeats's shared Weltanschauung. Conflict inherent in
the structure of every organism, in the human psyche, in violent war
between men, in the tensions between master and slave moralities
and within aristocratic societies themselves, and in the dialectical
evolution of values. Nietzsche's view of 'All events, all motion, all
becoming as a determination of degrees and relations of force, as a
struggle' [WP (552) p. 299] expresses that very dynamism of conflict
which informs such plays as A Full Moon in March and The
Resurrection. Yeats's sense of universal combat is well sketched by
T. R. Henn in The Lonely Tower, where he describes the poet as
concerning himself with 'the deliberate exploitation, the
encouragement, of conflict; distinguishing between the internal
conflict in himself of which the poetry is made, the external conflict
with circumstance, the 'Body of Fate'; for only through these

conflicts can man progress towards perfection of knowledge. 28 As
Yeats himself writes in 'Per Arnica Silentia Lunae', 'We make out of
the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but out of the quarrel with
ourselves, poetry' ['Anima Hominus' (v), Myth, p. 336].
Yeats does not confine his view of universal conflict to this world
alone. When his characters have visions of the eternal world (in one
sense the religious Hereafter, in another sense life as it surges in its
unchanging essence beyond all surface change), they find eternity to
be not a placid haven but a kinetic realm of violent dynamism.
Martin Hearne in The Unicorn from the Stars describes his vision in
the Nietzschean terminology of combat and apocalypse: the music
of Paradise, he says, 'is made up of the continual clashing of
swords!' [CP/, p. 243/377]. With all the enthusiasm of the
Dionysian man he declares that 'Heaven is not what we have
believed it to be. It is not quiet, it is not singing and making music,
and all strife at an end. . . . That is the joy of Heaven, continual
battle' [CP/, p. 245/381]. For Nietzsche and Yeats continual battle
should indeed be embraced as a joy, not merely be endured as a fact
of life.
3 The Tragic Disposition
There is but one hope and guarantee

for the future of man, and that is that
his sense for the tragic may not die
out....
- Nietzsche, 'Richard Wagner in
Bayreuth' (4), Thoughts out of Season
(I), Complete Works, vol. 4, p. 131.
We begin to live when we have con-

ceived life as tragedy ....
-Yeats, 'Four Years: 1887-1891'
(xxi), 'The Trembling of the Veil',
Auto, p. 93/189.
APOLLO AND DIONYSUS
Nietzsche's theory of tragedy, which had such a bitter taste for those
used to more vapid diets of tragic criticism, found its basic
ingredients in the Apollinian and Dionysian impulses the
philosopher saw so vibrantly displayed in the ancient Greeks. We
recall his words in The Birth of Tragedy that through Apollo and
Dionysus 'we come to recognise that in the Greek world there
existed a tremendous opposition, in origin and aims, between the
Apollinian art of sculpture, and the non-imagistic, Dionysian art of
music' [BT (1) p. 33]. Though usually in open conflict, these
impulses do 'eventually, by a metaphysical miracle of the Hellenic
"will", ... appear coupled with each other, and through this
coupling ultimately generate an equally Dionysian and Apollinian
form of art - Attic tragedy' [ibid.].
Nietzsche invites us to conceive of these two opposing impulses
The Tragic Disposition 41
which become fused in tragedy as 'the separate art worlds of dreams

and intoxication' [ibid.]. The 'beautiful illusion ofthe dream worlds',
he says, is 'the prerequisite of all plastic art' [BT(l) p. 34]. 'It was in
dreams, says Lucretius, that the glorious divine figures first appeared
to the souls of men' [BT(l) p. 33]. Ruling over this 'beautiful illusion
of the inner world of fantasy' is Apollo [BT (l) p. 35], the
embodiment of the 'joyous necessity of the dream experience'. And,
Nietzsche adds,
in one sense, we might apply to Apollo the words of

Schopenhauer when he speaks of the man wrapped in the veil of
maya (Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 1, p. 416): ' ... in the midst
of a world of torments the individual human being sits quietly,
supported by and trusting in the principium individuationis.' [BT
(l) pp. 35-6].
(It is well to note Nietzsche's inclusion of the phrase 'in one sense'
here - the confusion and misinterpretation of terminology lies not
infrequently in the fact that terms cover a wide spectrum, and can be
employed in different senses in different contexts, as is so often the
case with both Nietzsche and Yeats.) Strictly speaking, Nietzsche
does not have any warrant for making Apollo the deity both of the
plastic arts and of dream (though his reasoning is plausible), but- as
we shall see - Yeats was none the less to follow him in regarding
Apollo as god of both, and also as 'the glorious divine image of the
principium individuationis' [BT (I) p. 36]. Nietzsche calls him further
'the "shining one", the deity of light', and 'the soothsaying god' [BT
(l) p. 35].
Apollo is also, however, the embodiment of limitation: we must
not forget 'that measured restraint, that freedom from the wilder
emotions, that calm of the sculptor god' [ibid.]. With Dionysus
comes the collapse of individuality and restraint. Apollo sculpts the
self, Dionysus wreaks its destruction, redeeming man from the ego
and making everything that it subjective vanish 'into complete self-
forgetfulness' [BT ( 1) p. 36]. Providing the basic religious impetus
towards tragic utterance, the Dionysian finds expression in 'music',
'dancing', 'intoxication', 'self-forgetfulness' :
Under the charm of the Dionysian not only is the union between
man and man reaffirmed, but nature which has become alienated,
hostile, or subjugated, celebrates once more her reconciliation
with her lost son, man .... Now the slave is a free man; now all
the rigid, hostile barriers that necessity, caprice, or 'impudent
convention' have fixed between man and man are broken. [BT
(l) p. 37].
Every man feels himself 'as one' with his neighbour, liberated from
the separating forces embodied in the ancient myth of the
dismemberment of Dionysus by the Titans, which points to 'the
conception of individuation as the primal cause of evil' [BT (l 0)
p. 74].
Fighting this shattering of communal mankind, man's 'vast
Dionysian impulse . . . devours his entire world of phenomena, in
order to let us sense beyond it, and through its destruction, the
highest artistic primal joy, in the bosom of the primordially
One' [BT (22) p. 132]. So in 'all quarters of the ancient world- to
say nothing here of the modern', Dionysian festivals transported
their celebrants beyond the limiting ego through 'extravagant sexual
licentiousness, whose waves overwhelmed all family life and its
venerable traditions' [BT(2) p. 39]- tragedy as Yeats's 'drowner of
dykes' in 'The Tragic Theatre' [&/, p. 245].
Nietzsche roundly asserts that there is no doubt as to the origins of
tragedy:
tradition tells us quite unequivocally that tragedy arose from the

tragic chorus, and was originally only chorus and nothing but
chorus. Hence we consider it our duty to look into the heart of
this tragic chorus as the real proto-drama. [BT (7) p. 56].
The most important feature of the chorus in his estimation is the fact
that it was originally composed of satyrs with their 'Dionysian
wisdom of tragedy', a wisdom not cerebral but intuitive:
the Greek man of culture felt himself nullified in the presence of

the satyric chorus; ... the state and society, and, quite generally,
the gulfs between man and man give way to an overwhelming
feeling of unity leading back to the very heart of nature. [BT (7)
p. 59].
Or again, in Yeats's words, 'tragedy must always be a drowning and

breaking of the dykes that separate man from man' ['The Tragic
Theatre',&/, p. 241].
This 'super-personal' nature of tragedy, Nietzsche says in

'Richard Wagner in Bayreuth' (4), permits the individual to forget
the oppressions of the world around him. Even the very shortest of
moments might contain something sacred which infinitely
outweighs all struggle and suffering - this is what it means to be
tragically disposed. It is the task of all future generations to grow
together into oneness and community, even though humanity must
without doubt eventually die (a notion at variance, surely, with
Nietzsche's demand for Rangordnung between men and his
insistence in his theory of ewige Wiederkehr on the infinite and
identical recurrence of everything). Humanity should go to its doom
as an undivided community with a shared tragic disposition that
laughs in the face of the terrible.
Nietzsche and Yeats thus bestow on the supra-personal
dimensions of tragedy the name of Dionysus, whose promotion of
intoxicated ecstasy combines with Apollo's dream-inspiration to
provide the revelation of primordial Oneness in a symbolical dream
image' [BT (2) p. 38]; incited to reverie by Dionysian music, song
and dance, the Greek spectator is drawn into empathy with the
sufferings of Dionysus, who then emerges in the masked, statue-like
dimensions of the actor. Thus tragedy affords the spectator a
surrender of individuality and a way of entering into another

character . . . magic transformation is the presupposition of all
dramatic art. In this magic transformation the Dionysian reveller
sees himself as a satyr, and as a satyr, in turn, he sees the god,
which means that in his metamorphosis he beholds another vision
outside himself, as the Apollinian complement of his own
state. [BT (8) p. 64].
So we find that at the heart of Greek tragedy is 'the Dionysian

chorus which ever anew discharges itself in an Apollinian world of
images' [BT (8) p. 65]. Tragedy is 'the Apollinian embodiment of
Dionysian insights and effects'.
Thus it is that in tragedy Apollo and Dionysus, usually antagonists
in a world of conflict, are joined:
the sublime and celebrated art of Attic tragedy and the dramatic
dithyramb presents itself as the common goal of both these
tendencies whose mysterious union, after many and long
precursory struggles, found glorious consummation in this child-

at once Antigone and Cassandra. [BT (4) p. 47].1
Apollo shines in Greek tragedy's myth, in the eloquence and

gestures of its statuesque personae, in its stagecraft and dramatic
construction. Dionysus throbs in the music and chants of the chorus
with its mingling of joy and terror, creation and destruction.
The myth protects us against the music, while on the other hand it
alone gives music the highest freedom. In return, music imparts to
the tragic myth an intense and convincing metaphysical
significance that word and image without this singular help could
never have attained. [BT (21) p. 126].
Accordingly, the Apollinian Greek realised that,
despite all its beauty and moderation, his entire existence rested on
a hidden substratum of suffering and of knowledge, revealed to
him by the Dionysian. And behold: Apollo could not live without
Dionysus! [BT ( 4) p. 46].
In this way the Yeatsian tragic hero, like the Greek, transcends the
self to glimpse in plastic images the vaster communal realm of the
anima mundi, the world beyond the anima hominis. And Nietzsche
ultimately chooses this Dionysian impulse with its release from the
'world of appearances' in preference to the Apollinian, championing
'the glowing life of the Dionysian revellers', even as exemplified by
the crowds of the German Middle Ages [BT (l) p. 36]. More and
more Dionysus comes to represent an instinct that aligns itself with
'life', 'purely artistic and anti-Christian', an instinct 'against
morality' which Nietzsche, 'As a philologist and man of words'
baptised, 'not without taking some liberty- for who could claim to
know the rightful name of the Antichrist? - in the name of a Greek
god: I called it Dionysian' ['Attempt at a Self-Criticism' (5), BT,
p. 24].
The Dionysus who induces the 'self-forgetfulness' that comes
with tragedy is very much the old Bacchus. Tragic oblivion,
Nietzsche says, is brought about primarily by the 'narcotic draught'
poured by 'the Bacchic choruses of the Greeks' [BT (l) p. 36].
Through such Dionysian intoxication, man is able to walk about
'enchanted, in ecstasy ... : in these paroxysms of intoxication the
artistic power of all nature reveals itself to the highest gratification of

the primordial unity' [BT (l) p. 37].
Scientific knowledge and Socratic rationality should be discarded
in favour of 'wisdom that, uninfluenced by the seductive distraction
of the sciences, turns with unmoved eyes to a comprehensive view
of the world' [BT ( 18) p. 112]. The myth of Oedipus, however,
seems to wish to shisper to us that wisdom, and particularly

Dionysian wisdom, is an unnatural abomination; that he who by
means of his knowledge plunges nature into the abyss of
destruction must also suffer the dissolution of nature in his own
person. 'The edge of wisdom turns against the wise: wisdom is a
crime against nature.' [BT (9) p. 69].
Yet with his deep-seated Dionysian wisdom the Hellenic poet is able
to touch 'the sublime and terrible Memnon's Column of myth like a
sunbeam, so that it suddenly begins to sound - in Sophoclean
melodies'. Only through Dionysian excess and drunkenness can we
gain tragic wisdom, a profound form of in vino veritas.
Draughts of this Dionysian wisdom flow through Yeats's essay on
'The Subject-Matter of Drama' in 'Discoveries', where Nietzsche's
art world of dream is flooded by his world of intoxication:
All art is dream, and what the day is done with is dreaming-ripe,
and what art has moulded religion accepts, and in the end all is in
the wine-cup, all is in the drunken fantasy, and the grapes begin to
stammer. [&/, p. 285].
Paul Ruttledge's torrential sermon in Where There Is Nothing urges

with naive enthusiasm a return to the wisdom of pristine men who
led their lives 'according to the impulse of their hearts', full of the
intuitive 'drunkenness of Eternity' [WT/N, p. 156]. 2 In The Player
Queen the cause of Septimus's drunken state might well be Decima
as a 'bad wife' [CPI, p. 249/389], but the poet's consumption of wine
does lead to illumination: 'I will tell you the great secret that came to
me at the second mouthful of the bottle. Man is nothing till he is
united to an image' [CPI, p. 267 I 420]. He later warns his wife,
'Never trust a sober man' [CPI, p. 268/422], and repeats his
prophecy that the end of the Christian Era is imminent [CPI,
pp. 265/416, 269/422]. Such wisdom from wine is also laurelled in
'The Blessed':
I see the blessedest soul in the world

And he nods a drunken head.
'0 blessedness comes in the night and the day
And whither the wise heart knows;
And one has seen in the redness of wine
The Incorruptible Rose,
'That drowsily drops faint leaves on him
And the sweetness of desire .... '
[CP, pp. 76-7]
Again and again we find Nietzsche's idea of Dionysian

'transformation' linked to Apollinian 'dream image' emerging as a
fundamental in Yeats's thoughts on tragedy, especially as formulated
in 'The Tragic Theatre'. Here we find Yeats writing of how 'Tragic
art, passionate art, the drowner of dykes, the confounder of
understanding, moves us by setting us to reverie, by alluring us
almost to the intensity of trance'[&/, p. 245]. This is a passage we
might well have expected to find in the pages of The Birth of
Tragedy, and Yeats's 1910 essay abounds with all the key-words of
Nietzsche's mighty first book and its undercurrent of Sturm und
Drang: 'passion', 'ecstasy', 'reverie', 'flood', 'disembodied'. The
theory of tragedy propounded by the essay shares Nietzsche's view
of tragedy as lifting us beyond the realm of the self-conscious ego
into the timeless, transparent world of primordial being. Synge's
tragic heroine Deidre is mentioned as experiencing 'a reverie of
passion that mounts and mounts till grief itself has carried her
beyond grief into pure contemplation' [&/, p. 239]. Dionysian
passion leads to reverie and Apollinian contemplatio, in the midst of
which the Greek spectator-turned-satyr beholds the image of his
divine side in the person of the actor embodying Dionysus in
Apollinian form. When a masked Christ figure appears serenely at
the end of The Resurrection, we have a situation akin to what
Nietzsche recognises that the Greek
spectator felt in his Dionysian excitement when he saw the
approach on the stage of the god with whose sufferings he had
already identified himself. Involuntarily, he transferred the whole
magic image of the god that was trembling before his soul to that
masked figure and, as it were, dissolved its reality into the
unreality of spirits. [BT (8) p. 66].
The Dionysus figure of Yeats's play is lent the Apollinian

dimensions of both sculpture and dream, as the statue-like Christ,
phantom-made-flesh, appears to the entranced spectator as 'another
vision outside himself, . . . the Apollinian complement of his own
state' [BT (8) p. 64]. Again we are reminded of Nietzsche's
contention that 'The beautiful illusion of the dream worlds, in the
creation of which every man is truly an artist, is the prerequisite of
all plastic art, and . . . an important part of poetry also' [BT ( 1)
p. 34]. Or, as Yeats puts it, 'All art is dream .. .'[&/, p. 285].
Important though Apollo is, Dionysian intoxication remains the
most important element in tragedy, promoting that oneness' which
Nietzsche calls 'the soul of the race' [BT (2) p. 40]. And, says the
Yeats of Estrangement' (xxiv), A poet creates tragedy from his own
soul, that soul which is alike in all men' [Auto, p. 286/471].
CHARACTER AND PERSONALITY
Along with the Apollo-Dionysus dichotomy, Yeats also sets up a

firm distinction between 'character' and 'personality' in a
Nietzschean vein. We find him writing to his father in a letter of 2 3
February 1910,
I look upon character and personality as different things or

perhaps different forms of the same thing. Juliet has personality,
her Nurse has character. I look upon personality as the individual
form of our passions. . . . Character belongs I think to
Comedy. . . . [L, p. 548].
This was penned during the preparation of three lectures Yeats gave
during March 1910 'to raise money for the Abbey Theatre'. 3 In
discussing these lectures, first published in 1975, Robert O'Driscoll
comments that
With his father's philosophy carefully articulated in corres-

pondence and conversation, with his own non-naturalistic
theatrical experiments, and with the example of John Synge, in
whom he could see the living embodiment of the philosophical
principles he was discovering in Nietzsche, Yeats in the early
twentieth century became preoccupied with understanding what
is meant by persona/ity. 4
The first of these lectures sees personality as the living essence that
animates thought and action, an overflow of passionate energy from
the depths of the being. An actor, for example, follows his own
instincts and loses all consciousness of character, becoming a
medium through which can flow whatever emotion is generated by
words or moments of passion. In the second lecture, 'Friends of My
Youth', delivered on 9 March 1910, we can discern a Nietzschean
point of view which suggests that personality involves the
dissolution of individuality: 'Personality is greater and finer than
character. It differs from character in this, that it [i.e. character] is
always to some extent under the control of our will.' 5 And in the
third lecture we find Yeats lauding the poet who promoted
expression of the Dionysian with its transcendence of idiosyncratic
character, the poet who 'celebrated drink, and lust, and everything
men thought wicked ... a celebration of life itself. 6
When it comes to Yeats and a definition of character, Edward
Engelberg quotes his remarks in Harper's Weekly of November
1911, which describe character as being made up of individual
eccentricities existing in accidental circumstance', in 'some one
place, some one moment of time' .7 A letter of 8 March I 91 0 from
his father assures Yeats that his 'splendid sentence "character is the
ash of personality" has my full assent' [JBYL, p. 128], following an
earlier comment by J. B. Yeats that 'Personality to my mind is
human nature when undergoing a passion for self-expression'
[JBYL, p. 125]. His son associates personality with passion, and in
'The Tragic Theatre' associates passion with tragedy, maintaining
that character is continuously present in comedy alone' [&/,
p. 240]. He further reinforces this view in 'Estrangement' (xxiv),
where he contends that 'Tragedy is passion alone, and rejecting
character, it gets form from motives, from the wandering of passion;
while comedy is the clash of character' [Auto, p. 286/470].
In The Birth of Tragedy we find Nietzsche deprecating 'the
prevalence of character representation and psychological refinement
in tragedy from Sophocles onward' [BT ( 17) p. I 08]. Pre-Sophoclean
Greek poets were psychologically superficial', he says, the curse of
'psychological refinement in tragedy' emerging only after
Aeschylus. In Ecce Home he describes himself as 'the first tragic
philosopher', adding the claim that philosophy contained 'no
psychology at all before me' ['The Birth of Tragedy' (3) and 'Why I
Am a Destiny' (6), EH, pp. 273, 331]. And the sine qua non of all
character delineation is psychological insight. This the Greeks did
not concern themselves with initially. In their tragic art, which 'was
really born of the spirit of music' [BT ( 17) p. I 05], emphasis is not on
phenomena but on what lies behind them. Heroes 'speak, as if were,
more superficially than they act', and the
structure of the scenes and the visual images reveal a deeper

wisdom than the poet himself can put into words and concepts:
the same is also observable in Shakespeare ... the . . . lesson of
Hamlet is to be deduced, not from his words, but from a profound
contemplation and survey of the whole. [Ibid.]
Nietzsche finds the Sophoclean cancer of character delineation fed

by Euripides, who 'draws only prominent individual traits of
character, which can express themselves in violent bursts of passion'
[BT ( 17) p. l 08]. With New Attic comedy come a string of frivolous
old men, duped panders, and cunning slaves, recurring incessantly.
Where now is the mythopoeic spirit of music?' [ibid.]. This chimes
with Yeats's contention in 'The Tragic Theatre' that 'character is
continuously present in comedy alone, and that there is much
tragedy ... where its place is taken by passions and motives'[&/,
p. 240]. A similar sentiment is expressed again in one of those 1910
lectures, when Yeats asserts that
Pure tragedy is pure passion; pure comedy contains no passion. If

you look at a play of sheer tragedy, Racine or a Greek play, you
will see there is no character at all. The persons are defined by
differing motives. It is the great glory of Shakespeare that he
enriched tragedy by adding to it comedy. 8
Tragedy in Yeats pivots around passion leading to calm, a calm

the playwright seeks in part to convey through the aristocratic Noh
drama of Japan- inspired to emulate it after having seen a Japanese
dancer who provided for him 'the tragic image that has stirred my
imagination' ['Certain Noble Plays of Japan', E&l, p. 224]. Since
tragedy inhabits 'the deeps of the mind' [&/, p. 224], Yeats feels
that A mask will enable me to substitute for the face of some
commonplace player ... the fine invention of a sculptor, and to
bring the audience close enough to the play to hear every inflection
of the voice' [&/, p. 226]. In Estrangement' (xxiv) he explains that
The masks of tragedy contain neither character nor personal

energy. They are allied to decoration and to the abstract figures of

Egyptian temples. Before the mind can look out of their eyes the
active will perishes, hence their sorrowful calm. [Auto,
p. 286/471].
Leonard Nathan is among those who raise the question of how

Yeatsian tragedy, which entails the conflict of the divided self and is
so often built around antinomies, is able to rely ultimately on calm
rather than on action. He finds an answer implicit in this very
metaphor-mask convention, by which action and character are
subordinated to the mask, whose artificiality gives personality the
'stillness' needed to reveal its depths. 9 The mask serves as a formal
Apollinian presentation of Dionysian chaos within the personality
itself. Tragedy is revealed as a state of mind which the mask is able
to embody on the stage. And in The Birth of Tragedy [( 12) p. 84]
Nietzsche says that much Greek drama lays 'the ground for pathos,
not for action'. Nathan also offers a sound explanation of one way in
which Nietzsche 'completes' Blake, as Yeats believes he does:
In Blake's conception, a universe evilly shattered into rebellious

individualities is also restored to oneness by art, that is, by the
divine imagination working through individuals for a universal
harmony. Nietzsche indeed improved on Blake by inferring from
this conception of the cosmos the Dionysian definition of
tragedy. 10
Yeats, then, uses the tragic mask to efface individuality. With its
'calm of the sculptor god' it provides the Apollinian embodiment of
reverie produced by Dionysian trance, enabling
us to pass for a few moments into a deep of the mind that had
hitherto been too subtle for our habitation. As a deep of the mind
can only be approached through what is most human, most
delicate, we should distrust bodily distance, mechanism, and loud
noise.
['Certain Noble Plays of Japan', E&I, p. 225]
In At the Hawk's Well Yeats reduces movement to a minimum,

giving directions that the Old Man's movements should, 'like those
of the other persons of the play, suggest a marionette' [CP/,
p. 13 8 I 21 0]. The personages of the play do not possess eccentricities
of character; they convey the vaster dimensions of personality,

Apollinian images of shared Dionysian experience.
TRAGIC WISDOM
When it comes to a general tragic attitude to existence, we find

Nietzsche admiring the Dionysian impulse to know and feel 'the
terror and horror of existence'. He finds that 'Greek folk wisdom'
considered 'the best and most desirable of all things for man' as
being most aptly conveyed in the words spoken by wise Silenus, the
companion of Dionysus, at the urging of his captor King Midas:
Oh, wretched ephemeral race, children of chance and misery,

why do you compel me to tell you what it would be most
expedient for you not to hear? What is best of all is utterly beyond
your reach: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second
best for you is - to die soon. [BT (3) p. 42] 11
This is to see life without illusion, demanding that we view the

world with Nietzsche's 'unmoved eyes' - the 'unfaltering,
unmoistened eyes' of At the Hawk's Well.
Not that we are ever able to penetrate nature completely: The
Birth of Tragedy stresses the insoluble mystery at the heart of the
world. The Nietzschean tragic hero is
the suffering Dionysus of the Mysteries, the god experiencing in

himself the agonies of individuation, of whom wonderful myths
tell that as a boy he was torn to pieces by the Titans and now is
worshipped in this state as Zagreus. . . . In this existence as a
dismembered god, Dionysus possesses the dual nature of a cruel,
barbarised demon and a mild, gentle ruler. [BT (I 0) p. 7 3].
This provides us with 'a profound and pessimistic view of the world,
together with the mystery doctrine of tragedy: the fundamental
knowledge ofthe oneness of everything existent' [BT(IO) p. 74]. Life
is an impenetrably profound mystery - as a Dionysian man such as
Hamlet realises: he has 'looked truly into the essence of things' and
thus 'gained knowlege' which 'kills action'. His perception brings
the recognition that action cannot 'change anything in the eternal
nature of things' [BT (7) p. 60]. This recognition is not mere
reflection, but 'true knowledge' (a concept Nietzsche normally

denies), 'an insight into the horrible truth', which 'outweighs any
motive for action, both in Hamlet and in the Dionysian man' [BT(7)
p. 60].
As we have noted before, it is Nietzsche's proto-Freudian belief
that
almost everything we call 'higher culture' is based on the

spiritualization and intensification of cruelty - this is my
proposition; the 'wild beast' has not been laid to rest at all, it lives,
it flourishes, it has merely become - deified. That which
constitutes the painful voluptuousness of tragedy, is
cruelty. . . . [BGE (229) p. 140].
Yeats's heroine Deidre voices this perfectly with her recognition that
'There's something brutal in us' [CP/, p. 123/ 199]. She has faced the
'horrible truth' about man, faced the awesome nature of his
subterranean passions. And, in his essay 'J. M. Synge and the
Ireland of His Time', Yeats declares that 'All minds that have a
wisdom come of tragic reality seem morbid to those that are
accustomed to writers who have not faced reality at all' [&/,
p. 322].
The equilibrium between Apollo and Dionysus that Nietzsche
sees in Greek tragedy is destroyed in the tragic catastrophe, when
Dionysian fury shatters the beauty of the dream world. Now there is
no longer that mutual enhancing of one impulse by the other.
Hitherto Apollo has been acting as
the transfiguring genius of the principium individuationis through

which alone the redemption in illusion is truly to be obtained;
while by the mystical triumphant cry of Dionysus the spell of
individuation is broken, and the way lies open to the Mothers of
Being, to the innermost heart of things. [BT (16) pp. 99-1 00].
In the end it is the dissonant music of the wild god that provides the
final note:
In the total effect of tragedy, the Dionysian predominates once

again. Tragedy closes with a sound which could never come from
the realm of Apollinian art. And thus the Apollinian illusion
reveals itself as what it really is - the veiling during the
performance of the tragedy of the real Dionysian effect ... forcing

the Apollinian drama itself into a sphere where it begins to speak
with Dionysian wisdom and even denies itself and its Apollinian
visibility. [BT (21) p. 130].
Consequently, 'The tragic myth is to be understood only as a
symbolization of Dionysian wisdom through Apollinian artifices'
[BT(22) p. 131]. For the 'truly aesthetic' listener, the 'vast Dionysian
impulse' of the tragic artist 'devours his entire world of phenomena,
in order to let us sense beyond it, and through its destruction, the
highest artistic primal joy, in the bosom of the primordially One' [BT
(22) p. 13 2].
TRAGIC JOY
Ecce Homo, that all-too-small treasure-box of 'Nietzsche on

Nietzsche', expresses the opinion that 'the cadaverous perfume of
Schopenhauer sticks only to a few formulas' in The Birth of
Tragedy. ['The Birth of Tragedy' (l ), EH, pp. 27Q-l]. One
Schopenhauerian odour which most certainly does not, is that of the
'tragic spirit' leading to 'resignation'. Instead, we find Nietzsche
emphasising the sense of ecstatic affirmation that tragedy engenders:
'How far removed I was from all this resignationism!' ['Attempt at a
Self-Criticism' (6), BT, p. 24].
Infinitely more powerful than this is the Dionysian formula of joy
in existence which Yeats was to fuse so ardently with his own
developing ideas on tragedy. Both he and Nietzsche regard tragedy
as providing 'the metaphysical comfort that beneath the whirl of
phenomena eternal life flows on indestructibly' [BT(l8) pp. l 09-10].
Through tragedy, 'We are really for a brief moment primordial
being itself, feeling its raging desire for existence and joy in
existence' [BT, (17) p. 104]. It is this 'tragic joy' that surges
indestructibly through so many of Yeats's poems and plays,
imparting poetic life to the philosophical thoughts we have already
encountered in his essays, thoughts that so clearly recall the voice of
Friedrich Nietzsche.
Part of the joy that comes from the contemplation of any genuine
tragedy derives from the sense we get
that life is at the bottom of things, despite all the changes of
appearance, indestructibly powerful and pleasurable - this
comfort appears in incarnate clarity in the chorus of satyrs, a

chorus of natural beings who live ineradicably, as it were, behind
all civilization and remain eternally the same, despite the changes
of generations and of the history of nations. . . . [BT (7) p. 59].
Rather than providing Schopenhauerian resignation or Aristotelian

catharsis by purging our emotions through pity and fear,
Nietzschean and Yeatsian tragedy promotes exultation in the midst
of terror. In Twilight of the Idols Nietzsche rages that the spirit of
tragedy is evoked
Not so as to get rid of pity and terror, not so as to purify oneself of

a dangerous emotion through its vehement discharge - it was thus
Aristotle understood it- but, beyond pity and terror, to realize in
oneself the eternal joy of becoming - that joy which also
encompasses joy in destruction.
['What I Owe to the Ancients' (5), TI, p. 110].
In Human, All-too-Human he again doubts Aristotelian catharsis as

being central to tragedy - pity and fear are not life-affirming forces.
And, if they were produced by tragedy, they would be strengthened,
not dissipated, by repetition, a view Plato would well endorse. As
The Will to Power reiterates, if tragedy did produce the 'two
depressive affects, terror and pity', it 'would be an art dangerous to
life',
for that one is 'purged' of these affects through their arousal, as

Aristotle seems to believe, is simply not true .... Something that
habitually arouses terror or pity disorganizes, weakens,
discourages - and supposing Schopenhauer were right that one
should learn resignation from tragedy (i.e., a gentle renunciation
of happiness, hope, will to life), then this would be an art in which
art denies itself. [WP (851) p. 449].
What we find instead is that 'tragedy is a tonic'; 'It is the heroic

spirits who say Yes to themselves in tragic cruelty: they are hard
enough to experience suffering as a pleasure' [WP (851) p. 450]. The
tragic artist displays
fearlessness in the face of the fearsome and questionable....

Bravery and composure in the face of a powerful enemy, great
hardship, a problem that arouses aversion - it is this victorious

condition which the tragic artist singles out, which he glorifies. In
the face of tragedy the warlike in our soul celebrates its
Saturnalias; whoever is accustomed to suffering, whoever seeks
out suffering, the heroic man extols his existence by means of
tragedy - for him alone does the tragic poet pour this draught of
sweetest cruelty.
['Expeditions of an Untimely Man' (24), TI, p. 82].
In Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche urges us to put aside the old idea
that cruelty originates only in the witnessing of suffering in others:
there is also an abundant, over-abundant enjoyment of one's own

suffering, of making oneself surrender - and wherever man
allows himself to be persuaded to self-denial in the religious sense,
or to self-mutilation, as among Phoenicians and ascetics, ... he is
secretly lured and urged onward by . . . the dangerous thrills of
cruelty directed against himself. [BGE (229) p. 140].
Cuchulain in At the Hawk's Well deliberately seeks out those

'eyes of a hawk' [CP/, p. 142/216] from which everyone else flees,
the 'bird, woman, or witch' that brings terror to the Musicians and
the Old Man. Similarly, we find Congal asserting in The Herne's
Egg,
I will come,
Although it be my death, I will come.
Because I am terrified, I will come.
[CP/, p. 422/670].
Yeats has Major Robert Gregory say in 'An Irish Airman
Foresees His Death' :
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above ...
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds....
[CP, p. 152].
And 'So did Tom 0 'Roughley say': 'if my dearest friend were
dead I I'd dance a measure on his grave [CP/, p. 159].
This meeting of death with joy is an attitude emblazoned across so

many of Yeats's works produced after his reading of Nietzsche. In
his essay 'The Philosophy of Shelley's Poetry', put out before his
absorption with Nietzsche, Yeats writes that 'ecstasy is a kind of
death' [IGE, p. 101], but when he comes to 'A General Introduction
for My Work' we find him praising Lady Gregory's remark that
'Tragedy must be a joy to the man who dies' [&/, p. 523], and
lauding Shakespeare's heroes for their 'ecstasy at the approach of
death'. A trim about-face. Death is now a kind of ecstasy, rather
than ecstasy a kind of death. And, in an essay penned during the
years between, he says of Timon and Cleopatra in 'Poetry and
Tradition' of 1907,
their words move us because their sorrow is not their own at

tomb or asp, but for all men's fate. That shaping joy has kept the
sorrow pure, as it had kept it were the emotion love or hate, for
the nobleness of the arts is in the mingling of contraries, the
extremity of sorrow, the extremity of joy, perfection of
personality, the perfection of its surrender, overflowing turbulent
energy, and marmorean stillness. [&/, p. 255].
Such 'emotion of multitude' is a hallmark of Yeatsian tragedy.

In a letter to Dorothy Wellesley of 15 August 1938, writing of On
Baile's Strand, Yeats mentions with satisfaction, ' "Cuchulain"
seemed to me a heroic figure because he was creative joy separated
from fear' [L, p. 913]. And, when the sea overwhelms Cuchulain at
the play's close, there is a definite sense of Dionysian flood engulfing
the heroic individual, as waves vaster than the ego sweep him
beyond the petty world of Blind Man and Fool: 'He has killed kings
and giants, but the waves have mastered him, the waves have
mastered him!' [CP/, p. 182/278]. His unwitting, heroic slaying of
his own son has led to tragic transcendence. His fighting of the
waves is a defiant, reckless gesture, an exaggerated form of that
sprezzatura or recklessness which, Yeats remarks, 'Castiglione
thought necessary in good manners' ['Poetry and Tradition', E&I,
p. 256]. When we divestsprezzatura of the trappings that associate it
with the courtly defiance of the cicisbeo, we see in it the full power
of the heroic gesture as found in Deidre's suicide or Seanchan's fast
to the death.
Ecstatic joy is thus a central part of Yeatsian tragedy, victoriously
transforming pain and terror. In the best tragic drama, Yeats says,
'There may be in this or that detail painful tragedy, but in the whole
work none' ['A General Introduction for My Work', E&I, p. 523].
In 'The Tragic Theatre', Synge's Deidre is described as having
'ascended into that tragic ecstasy which is the best that art- perhaps
that life- can give' [E&/, p. 239].
Tragic joy, Yeats makes clear, is always a profound and powerful
joy that entails ecstasy: tragedy, says 'Estrangement' (xxiv), 'has not
joy, as we understand that word, but ecstasy, which is from the
contemplation of things vaster than the individual' [Auto,
p. 2861471]. To Nietzsche, such joy is prior to and deeper than pain
- prior to because pain is merely the result of the will to joy, which
includes the joy both of creating and of destroying, and is in a higher
sense but a form of joy. Zarathustra sings of 'Joy- deeper still than
grief can be ... But joys all want eternity ... want deep, profound
eternity!' [TSZ (59.3) p. 256]. Again Nietzsche is virtually at one
with Blake, who asks, 'are not different joys I Holy, eternal,
infinite?' [K, p. 197]. Northrop Frye could not be more in error than
when he maintains that 'The absence of joy in Nietzsche's
philosophy would put him on the side of the Angels for Blake.' 12
Nietzsche's perception of the pleasure in pain and his description
of tragedy as a 'draught of sweetest cruelty' would have held much
appeal for Yeats, who found such 'astringent joy' in reading the
German. A letter to Dorothy Wellesley of 6 July 1935 contains the
seeds of that harsh joy with which Yeats infuses 'Lapis Lazuli':
'People much occupied with morality always lose heroic ecstasy....
"Bitter and gay", that is the heroic mood' [L, pp. 836-7]. This
emerges in the poem as Hamlet and Lear are gay; I Gaiety trans-
figuring all that dread' [CP, p. 338]. There is ecstasy in the midst of
their 'tragic play'- Nietzsche's conception of tragedy as a triumph
over the monstrous, a draught of joy in the face of the terrible.
By transfiguring Dionysian energies, Apollinian beauty is able to
carry off the victory over monstrosity. 13 As Yeats's Shepherd tells his
Goatherd, 'rhyme can beat a measure out ot trouble I And make the
daylight sweet once more' [CP, p. 159]. The artifacts of Byzantium
sweep us into the 'artifice of eternity', while in 'Among School
Children' art transfigures the 'fit of grief or rage' [CP, p. 243],
overcoming the apocalyptic view of 'Nineteen Hundred and
Nineteen' with its 'dragon-ridden' days when 'All break and vanish,
and evil gathers head' [CP, pp. 233, 237], or of 'Symbols', with its
All-destroying sword-blade still I Carried by the wandering fool'
[CP, p. 270].
In this unfathomable world where 'emotion of multitude' is the

catchphrase, apocalypse too has its joyous aspect. Tragedy, we have
seen Nietzsche contend again and again, includes 'joy in
destruction', which brings rejuvenation and fresh 'affirmation of
life'. As Yeats wrote to Dorothy Wellesley on 26 July 1935, 'the
supreme aim is an act of faith and reason to make one rejoice in the
midst of tragedy. An impossible aim; yet I think it true that nothing
can injure us' [L, p. 838]. This is the theme of 'The Gyres', where
Hector is dead and there's a light in Troy;

We that look on but laugh in tragic joy.
What matter though numb nightmare ride on top,
And blood and mire the sensitive body stain? ...
What matter? Out of cavern comes a voice,
And all it knows is that one word 'Rejoice!'
[CP, p. 337].
Following 'The Gyres' in the Last Poems is 'Lapis Lazuli', which, as

B. L. Reid mentions, accepts the existence of tragic fact ('All things
fall'), transmutes it ('and are built again'), and then exults in
superiority over it ('And those that build them again are gay'). 14
'What is joy?', asks 'Vacillation', when man must run his course
'Between extremities', 'those antinomies I Of day and night' [CP,
p. 282]. Joy, comes the reply, is that exultant feeling that surfaces
suddenly in the midst of solitary despair when your 'happiness' is
'so great' that you are 'blessed' and can 'bless' [CP, p. 284]. In
section 111 of the poem we meet the exultant embracing of death by
men who come 'Proud, open-eyed and laughing to the tomb' [CP,
p. 283], their attitude a more reckless and ecstatic version of the quiet
heroism in 'Upon a Dying Lady', where the woman's eyes are
'laughter-lit' in the presence of death, ready to meet all 'Who have
lived in joy and laughed into the face of Death' [CP, p. 179].
Zarathustra, consecrator of laughter, who exhorts his 'higher men'
to 'learn to laugh', also laurels those who have 'laughed themselves
to death' [TSZ (52.2) p. 202].
Like the deteriorating Nietzsche who gives the command 'Sing a
new song for me!' to his composer friend Peter Gast ('Peter the
Guest', a name jokingly given by Nietzsche to him at Basle when he
was still the young student Koselitz), Yeats extols song as much as he
does laughter in the face of tragedy:
An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing ....
['Sailing to Byzantium', CP, p. 21 7]
And that 'crazed girl' 'No matter what disaster occurred I She stood
in desperate music wound' [CP, p. 348].
Not, less us stress again, that Nietzsche was the only proponent of
'terrible joy' ever to be encountered by Yeats. The poet found the
'same curious astringent joy' in William Morris, whom he
considered likely to have shared Ruysbroek's determination to
rejoice- as he writes in a letter of 23 December 1936 to Dorothy
Wellesley: 'A Dutch mystic has said "I must rejoyce, I must rejoyce
without ceasing, though the whole world shudder at my joy." ' 15
Yeats goes on to enthuse over Swift's 'fierce indignation' as being 'a
kind of joy', adding, 'We that are joyous need not be afraid to
denounce .... Joy is the salvation of the soul' [L, p. 126].
But the most liberating, most harshly exultant kind of joy he
would have found is surely that imparted by Zarathustra, champion
of the 'spirit of all free spirits, the laughing storm, which bloweth
dust into the eyes of all the melanopic and melancholic' [TSZ(73.20)
pp. 331-2].
WHERE THERE IS NOTHING AND THE DIONYSIAN
Of all Yeats's works, none courses with a torrent of Dionysian

sentiments as furiously as that rather unsubtle early play Where
There Is Nothing. When Paul Ruttledge opens his mouth it is
Nietzsche's voice we hear (albeit dolce voce), which makes it all the
more remarkable that the work was completed before Yeats's initial
enthusiasm with the philosopher - if we are to accept Lady
Gregory's categorical assertion to this effect in a letter to John Quinn
of 9 October 1902: 'Is not the play splendid? I am glad Y had
finished it before your Niedtsche (for which he is very grateful)
came, for it is the more original.' 16 Yeats might of course have read
Nietzsche before the arrival of Quinn's gift in September 1902, and,
as we have seen, would in all probability have been aware of his
work by April 1896, when Havelock Ellis's articles on Nietzsche
appeared beside his own contributions to The Savoy. But be that as it
may, the Nietzschean echoes in Where There Is Nothing are voluble

and many.
Early in Act I, Paul speaks of the loss of that animal nature with
which man had been content before the imposition of civilisation: 'I
think all the people I meet are like farmyard creatures, they have
forgotten their freedom, their human bodies are a disguise' [WTIN,
pp. 21-2]. He wishes 'to escape- as you say, to pick my living like
the crows for a while' [WTIN, pp. 32-3], to merge with the natural.
The wild crows are his 'darlings', 'tossing about like witches, tossing
about on the wind, drunk with the wind' [WTIN, p. 200]. It is this
unfettered naturalness that constitutes the appeal of the tinkers for
him. They ignore man's imposed laws, and he is determined to
pursue life as they do, to the full and with complete abandon: he is
'going to be irresponsible' [WTIN, p. 44]. 'I am going to express
myself in life', he declares [WTIN, pp. 49-50], for 'I am among those
who think that sin and death carne into the world the day Newton
ate the apple' [WTIN, p. 51].
Paul is resolved to tear down what Nietzsche calls 'the rigid,
hostile, barriers that necessity, caprice or "impudent convention"
have fixed between man and man' [BT(l) p. 37]. He would smash all
those societal codes so detested by Blake, who speaks with such
comtempt of 'Temperance, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, the four
pillars oftyranny' [K, p. 414]. The Book ofUrizen regards the 'laws
of prudence' as mere instruments for the ordering of society, which
lent them force by calling them 'the eternal laws of God' [K, p. 233].
Paul wants to move beyond them, to overcome individuation, that
'primal cause of evil' [BT(lO) p. 74], and so find 'The dark, where
there is nothing that is anything, and nobody that is anybody; one
can be free there, where there is nothing' [WTIN, p. 65].
He finds assistance from the god of intoxication in his attempt to
realise this 'feeling of unity leading back to the very heart of nature'
[BT (7) p. 59], a feeling of drunkenness akin both to Dionysus-
worship and to Christianity, especially the Christianity of the Middle
Ages with the dancing crowds of St Vitus and St John. 17 And for
Paul such drunkenness means ecstasy:
I said just now that when we were all dead and in heaven it would
be a sort of drunkenness, a sort of ecstasy. There is a hymn about
it, but it is in Latin. 'Et calix me us inebrians quam praeclarus est'
How splendid is the cup of my drunkenness! [WT/N, p. 95].
Paddy Cockfight shares this desire, one which later shocks prim Mr
Algie, to whom the sentiment appears 'a little violent' [WTIN,
p. 106]. For Paul and Paddy, though, such drunkenness entails
Dionysian excess, that Blakean 'exuberance' which is 'beauty' and
'leads to the palace of wisdom' [WTIN, p. l 07; cf. K, pp. 183, 185],
just as for Nietzsche's Hellene 'Excess revealed itself as truth' [BT(4)
p. 46].
The 'bent and limping' Paul Ruttledge of Act IV effusively
recounts a vision of men and women who
wandered here and there, half blind from the drunkenness of

Eternity; they had not yet forgotten that the green Earth was the
Love of God, . . . and so they wept and laughed and hated
according to the impulse of their hearts. They gathered the green
Earth to their breasts and their lips. . . . [WTJN, p. 156].
He wants to relive that 'drunkenness of Eternity' glimpsed in his

vision, demanding that we 'become blind, and deaf, and dizzy. We
must get rid of everything that is not measureless eternal life'
[WTIN, p. 162]. The Established Church must be destroyed, he
declaims with Nietzschean 'joy in destruction', reiterating his earlier
vision of 'pulling something down', which brought the recognition
that 'When everything was pulled down we would have more room
to get drunk in, to drink contentedly out of the cup of life, out of the
drunken cup of life' [WTJN, pp. 25-6]. He longs for 'the happiness of
men who fight, who are hit and hit back' [WTJN, p. 79], and for the
'music of Paradise', which we have seen him envision as being
made of 'the continual clashing of swords' [WTIN, p. 80].
In these visions of apocalypse Paul encounters a 'terrible wild
beast, with iron teeth and brazen claws that can root up spires and
towers' [WTIN, p. 81]. It is a beast that turns out to be 'Laughter, the
mightiest of the enemies of God' [WTIN, p. 82]; laughter, the
mightiest of the friends of Zarathustra. It is the 'antithetical' 'rough
beast' whose most awesome form we encounter in 'The Second
Coming'. In yet another meditation Paul sees a great number of
unicorns bearing angels, who he says 'laughed aloud, and the
unicorns trampled the ground as though the world were already
falling in pieces'. 18 Theirs is the exultant Nietzschean laughter of
destruction. And even when he is not in the trance of vision Paul
prefers the 'harsh merriment' of the crows to 'those sad cries of the
wind and the rushes' [WTIN, p. 200; cf. TSZ (73.16 ff.), p. 329 ff.].
As he says in imitation of 'a certain saint' (i.e. Ruysbroek), 'I must

rejoice without ceasing, although the world shudder at my joy'
[WTIN, pp. 46-7]. It is not long before he is teaching that 'Death is
the last adventure, the first perfect joy .. .' [WTIN, p. 203].
Time after time we come upon Nietzschean sentiments,
somewhat na!vely phrased though they are: Yeats does not yet speak
with the harsh and febrile accents of his later years. Thus Where
There Is Nothing emerges as an important vehicle for Yeats's view of
the Dionysian- and so for Nietzsche's, whatever shortcomings there
might be in the German's theory of tragedy (such as his postulation
of generals from the specifics perceived in a few extant Greek plays,
his insistence that no tragedian ever seeks to point a moral, his
assertion that pity and fear are never found in tragedy and that they
are always depressing emotions, and his implication that all tragedy
always entails joy in destruction).
Encapsulated in Paul Ruttledge's words are so many of Nietzsche
and Yeats's kindred ideas of Dionysian tragedy as something that
strengthens and affirms, revealing life as fundamentally powerful
and pleasurable. By providing 'the contemplation of things vaster
than the individual', tragedy renders man 'as one' with nature.
Through Dionysian 'intoxication', the 'drowner of dykes', we
transcend the anima hominis and soar beyond the limits of
'character'. The insights gained from Dionysian excess find a
complement in the restraining calm of the sculptor god Apollo, the
shining deity of the dream state, as myth and music reinforce each
other - only to have the dark god of drunkenness shatter the beauty
of Apollinian illusion in the tragic catastrophe. Through tragedy's
'mingling of contraries', we move beyond pity and terror to drink 'a
draught of sweetest cruelty', which allows us to march 'Proud,
open-eyed and laughing to the tomb .... ' [CP, p. 283].
4 Reason, Aesthetics, Art
Our most sacred convictions, the unchanging ele-

ments in our supreme values, are judgments of our
muscles ....
- Nietzsche, The Will to Power (314) p. 17 3.
God guard me from those thoughts men think

In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone ....
-Yeats, 'A Prayer for Old Age' [CP, p. 326].
REASON AND INSTINCf
Friedrich Nietzsche produced in Thus Spake Zarathustra one of the

great anti-rational testaments of the nineteenth century, and the
pummelling to which Socratic ratio is subjected throughout his
writings provided Yeats with vibrant affirmation of his own similar
attitudes to rational thought, further substantiating many of the ideas
he had encountered so vividly in Blake. The celebration of bodily
experience which glows in Yeats's later work occurs very much
with Nietzsche in mind: it is the moment at which 'Nietzsche is
born' that is hailed, in 'The Phases of the Moon,' as the start of the
era when man's 'body moulded from within his body I Grows
comelier', freed from the lashings inflicted by 'the cat-o'-nine-tails of
the mind' [CP, p. 185].
If we are truly to understand ourselves, Nietzsche contends, we
should 'start from the body and employ it as guide. It is the much
richer phenomenon, which allows of clearer observation' [WP (53 2)
p. 289]. We should realise that 'Our most sacred convictions, the
unchanging elements in our supreme values, are judgements of our

muscles' [WP 014) p. 173]. Not that Friedrich Nietzsche was the
first to propose the preferability of the non-rational to the rational.
The important role of the irrational in Western culture was well
recognised by the Greeks (as E. R. Dodds so clearly revealed), and
the tradition continues in modem Greek literature with Nikos
Kazantzakes's Zorba and his dance. 1 Heed the instincts of the body,
is their injunction - one that concurs with Yeats's own growing
views, destined to find their most telling summation in 'A Prayer for
Old Age':
God guard me from those thoughts men think

In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone ....
[CP, p. 326]
We find Yeats writing as early as 18 87 to his school friend

Frederick Gregg, 'The only business of the head in the world is to
bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart' [L, p. 31]. This, however, is
still just an incipient belief expressed in private, a belief not to be
found in the public Yeats of the Innisfree years prior to that 1902
reading of Nietzsche. With his 1906 essay 'Discoveries' comes a
new public stance, a pungency that offsets the 'nineties romanticism
of The Shadowy Waters, produced in the same year. Yeats's
denigration of' reason' had long been brewing, growing up as he did
with his father's distrust of the questioning intellect, and later
absorbing the anti-rational ideas of Blake, Swift, Berkeley, Shelley
and others. Nietzsche's vehemence fanned to a still more savage
blaze the embers of passion which bum to the very end in the later
Yeats, the Yeats we find longing for 'an old man's frenzy'.
Nietzsche signals his attack in his very first book, as The Birth of
Tragedy of 1871 condemns the 'altogether newborn demon ...
Socrates' for the ruin of Greek tragedy through the voice of
Euripides [BT ( 12) p. 82]; he ends it with the collection of notes that
make up The Will to Power, in which 'the Socratic disposition' is
dimissed as 'a phenomenon of decadence' [WP (432) p. 236]. Yet,
while Nietzsche castigates Socrates for his condemnation of instinct,
he does realise that any critique of reason is fraught with irony from
the outset. Since the intellect's 'capacity to know would be revealed
Reason, Aesthetics, Art 65
only in the presence of "true reality", ... we should have to be a

higher being with "absolute knowledge"' to understand it fully, the
notions of 'true reality' and 'absolute knowledge' being
contradictiones in adiecto. Nietzsche argues that our use of the term
'reality' normally covers only our interpretation of the world
through the senses, a group of symbols akin to Yeats's
'phantasmagoria'. Reality, he says, is linked to perspectivity and
Rangordnung (which would imply that he does not equate 'reality'
with the concept of actuality', which is independent of perspectivity
since it does not require observation to 'exist'; Nietzsche denies all
absolutes - thus also absolute 'actuality' - from whatever
perspective, not merely the human). So-called objective philosophies
are for Nietzsche no more than symbolic expressions of the
philosopher's own needs and desires. English philosophers in
particular come under heavy fire - in the first essay of On the
Genealogy of Morals - for their intellectual pride, an attitude Yeats
felt had prompted the rebellious thought of such men as Berkeley
and Swift:
Born in such a community, Berkeley with his belief in perception,

that abstract ideas are mere words, Swift with ... his disbelief in
Newton's system and every sort of machine ... found in England
the opposite that stung their own thought into expression and
made it lucid.
['Bishop Berkeley', E&l, p. 402]
In The Will to Power, 'with the clue of the body' becomes

something of a refrain, as Nietzsche insists that 'one acts perfectly
only when one acts instinctively' [WP (440) p. 243]. But why this
apotheosis of instinct to the detriment of reason, rationality, logic, of
knowledge, even of consciousness and conscious thought
themselves? 'Body am I entirely, and nothing more', Zarathustra
announces to 'The Despisers of the Body', 'and soul is only the
name of something in the body' [TSZ (4) p. 32]. The body, like all
organisms, contains a hierarchy of urges, and the brain is merely
one of these, an organ like any other. One would expect an
instrument to have some effective function, but the mind, Nietzsche
says, turns out to be largely a tool of deception, continually
simplifying - and so falsifying - the environment, in an attempt to
make it intelligible and so to control it. The knowledge it produces is
purely the world 'appropriated and made manageable' [WP (423)
p. 227]. In a world of flux, reason invents 'the lie of unity, the lie of
materiality, of substance, of duration' ['"Reason" in Philosophy' (2),
TI, p. 36]. Mathematics, with its sign conventions, its straight lines
and points, is a particularly falsifying invented fiction. In
'Discoveries', Yeats enthrones art for the very reason that it 'shrinks
from what Blake calls mathematic form, from every abstract thing,
from all that is of the brain only, from all that is not a fountain
jetting from the entire hopes, memories, and sensations of the body'
[E&:J, pp. 292-3].
Among the invented fictions we find William Blake opposing is
the separation, taught by traditional religions, of body and soul. His
Devil in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell argues against this from
the standpoint opposite to Zarathustra's, however: 'Man has no
Body distinct from his Soul; for that call' d Body is a portion of Soul
discern'd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age' [K,
p. 182]. To Blake, man, bereft of his once manifold and more
profound senses, should realise that the most discernible part of the
soul is the body, and that asceticism or denial of the body is quite the
wrong way back to the soul. It is expansion of sensuality that will
extend the soul to its vastness of old. Zarathustra might wince at
mystical talk of the soul in such terms, but would agree that, though
reason might appear superior to imagination incited by bodily
experience, it does so only because we judge it with the biased
limitations of our five senses, which themselves spawned reason,
that superficial interpreter of phenomena which Yeats and Blake
dismiss as 'a drawer of the straight line, the maker of the arbitrary
and the impermanent' [&:/, p. 288]. Under its tyranny, Yeats
complains, contemporary art is preoccupied 'with knowledge, with
the surface of life, with the arbitrary, with mechanism'[&:/, p. 288].
To Nietzsche, logic, 'the conceptual understandability of
existence, ... calms and gives confidence - in short, a certain warm
narrowness that keeps away fear and encloses one in optimistic
horizons' [GS (370) p. 328]. Logic does not look deeply into things,
preferring myopic simplification. Speaking of On Baile's Strand,
Yeats says in a 1904letter to Frank Fay, 'Concobhar is reason that is
blind because it can only reason because it is cold' [L, p. 425]. Logic,
says Nietzsche, blinds us to the illogicality of existence; it is a tool
used in an attempt to master the irrational, to explain the
inexplicable, to communicate the unknowable: 'The world seems
logical to us because we have made it logical' [WP(521) p. 283]. The
tendency
to treat as equal what is merely similar- an illogical tendency, for

nothing is really equal - is what first created any basis for logic
... it was ... necessary that for a long time one did not see nor
perceive the changes in things. The beings that did not see so
precisely had an advantage over those that saw everything 'in
flux'. [GS 011) p. 171]
Man enshrined those errors of the intellect which helped preserve

him, such as his reasoning
that there are enduring things; that there are equal things; that
there are things, substances, bodies; that a thing is what it appears
to be; that our will is free; that what is good for me is also good in
itself.... it was only very late that truth emerged- as the weakest
form of knowledge. [GS ( 11 0) p. 169]
Hence the question in The Gay Science: 'For what purpose, then,
any consciousness at all when it is in the main superfluous?' What
Nietzsche himself terms his 'perhaps extravagant surmise' [GS (354)
p. 297] is that
consciousness has developed only under the pressure of the need
for communication ... the result of a 'must' that for a terribly long
time lorded it over man. As the most engangered animal, he
needed help and protection, he needed his peers, he had to learn to
express his distress and to make himself understood; and for all of
this he needed 'consciousness' first of all, he needed to 'know'
himself what distressed him, he needed to 'know' how he felt, he
needed to 'know' what he thought. ... Man, like every living
being, thinks continually without knowing it; the thinking that
rises to consciousness is only the smallest part of all this - the most
superficial and worst part - for only this conscious thinking takes
the form of words, which is to say signs of communication, and this
fact uncovers the origin of consciousness.... It was only as a
social animal that man acquired self-consciousness. . . . We
simply lack any organ for knowledge, for 'truth': we 'know' (or
believe or imagine) just as much as may be useful in the interests
of the human herd, the species.. . . [GS (354) pp. 298-300]
Truth, in the familiar words of The Will to Power [(493) p. 272], 'is
the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not
live'.
Thought creates arbitrary truth not only in the 'external world',

but also in our 'internal' one:
the 'apparent inner world' is governed by just the same forms and
procedures as the 'outer' world. We never encounter 'facts' ...
'causality' eludes us; to suppose a direct causal link between
thoughts, as logic does- that is the consequence of the crudest and
clumsiest observation. [WP (477) p. 264]
Nietzsche feels that
'Thinking', as epistemologists conceive it, simply does not occur:

it is a quite arbitrary fiction, arrived at by selecting one element
from the process and eliminating all the rest, an artificial
arrangement for the purpose of intelligibility. [WP (477) p. 264]
Far from being a sovereign thinking substance with faculties of its

own, the mind is merely part of a larger process. In itself, 'there
exists neither "spirit", nor reason, nor thinking, nor consciousness,
nor soul, nor will, nor truth' [WP (480) p. 266]. The upshot of
Descartes's argument is, 'There is thinking: therefore there is
something that thinks', which is simply a conclusion arrived at
through following the rules of grammar, which lend a doer to every
deed [WP (484) p. 268]. The necessity for communication produced
language, and we now 'cease to think when we refuse to do so under
the constraint of language. . . . Rational thought is interpretation
according to a scheme that we cannot throw off [WP (522) p. 283].
In Nietzsche's view, reason is thus the offspring of animal need,
expediently conceived. From language with its 'subject', 'predicate',
'object' comes our notion of absolute object or Ding an Sich, of a
'thinking subject' that 'thinks' a 'thought';' "substance", "subject",
"object", "being", "becoming" have nothing to do with meta-
physical truths' [ WP (513) p. 277]. The axioms of logic are but a
means for creating truth and are its yardsticks. Truth is 'the will to
be master over the multiplicity of sensations:- to classify phenom-
ena into definite categories' [WP (517) p. 280]. Logic contains the
criteria not of actual truth (assuming such a thing exists), but of that
which we choose to be real - it is 'an imperative concerning that
which should count as true' [WP (516) p. 279].
Since we clutch at 'that which should count as true', Nietzsche
argues that we do not in fact wish to fathom the actual nature of our
false, cruel, contradictory, senseless world, and experience a conflict

between our surface curiosity and desire to know and our deep-
seated desire to avoid awesome knowledge and to survive - we
think again of The Birth of Tragedy and its antagonism between
science and art. We dare not look too deeply, because,
the more superficially and coarsely it is conceived, the more

valuable, definite, beautiful, and significant the world appears.
The deeper one looks, the more our valuations disappear -
meaninglessness approaches ... one should value more than truth
the force that forms, simplifies, shapes, invents. [WP (602)
p. 326]
Our belief in knowledge is riddled with moral judgements, such as
trust in reason- why not mistrust? the 'true world' is supposed to

be the good world - why? appearance, change, contradiction,
struggle devalued as immoral; desire for a world in which these
things are missing . . . dialectic a way to virtue (in Plato and
Socrates). [WP (578) p. 31 0]
We should realise that the 'lie- and not the truth- is divine' [WP
(lOll) p. 523].
As far as Nietzsche is concerned, trust in reason is largely a moral
phenomenon, and morality has always been 'the Circe of
philosophers' [WP(461) p. 254]. We pursue truth in the moral belief
that it is 'good', in the deluded conviction that reality is intelligible
through reasoning. And yet secretly we do not want to know the
real truth - instinct tells us that certain things are best left unasked.
Life demands illusion; disillusionment drains away the will to live.
This is one of Nietzsche's objections to the Christian conscience,
which he considers to have been 'translated and sublimated into a
scientific conscience, into intellectual cleanliness at any price' [GS
(357) p. 307]. Strive as we might, we can never discover the truth.
Thinkers over the ages have sought happiness and truth with all
their energies, but nature's wicked rule decrees that man will never
find what he feels constrained to seek.
Paradoxically, man's intellect strives not only to uncover truths
best left hidden, but also creates civilisation to keep those dark truths
suppressed, in an attempt to control them. Once the veneer of
civilisation has been fashioned, rational thought proceeds to shatter
it by asking those things 'one does not ask about'. Ironically, it

requires thought to recognise the shortcomings of reason and all that
is not instinctive. Penetration of those things 'one does not ask
about' yields what Yeats calls 'the desolation of reality' in his
apocalyptic 1935 poem, 'Meru' :
Civilisation is hooped together, brought
Under a rule, under the semblance of peace
By manifold illusion; but man's life is thought,
And he, despite his terror, cannot cease
Ravening through century after century,
Ravening, raging, and uprooting that he may come
Into the desolation of reality.
[CP, p. 333]
We see here Nietzsche's view of civilisation as something suspended
'on the back of a tiger', only seemingly under control. And, as
Nietzche adds,
Woe to the fatal curiosity which should once be able to look

through a crack out and down from the chamber of
consciousness, and which should then divine that man rests, with
the unconcern of his ignorance, on the pitiless, the ravenous, the
insatiable, the murderous .... 2
Yet man's 'fatal curiosity' cannot resist 'Ravening, raging, and

uprooting that he may come I Into the desolation of reality'.
As the final pages of The Will to Power keep repeating, it is
wasteful to eradicate our natural passions: they can be channelled
and utilised for undreamed-of achievements, since they are the
stronger, truer aspects of existence. In 'The Statesman's Holiday',
Yeats revives Paul Ruttledge 's call for a return to pristine freedom
from the constraints and artificiality of civilisation, urging the
sloughing off of sophistication and a return to the truer sources of
beauty, to the 'Montenegrin lute' with its 'old sole string' which
makes such 'sweet music'. With the last stanza comes the injuction
to return to the natural innocence of children, to the naked self
divested of society's restricting finery, to primitive crime, to the
instinctiveness of animals, as the poet goes forth
With boys and girls about him,
With any sort of clothes,
With a hat out of fashion,

With old patched shoes,
With a ragged bandit cloak,
With an eye like a hawk,
With a stiff straight back,
With a strutting turkey walk,
With a bag full of pennies,
With a monkey on a chain,
With a great cock's feather,
With an old foul tune.
Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon.
[CP, p. 390]
Like civilisation, consciousness pertains to peripheries; the

instinct of the passions is far deeper, since it is not so dependent on
the surface appearance of action, its 'surface and skin- which, like
every skin, betrays something but conceals still more' ['The Free
Spirit' (32) BGE, p. 45] The world we perceive consists of layers of
illusion and appearance, each false in relation to the next. Not even
the final layer, Nietzsche contends, is 'true being'. All is relativity
and flux. Thoughts, feelings, ideas only appear to occur in a causal
sequence, and 'Upon this appearance we have founded our whole
idea of spirit, reason, logic, etc. ( - none of these exists: they are
fictitious syntheses and unities), and projected these into things and
behind things!' [WP (524) p. 284].
We do not know what motivates our actions, because we as
conscious, purposeful creatures are only a small part of the forces
that constitute us. The conscious mind is simply the tool of a vaster
comprehensive intellect contained within the entire body, and we
should learn not to take responsibility for ourselves, since we can
never know or control our motives. There is no freedom of will and
no strictly conscious motivation; the mainsprings of action remain
unconscious:
Cause and effect: such a duality probably never exists; in truth we

are confronted by a continuum out of which we isolate a couple
of pieces, just as we perceive motion only as isolated points and
then infer it without ever actually seeing it. [GS ( 112) p. 17 3]
We have no right, Nietzsche insists, to posit consciousness as the

aim and wherefore of the total phenomenon of life [cf. WP (707)

pp. 375-6]. The mind cannot know itself with immediate certainty,
and we should approach the self through the body instead, so
gaining
the correct idea of the nature of our subject-unity, namely as

regents at the head of a communality (not as 'souls' or 'life-
forces'), also of the dependence of these regents upon the ruled
and of an order of rank and division of labour as the conditions
that make possible the whole and its parts. . . . The relative
ignorance in which the regent is kept concerning individual
activities . . . is among the conditions under which rule can be
exercised. In short, we also gain a valuation of not-knowing, of
seeing things on a broad scale, of simplification and falsification,
of perspectivity ... we understand that the ruler and his subjects
are ofthe same kind, all feeling, willing, thinking.... [WP(492)
p. 271]
Hence Nietzsche's insistence that passions should be cultivated, not

rooted out. 'Domination of the passions, not their weakening or
extirpation!' proclaims The Will to Power [(933) p. 492]; 'passion is
to me the essential', comes an echo in a letter by Yeats to Hone of 14
February 1932 [L, p. 791], and 'Passions, because most living, are
most holy', comes another in 'William Blake and the Imagination'
[&/, p. 113]. 'ALL UFE IS HOLY', Blake had proclaimed[' Annotations
to l.avater's Aphorisms on Man', K, p. 717]. Reason is an instrument
of passion, a portion of it, not the controlling mover in human
nature. The brain is at most just a centralising apparatus. Nietzsche
does realise, though, that his belief in the trustworthiness of
sensuality may be nothing more than mere belief: 'We want to hold
fast to our senses and to our faith in them - and think their
consequences through to the end! The nonsensuality of philosophy
hitherto as the greatest nonsensicality of man' [WP (1046) p. 538].
Instinct is, paradoxically, more dependable than reason largely
because it is something subsequent to reason, a refinement of it. All
urges, Nietzsche says, have been learned, they are the result of long-
fostered valuations which have become instinctive. Instinct is a
product resulting from lengthy repetition of similar activities and
decisions which have become unconscious automatism - a worthy
instance of abeunt studia in mores. Nietzsche's demand in The Anti-
Christ for the 'complete automatism of instinct' produces this

pensive note in the margin of Yeats's copy of Common: 'Were the
bodily functions like that of the pulse once conscious?' [C, p. 133].
Yeats has obviously been struck by Nietzsche's hypothesis that
consciousness might be the primitive beginning and uncon-
sciousness the end, rather than the other way round, as Hegel would
argue, since conscious actions have over the millennia become
automatic and instinctive. The oldest judgements (usually perforce
false to ensure survival) shape all incoming experience, lending new
perception to old ways. We should not forget, though, that, having
developed over such an extended period of time, instinct's hidden
past does also render it open to suspicion.
Many of these Nietzschean views had already been discovered by
Yeats in Blake, who had in turn learned from Jacob Boehme and
others. 'By the reason', Yeats says of Blake, 'he meant deductions
from the observations of the senses' [&/, p. 112]; in The Will to
Power we find the same contention that reason 'evolved on a
sensualistic basis, on the prejudices of the senses, i.e., in the belief in
the truth of the judgments of the senses' [WP (581) p. 312]. As for
man knowing what it is that motivates him, Yeats shares Nietzsche's
dislike of George Eliot because, as we read in an 1887 letter to
Gregg, 'she knows nothing of the dim unconscious nature, the
world of instinct, which (if there is any truth in Darwin) is the
accumulated wisdom of all living things from the monera to man'
[L, p. 31]. Consciousness, says Nietzsche, is an accident of
experience and makes up 'only one state of our spiritual and psychic
world' [GS (357) p. 305]. As Yeats writes in 'Certain Noble Plays of
Japan', we should 'only believe in those thoughts which have been
conceived not in the brain but in the whole body' [E&J, p. 235].
Nietzsche feels that to demand abstract reasons for actions is to
upset the sureness of instinct. Whereas consciousness deliberates
and vacillates, instinct acts without restraint and insists that one
leave certain things unasked. One feels and acts; to reason 'why' is
fruitless speculation, wasted commentary on a hidden, unknowable
text - as the ringing opening lines of Yeats's 'Autumn of the Flesh'
concur: 'Our thoughts and emotions are often but spray flung up
from hidden tides that follow a moon no eye can see'[&/, p. 189].
A letter from Yeats to the mystic artist W. T. Horton of 5 May 1896
(a month after Havelock Ellis's Nietzsche article in The Savoy),
speaks of the rational intellect as something which merely 'clears the
rubbish from the mouth of the sybil's cave but it is not the sybil' [L,
p. 262]. It is action, not deliberation, that matters in Nietzsche and

Yeats, and the poet explains Hamlet's inaction as resulting from the
'hesitations of thought . . . outside that he is a mediaeval man of
action' [B, pp. 33-4]. Macbeth speaks of 'the pauser, reason', Blake
of Reason 'the Restrainer'. And, as we know, Blake regards all
restraint as undesirable: 'Accident is the omission of act in self & the
hindering of act in another; This is Vice, but all Act is Virtue' [K,
p. 735]. And all worthwhile action is directed not by the dictates of
moral virtue, but by the god within man, his own inner energies.
'Jesus', says a Devil in The Marriage, 'was all virtue, and acted from
impulse, not from rules' [K, p. 191].
In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche argues that in the prehistoric
'pre-moral' era of mankind, when the imperative 'know thyself!'
was still unknown, actions came into consideration as little as did
their motives and origins- only their consequences mattered. Man's
first attempt at knowing himself and ascribing motives appeared
during the 'moral' period, when he started believing that the value
of an action resided in the value of the intention behind it. Today we
ought to stand on the threshold of the 'extra-moral' period, with the
belief that 'the decisive value of an action resides in precisely that
which is not intentional in it' [BGE(32) p. 45]. Its unconscious source
is far the stronger. In Common's anthology, Yeats underlined
Nietzsche's remark, also in Beyond Good and Evil, that 'designations
of moral worth everywhere were at first applied to men, and were
only derivatively and at a later period applied to actions' [C, p. 109].
Shortly before reading this, Yeats had warned in his 1901 essay 'At
Stratford-on-Avon' against judging a man by his actions:
you cannot know a man from his actions because you cannot
watch him in every kind of circumstance .... Because reason can
only discover completely the use of those obvious actions which
everybody admires, and because every character was to be judged
by efficiency in action, Shakespearian criticism became a vulgar
worshipper of success. [E&/, p. 103]
By 'Samhaim: 1904' Yeats is giving definite resonance to the

underlined Nietzschean remark on action and morality: 'We will be
more interested in heroic men than in heroic actions, and will have a
little distrust for everything that can be called good or bad in itself
with a very confident heart' [Expl, p. 162]. (Nietzsche had gone on to
state that designations of 'good' and 'evil' depend purely on who is
making the assessment, a man with a master-morality point of view,
or one with a slave.)
Attacks on rationality are legion and ancient. But in Nietzsche the
diatribe against the tyranny of reason burns anew with particularly
vitriolic fervour. Nietzsche completely overwhelms the more
restrained anti-rational views of such fellow-countrymen of his as
Kant, whose Practical Reason entails a non-rational (but moral)
intuition, reminding rationalists that man is foremost a sentient
being; Schopenhauer, who provides a less religious view of a non-
rational impulse which takes its cue from instinct; and Fichte, who
also places action well above abstractions. For Nietzsche, reason
commits the crime of impeding life, a sentiment Yeats voices in a
diary entry of 1910 which complains that 'reason is the stopping of
the pendulum, a kind of death'. 9 He expressed this again in a note to
'The Dolls', writing that 'all thought among us is frozen into
"something other than human life" ' [VP, p. 820]. For him,
The fascination of what's difficult

Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart.
[CP, p. 104]
'Thought kills action', as Nietzsche says in a phrase that crystallises

his myriad views of the enmity between life and thought, views
which now call for consolidation and further exposition of their
presence in Yeats.
Nietzsche's revolution in the realm of psychological tradition
deposes the tyrant ratio and sets up man's unconscious urges as the
genuine rulers of character and conduct. The self is identified not
only with what we might term our 'stream of consciousness', but
also with a hierarchy of different urges each playing its part.
Consciousness is a minion of the ruling oligarchy, and has no access
to infallible, absolute truth - which in any case does not exist. Soul
and body are thus not intrinsically antithetical, and are both related
to sensation and internal instinct. The general course of traditional
philosophy before Nietzsche had assumed increasing consciousness
to be more desirable than unconscious impulse; rationality as
Nietzsche conceives of it is an invention far removed from natural
life which attempts to explain in arbitrary sign-language something
which is probably unknowable. Constantly falsifying and

generalising, it fallaciously interprets chaos and flux as stability and
permanence. Consciousness was evolved as language by social
beings desperate to communicate with each other and with the
external world, and conscious thought now operates only within the
structure of language, illuminating our common 'herd' nature, and
is something entirely perspectival, rounding off data, exaggerating,
eliminating, ignoring, arranging.
Since Nietzsche feels that consciousness has little to do with the
genuine motives of action, he insists that it is on our unconscious
urges that we should rely. To create a thoroughly instinctive
tradition, we need to cast out consciousness altogether. To erect
consciousness as the foundation of conduct is fallacious: right
knowledge cannot spontaneously produce right action. The Socratic
postulation that 'virtue is knowledge' results in the exposure of
illusion necessary to survival, which means that the notion of reason
being a virtue is not reasonable. Rationalisation is simply the
invention of specious reasons for what we do on impulse, an attempt
by logic to explain the illogical. The strong are usually less prudent
than the weak, who are compelled to develop their cunning and
intelligence to compensate for their inability to act decisively and
spontaneously.
Above all, conscious thought kills action:
Conscious sensation is sensation of sensation; likewise conscious

judging contains the judgment that judging is taking place. The
intellect without this redoubling is unknown to us, naturally....
Consciousness always contains a double reflection - there is
nothing immediate.
. . . thoughts appear to us; apperception, the reflection of the
process in the process, is only a comparative exception (perhaps a
refraction by contrast). 4
This finds poetic enunciation in 'The Statues', where
Empty eyeballs knew

That knowledge increases unreality, that
Mirror on mirror mirrored is all the show.
[CP, p. 375]
The Birth of Tragedy relates that Euripides, whose Socratic plays

Nietzsche holds responsible for the 'suicide' of Greek tragedy, 'has
been punished by being changed into a dragon by the art critics of all
ages' [BT (12) p. 82]. In his Michael Robartes and the Dancer
anthology of 1921, Yeats depicts rational thought itself, not merely
its proponent, as a dragon which denies self-forgetfulness and self-
satisfaction to the woman of the title poem. The altar-piece's man-of-
action knight who 'loved the lady' has thrust the dragon with his
sword,
and it's plain

The half-dead dragon was her thought,
That every morning rose again
And dug its claws and shrieked and fought.
[CP, p. 197]
The woman is like Titania looking with loathing on Bottom's ass-

head by the harsh light of day, and if she were to 'turn her eyes ...
upon the glass', turn to the cult of the body and not trust in her
rational mind alone, she 'on the instant would grow wise' - wise
with Dionysian wisdom. The woman of 'Her Triumph' 'did
the dragon's will' because she 'had fancied love a
casual I Improvisation', until her lover 'broke the chain' and 'set
my ankles free' [CP, p. 310].
There is much in this, too, of Blake's Reason the Restrainer, the
opponent of Imagination or Energy or Desire. Prudence, that 'rich,
ugly old maid courted by Incapacity' [K, p. 183], frustrates;
prodigious enactment of desire fulfils - as we see from 'the
lineaments of Gratified Desire' on the faces of whores. We should
strive for 'an improvement of sensual enjoyment' [K, p. 187],
indulgence our watchword:
Abstinence sows sand all over

The ruddy limbs & flaming hair,
But Desire Gratified
Plants fruits of life & beauty there.
[K, p. 99]
For Blake, as for Nietzsche and the Yeats of the Michael Robartes
poems, bodily experiences are far richer than cerebral pursuits -
For what mere book can grant a knowledge

With an impassioned gravity
Appropriate to that beating breast,
That vigorous thigh, that dreaming eye?
[CP, p. 197]
Women seem more able than men to escape 'from all that is of the
brain only', and, says the 'He' of 'Michael Robartes', 'Uve in
uncomposite blessedness, I And lead us to the like' [CP, p. 198].
From this point 'body' opposes 'thought' with ever-increasing
vigour in Yeats's poetry, spurred by the images of Michelangelo
which
disclose
How sinew that has been pulled tight,
Or it may be loosened in repose,
Can rule by supernatural right
Yet be but sinew
so that the 'wretched dragon is perplexed' [CP, p. 198].

Yeats does question the validity of thought well before the
Robartes poems, but without championing the body to the extent
that he does in his later work. In 'The Dawn' of 1919, he 'would be
- for no knowledge is worth a straw - I Ignorant and wanton as the
dawn' [CP, p. 164], full of the instinct that looks down on 'the
withered men' of 'pedantic Babylon'; in 'The Fisherman', he cries
that he will write a poem 'as cold I And passionate as the dawn'
[CP, p. 167]. It is in this group of poems from The Wild Swans of
Coole that we first come across Yeats positively celebrating
'ignorance' and 'passion', as the Shepherd sings to the Goatherd of
the bliss that comes with 'All knowledge lost in trance I Of sweeter
ignorance' [CP, p. 163]. By the 'Crazy Jane' poems of 1933, the body
has become an even more obsessive subject, though generally as a
preference to the world of the spirit rather than thought. Here the
Bishop, 'an old book in his fist' [CP, p. 290], cries that Jane and her
'dear Jack' had 'lived like beast and beast' in their pursuit of erotic
ecstasy. 'Great Europa played the fool I That changed a lover for a
bull', says a 'reproved' Jane [CP, p. 291]. Though abused like a well-
travelled road, her 'body makes no moan I But sings on' [CP,
p. 294]. Bodily passion has taught her that 'fair needs foul'.
'A Prayer for Old Age', one of the 1935 poems From 'A Full
Moon in March', is another stormy insistence on passion and the
value of non-cerebral wisdom derived from sensuality, ending with
a longing that the poet 'may seem, though I die old, I A foolish,
passionate man' [CP, p. 326]. In the Last Poems he urges in 'An
Acres of Grass',
Here at life's end ...

Grant me an old man's frenzy ...
A mind Michael Angelo knew
That can pierce the clouds,
Or inspired by frenzy
Shake the dead in their shrouds;
Forgotten else by mankind,
An old man's eagle mind.
[CP, p. 347]
The marrow-bone wisdom of the Dionysian reveller is seen as far

superior to the abstract wisdom of the Socratic philosopher. In 'The
Statues', the numbers of Pythagoras 'lacked character'; but boys and
girls knew
That passion could bring character enough,

And pressed at midnight in some public place
Live lips upon a plummet-measured face
fusing the qualities of Dionysus and the sculptor god [CP, p. 375].
We are reminded here of Nietzsche's pondering in The Will to Power
[(1050) p. 540] 'why the Dionysian Greek needed to become
Apollinian: that is, to break his will to the terrible, multifarious,
uncertain, frightful, upon a will to measure, to simplicity, to
submission to rule and concept'. Yeats echoes this further in On the
Boiler [p. 37]:
Europe was not born when Greek galleys defeated the Persian
hordes at Salamis, but when the Doric studios sent out those
broad-backed marble statues against the multiform, vague,
expressive Asiatic sea, they gave to the sexual instinct of Europe
its goal, its fixed type.
'Measurement' does have its attractions, and Nietzsche does regard

the beauty it bestows as an Apollinian 'victory' over the 'disorderly
Asiatic' from which the cultured Hellene sprang [WP ( 1050) p. 540].
But the taming results of Apollo's 'measured restraint' can, though,
be stultifying, requiring the rejuvenating qualities of Dionysus.
Yeats had long sensed the conflicting impulses in man which he
found Nietzsche addressing by the names of Apollo and Dionysus.
On 14 May 1903, amid his early excitement over the German, he
wrote to AE of how 'Long ago I used to define to myself these two
influences as the Transfiguration on the Mountain and the
Incarnation', writing the next day to Quinn that 'I have always felt
that the soul has two movements primarily: one to transcend forms,
and the other to create forms', going on to cite Nietzsche explicitly
[L, pp. 402-3]. Mindful though Yeats is of Apollo's considerable
charms, it is the passionate Dionysus whose spirit presides over the
later poems, primarily as the enemy of the desiccation that is the
legacy of thinking in the mind alone. Yeats's exultant enthroning of
the passions reaches Nietzsche-pitch in 'News for the Delphic
Oracle', where the cerebral Pythagoras sighs amid his choir of love'
and Plotinus lies 'sighing like the rest' in a sensual, physical
Hereafter. From 'Pan's cavern' appear 'foul goat-head, brutal arm';
Belly, shoulder, bum,

Flash fishlike; nymphs and satyrs
Copulate in the foam
as they revel in complete passional abandon, disciples in Paradise of

Dionysus [CP, p. 377].
We should not forget, however, that though man's intellect is
subordinated to the body by Nietzsche and Yeats it is certainly not
entirely excluded - one of their most cherished themes is that of the
'complete' man, as our remarks on the hero will illustrate more
fully. Just as Yeats longs for the fusion of 'life' and 'mind' in a
'lasting song' beyond men thinking 'in the mind alone' [CP, p. 326],
so Zarathustra is among literature's most enthusiastic proponents of
the marriage between 'thought' and 'dance'. Blake, too, insists on
the inclusion of reason as one of the 'contraries' needed for
'progression': 'Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love
and Hate, are necessary to Human existence' [K, p. 181]. He
advocates an harmonious, but dynamic, organisation of man's good
and evil qualities. Commenting on Lavater's Aphorisms he asks, 'if
man is consider'd as only evil & god only good, how then is
regeneration effected which turns the evil to good? by casting out
the evil by the good?' [K, p. 724].
'To be classical', Nietzsche says in The Will to Power [(848)
p. 446], 'one must possess all the strong, seemingly contradictory
gifts and desires - but in such a way that they go together beneath
one yoke'. Man yearns to become 'whole', in the manner of
Goethe's self-formulation: 'What he aspired to was totality; he
strove against the separation of reason, sensuality, feeling, will ... ;
he disciplined himself to a whole, he created himself ... '
['Expeditions of an Untimely Man' (49), TI, p. 102]. Attainment of
this state requires the mutual loyalty of all urges within the body, as
is the case with any biological organism. The 'synthetic', composite
man encompasses the full spectrum of human traits, uniting his most
opposing qualities. And the greatest power, Nietzsche says, is that
over opposites. We should thus seek to nourish all our drives, not
eradicate some at the expense of others:
In contrast to the animals, man has cultivated an abundance of

contrary drives and impulses within himself: thanks to this
synthesis, he is master of the earth.... The highest man would
have the greatest multiplicity of drives. [WP (966) pp. 506-7]
Nietzsche admires in particular the Greek model of the composite

man who strives for the fusion of living, thinking, seeming and
willing, and this is the creature that comes to preoccupy Yeats as
well, especially in the years after The Wild Swans of Coole - though
his formulation of him is already there in part in 'Discoveries' of
1906, where he rejoices in 'the whole man - blood, imagination,
intellect, running together'[&/, p. 266] and recommends that 'we
should ascend out of common interests, the thoughts of the
newspapers, of the market-place, of men of science, but only so far
as we can carry the normal, passionate, reasoning self, the
personality as a whole'[&/, p. 272].
Nietzsche describes man in Beyond Good and Evil as a mixture of
creature and creator. In man there is 'matter, fragment, excess, clay,
mud, madness, chaos; but in man there is also creator, sculptor, the
hardness of the hammer, the divine spectator and the seventh day'
[BG(225) p. 136]. Yeats incorporates this view of man into A Vision
and the later plays and poems, as when Crazy Jane tells the Bishop
that
'Fair and foul are near of kin,

And fair needs foul ...
a truth ...
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart's pride .
. . . Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.'
[CP, p. 294-5]
Recalling also Blake's line from Jerusalem, 'I will make their places
of Joy and love excrementations', Jane's words point to the
multiplicity of man, which is such an important aspect of Yeats's
world of contraries and conflict. And it is man's inner struggle
between self and soul and heart and mind that comes to occupy an
ever-larger volume of Yeats's work as the years pass.
SELF AND SOUL
In 'Pages from a Diary Written in 19 30' (xxi) Yeats writes,
I am always, in all I do, driven to a moment which is the

realisation of myself as unique and free, or to a moment which is
the surrender to God of all that I am. . . . Could those two
impulses, one as much a part of truth as the other, be reconciled,
or if one or the other could prevail, all life would cease. [Expl,
p. 305]
Just as there is conflict between the body and the rational mind, so
there is conflict between man's desire for bodily experience and his
desire for a transcendence of blood and flesh through 'surrender to
God' -the impulse of the soul towards spirituality and denial of the
physical. Since 'all life would cease' without this combat between
Apollinian desire for assertion of the self and Dionysian longing for
self-oblivion, their union in the coveted state of unity of being can
occur only beyond the realm of this world. On earth they are in
unremitting antagonism, a theme shared by many of the 1932
Winding Stair poems, including those on Crazy Jane. Four years

earlier, the sinewy Tower poems had acknowledged only the claims
of the body as desirable, bludgeoning the intellect with the
truncheon of sensuality. Rationality held no attraction, and it was
roundly beaten in its battle with the body. Mystical spirituality is less
easily countered - though in this battle too it is ultimately the self
that wins Yeats's favour. Never altogether free of mysticism, the
emphasis of Yeats's mature work is none the less most decidedly on
life and all the natural shocks that flesh is heir to.
The first text in The Winding Stair crucial to this conflict is 'A
Dialogue of Self and Soul', in which the self puts the case for
temporal man, who casts out remorse for 'the crime of death and
birth', content with the 'ignominy' and 'distress' of blood and bone.
His impulse is not to 'escape' from the 'wintry blast', but 'to
pitch I Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch' and be 'blest by
everything' [CP, p. 267]. The soul speaks for the man who 'ascends
to Heaven', climbing the winding stair to a state beyond the
antinomies of day and night (and so beyond life), where he might
find unity of mind, 'For intellect no longer knows I Is from the
Ought, or Knower from the Known' [CP, p. 266].
In 'Blood and the Moon', 'power' and 'wisdom' are in an
opposition akin to that of self and soul: power, 'Like everything that
has the stain of blood', is seen as 'a property of the living' ; 'wisdom
is the property of the dead, I A something incompatible with life'
[CP, p. 269]. 'Oil and Blood' sets the 'Miraculous oil' and 'odour of
violet' excluded by 'holy men and women' against 'vampires full of
blood' [CP, p. 270]; 'Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931' speaks of water
as 'the generated soul' [CP, p. 275] while 'the swan drifts upon a
darkening flood' [CP, p. 276]. A religious text proves to the flesh-
and-blood woman of 'For Anne Gregory'
That only God, my dear,

Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.
[CP, p. 277]
'The Choice' meditates the problem of choosing 'Perfection of the

life, or of the work' [CP, p. 278], and 'Byzantium' suggests an
alignment between deathless soul and deathless art, as a
'superhuman' 'starlit ... or moonlit dome disdains' the self and
All that man is,

All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins
[CP, p. 280]
-Nietzsche's 'matter, fragment, excess, clay, mud, madness, chaos'

[BGE (225) p. 136]. The poem's golden bird scorns 'in glory of
changeless metal' 'all complexities of mire or blood', and the 'flames
begotten of flame' oppose the 'blood-begotten spirits' [CP, p. 281].
And so the opposition of self and soul is advanced by various
symbols throughout The Winding Stair: day and night, earth and
heaven, sun and moon. The self is represented by 'Sato's ancient
blade', flowers, Homer, the Fool, dolphins, gongs, spilt milk; the
soul is suggested by the stars, a 'winding ancient stair', Plato, a
hermit, salvation.
We find much of this symbolism taking root in the jottings Yeats
made while reading Common's Nietzsche. Next to a passage from
On the Genealogy of Morals describing master and slave moralities,
we find the following germs of Yeats's system:
Night \Socrates/ one god night - denial of self in

Christ the soul turned towards
spirit, seeking knowledge.
Day many day - affirmation of self,
gods the soul turned from spirit
to be its mask and
instrument when it seeks
life.
[C, p. 122]
These musings surface again in a letter to Olivia Shakespear of 13

July 1933 with this comment on history: 'History is very simple-
the rule of the many, then the rule of the few, day and night, night
and day for ever' [L, p. 812]. A letter to his actress friend Florence
Farr written much earlier (c. 1906, within a few years of his
annotations in Common) indicates the poet's growing bias for 'life':
I have myself by the by begun eastern meditations - of your sort,

but with the object of trying to lay hands upon some dynamic and
substantialising force as distinguished from the eastern quiescent
and supersensualizing state of the soul - a movement downwards

upon life, not upwards out of life. [L, p. 469]
In 'Vacillation', the self- the soul's mask 'when it seeks life'-

speaks as 'The Heart', asking, 'What theme had Homer but original
sin?' [CP, p. 285]. For Yeats, 'Homer is my example and his
unchristened heart' [CP, p. 286], and he refers to Homer more and
more after that first association of him with 'affirmation of self in
his note in Common. And just as Homer emerges as the ultimate
model of the subjective artist for Yeats, so he does for Nietzsche,
who sets him up as a 'monument' to the 'complete victory of
Apollinian illusion', an 'unutterably sublime ... individual being',
the supreme 'naive artist' [BT (3) p. 44]. Homer is the champion of
the self, whose attractions are considerable - but so are those of the
soul, the choice between them a cruel one. 'The Grey Rock' presents
a Blakean situation where 'Eternity is in love with the productions
of Time', as the love of a supernatural being for a natural man
evokes the painful question 'Why must the lasting love what
passes, I Why are the gods by men betrayed?' [CP, p. 118]. The
woman of 'The Two Kings' agonises over the lure of a wooer who is
a being not of the natural world, eventually rejecting him with the
argument that she will never believe that
there is any change

Can blot out of my memory this life
Sweetened by death, but if I could believe,
That were a double hunger in my lips
For what is doubly brief....
[CP, p. 509]
The vacillating woman of 'The Three Bushes' from the Last Poems
of 1936 to 1939 desires her lover, 'Yet what could I but drop down
dead I If I lost my chastity?' [CP, p. 341]. She would love him 'with
her soul'; the chambermaid can provide the flesh.
To the artist of the 'individual being', it is ultimately the self
which emerges as preferable to the soul, bodily power superior to
intellectual or spiritual wisdom: 'Bodily decrepitude is wisdom;
young I We loved each other and were ignorant' ['After Long
Silence', CP, p. 301]. The self wins the day in Yeats, bringing
assertion of the individual as opposed to his self-effacement which
comes with submission to God. While such submission is a form of

the Dionysian, it misses the ecstasy and excess so vital to that more
vigorous kind of Dionysian trance and insight central to tragedy.
Yeats considers the Christian form of submission a restraint, that
Blakean vice which Nietzsche so despises as an element of slave
morality with its quality of ressentiment. Nietzsche's condemnation
of this kind of morality brings these comments from Yeats in
Common: 'Nietzsche{:] he opposes organisation from resentment-
denial[-] to organisation from power- affirmation' [C, p. 129]. The
note goes on to express some doubts as to the completeness of
Nietzsche's structure, if not actually to condemn master morality:
'Yet his system seems to lack some reason why the self must give to
the selfless or weak or itself perish - or suffer diminution - the self
being the end.'
The longed-for wedding of the opposing impulses of self and soul
is symbolised in 'Vacillation' by a tree 'that from its topmost
bough I Is half all glittering flame and half all green' [CP, p. 282].
This suggests ideal unity of being where spirit and matter, God and
man, soul and body, timeless and temporal, chance and choice,
combine. It is a condition of complete 'harmony' [V, p. 214], and
harmony is one of Nietzsche's greatest (and most overlooked) goals:
perfection and wholeness - Ganzheit - are among the highest aims
he sets mankind. Yeats provides another tree-image to suggest
wholeness in the final stanza of 'Among School Children'. The
poem has presented three different kinds of labour. In stanza 1 we see
how
... children learn to cipher and to sing,

To study reading-books and histories,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way ...
[CP, pp. 242-3]
In the fifth stanza Yeats presents a mother in labour:
What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap

Honey of generation had betrayed,
And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape ...
[CP, p. 244]
In stanza VI we find philosophers with their intellectual endeavours

to interpret the world, labours which turn them into 'Old clothes
upon sticks to scare a bird.' Then in the last stanza Yeats suggests an
ideal of labour as a fusion of all man's energies, including the effort
to find a love that is both physically and spiritually fulfilling:
Labour is blossoming or dancing where

The body is not bruised to pleasure soul,
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
0 chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
0 body swayed to music, 0 brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
[CP, pp. 244-5]
While Nietzsche's harmony is a kinetic one to be realised in the

corporeal world, Yeats's unity of being can occur only with the
cessation of dynamism and so of life, far beyond the sublunary
world. Yeats, with his Irish heritage of goblins and fairies, conveys
an eagerness for the supernatural not found in Nietzsche. As Louis
MacNeice suggests, 'Leda and the Swan' points to Yeats's
conviction - and Nietzsche tirelessly stresses the fallibility of
'conviction' and 'belief, as in The Gay Science (296, 344, 347) and
Human, All-too-Human (629-37) - that the eternal or heavenly
(Zeus as the swan) needs the temporal or earthly (Leda), and that
man (Leda) needs beast (the swan), that soul needs self. 5
Associated with the conflict of self and soul, the temporal and the
timeless, the natural and the supernatural, is the ceaseless opposition
of becoming and being. In The Will to Power Nietzsche dismisses as
'false conclusions' all arguments which state 'this world is a world
of becoming: consequently there is a world of being' [WP (579)
pp. 31 o-11 ]. He regards as 'ambiguous' the question of whether the
cause of creation has been 'the desire for rigidity, eternity, "being"',
or rather 'the desire for destruction, for change, for becoming' [WP
(846) p. 446]. That he raises the question at all points to it as a
discernible preoccupation of mankind, and Nietzsche himself
declares (though symbolically) that 'Higher than "thou shalt" is "I
will" (the heroes); higher than "I will" stands: "I am" (the gods of
the Greeks)' [WP (940) p. 495].
The main thrust of Nietzsche's work is, of course, undoubtedly in
favour of becoming over being - and, whatever mutations Yeats

might have subjected Nietzsche to, the philosopher did feed the
poet's appetite for the physical hie et nunc: Yeats's early poetry
swirls about in a dream-world with the wind whispering among the
reeds and roses beside shadowy waters, though the poet's painful
awareness of great universal antinomies is registered already in
works like The Wanderings of Oisin (1889). We should not forget
that Yeats might indeed have read some Nietzsche during those
years, even if it was not until 1902 that he was thoroughly ensnared.
With Responsibilities of 1914 comes the assertion that 'sword-
strokes were better meant I Than lover's music' ['The Grey Rock',
CP, p. 119]. It is an increased hardness we have noted before. But it
is an emphasis on the physical not made without the sanction of the
dream-world: 'In dreams', runs the epigraph to the collection,
'begins responsibility.' As Yeats had scrawled in his copy of
Common [p. 117],
the night - knowledge - inaction

in the night - dreams
from dreams the day[']s work
the day - power - action
He continues the thoughts thrown up in this annotation in 'Gods

and Fighting Men' (vi) of 1904, developing further the dialectic so
germane to his work:
It sometimes seems as if there is a kind of day and night of

religion, and that a period when the influences are those that
shape the world is followed by a period when the greater power is
in influences that would lure the soul out of the world, out of the
body. [Expl, p. 24]
Plato would remove 'true reality' and value from the world of the
senses to one of ideal forms, and so offers a kind of night religion
according to Yeats's formulation, falling into the same category as
Christianity. Nietzsche regards Christianity as 'Platonism for the
masses', complaining about the destruction of the body entailed in
'Stoic self-hardening, Platonic slander of the senses, preparation of
the soil for Christianity' [WP (427) p. 232]. A Vision [p. 271] has the
echoing complaint that when Plato 'separates the Eternal Ideas from
Nature and shows them self-sustained he prepares the Christian
desert and the Stoic suicide'. Their abnegation of the body is a crime
against life, and for both Nietzsche and Yeats the self, with its
'affirmation of life', is 'the end'. But in Yeats's work - if not
necessarily in the man himself - the choice is made with a greater
sense of loss- as in the opening stanza of 'Byzantium', which so
richly evokes the lure of what Yeats calls the 'circuit ... which
carries us into God' [Expl, p. 307], with the third stanza sustaining
this attraction to the end of the poem, until the last word goes to the
dolphin, emblem of the 'circuit ... which carries us into man'
['Pages from a Diary Written in 1930' (xxiv), Expl, p. 307].
UNITY OF BEING
Five years after Responsibilities, Yeats has begun using the term
'unity of being' as a definite formulation of man's longing to
combine his conflicting desires for the opposing circuits carrying
him 'into God' and 'into man'. 'The Phases of the Moon' of 1919
makes clear that this unity can occur only beyond the physical
world, the united 'Body and soul cast out and cast away I Beyond
the visible world' [CP, p. 185]. It is a condition which we can
nevertheless strive to approach, to achieve as nearly as possible
within ourselves in this world, as an essay of the same year suggests:
ifl were not four-and-fifty, with no settled habit but the writing of
verse, rheumatic, indolent, discouraged, and about to move to the
Far East, I would begin another epoch by recommending to the
Nation a new doctrine, that of unity of being.
['If I Were Four-and-Twenty' (ix), Expl, p. 280]
Two years later, in Michael Robartes and the Dancer of 1921,

'Solomon and the Witch' again presents unity of being as a state of
perfection wholly attainable only in a superhuman sphere, its closest
earthly approximation to be found in 'the bride-bed' [CP, p. 199].
Here we approach the condition of 'Chance being at one with
Choice at last', as opposites combine totally. A Vision [p. 52] also
depicts the marriage bed as a 'symbol of the solved antinomy, and
were more than symbol could a man there lose and keep his identity,
but he falls asleep. That sleep is the same as the sleep of death.'
Complete unity of being occurs at Phase 15 of Yeats's system, as
we move ever further along the scale of individuality and
naturalness until we pass beyond it to encounter a being which is

superhuman - a Christ. In this phase
Thought and will are indistinguishable, effort and attainment are

indistinguishable. . . . The being has selected, moulded and
remoulded, narrowed its circle of living, been more and more the
artist, grown more and more 'distinguished' in all preference.
Now contemplation and desire, united into one, inhabit a world
where every beloved image has bodily form, and every bodily
form is loved. . . . Chance and Choice have become
interchangeable without losing their identity. [V, pp. 135-6]
Such unity of being occurs three phases beyond that of 'The

Forerunner', 'the phase of the hero' whose type is Nietzsche [V,
pp. 126-7], three stages beyond heroic assertion of self.
A supernatural condition though unity of being might be, it is in
terms of the body that Yeats speaks of it in 'Four Years: 1887-1891'
from 'The Trembling of the Veil' (xxii), as he relates how he
'thought that in man and race alike there is something called "Unity
of Being", using that term as Dante used it when he compared
beauty in the Convito to a perfectly proportioned body' [Auto,
pp. 116-17 I 190]. His notion voiced in this essay of 'some inherited
subject-matter known to the whole people' [Auto, p. 116] is closely
allied to Nietzsche's idea of common ancestral memory, and, in a
note pencilled alongside Zarathustra 's exhortation 'remain true to
the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of supernatural
hopes!', Yeats ponders the possibility that the 'supernatural life'
'may be but the soul of the earth out of which man leaps again,
when the circle is complete' [C, p. 193]. He develops this into his
notion of the generic soul of man, the anima mundi, which has
parallels, too, with ideas in Blake and with the 'collective
unconscious' theory of Jung, whom Yeats had read as well. From
the anima mundi, men and beasts learn all they know. It is not a
Platonic world of ideal forms, but is nevertheless a world which
extends beyond the temporal one of the individual life and which
harbours man's daimon or opposite. Yeats speaks in his introduction
to The Words upon the Window-pane (iii) of Plotinus as having been
the first philosopher to meet his daimon face to face ... the first to
establish as sole source the timeless individuality or daimon
instead of the Platonic Idea, to prefer Socrates to his thought. This
timeless individuality contains archetypes of all possible

existences ... , and as it traverses its circle of allotted lives, now
one, now another, prevails. [Expl, p. 368]
In the long run, of course, self and soul are impulses of equal
strength, alternating endlessly through man's individual life and
through the vast sweep of history. Though Yeats might find the body
especially attractive, 'Under Ben Bulben' recognises to the end the
claims of both:
Many times man lives and dies

Between his two eternities,
That of race and that of soul,
And ancient Ireland knew it all.
[CP, p. 398]
ART AND AESTHETICS
The unity of self and soul, of body and spirit, of dance and thought,
of the temporal and the timeless, is the bedrock of Yeats's whole
view of art, as his late essay 'The Mandukya Upanishad' of 1935 so
succinctly testifies: sculptor and poet strive to draw together
theme and thought, fact and idea; the dreamer creating his dream,
the sculptor toiling to set free the imprisoned image ... the union
of theme and thought, fact and idea, so complete that there is
nothing more to do, nothing left but statue and dream. . . . [&/,
p. 477]
In 'Michael Robartes and the Dancer', Michelangelo fashions the

body in a way that enables it to 'rule by supernatural right I Yet be
but sinew'. Nietzsche agrees with artists such as Michelangelo more
than 'with any philosopher hitherto: they have not lost the scent of
life, they have loved the things of' this world' - they have loved their
senses' [WP (820) p. 434]. Moreover, 'Artists, if they are any good,
are (physically as well) strong, full of surplus energy, powerful
animals, sensual; without a certain over-heating of the sexual system
a Raphael is unthinkable' [WP (800) p. 421].
In 'Discoveries' of 1906 Yeats asserts that 'All art is sensuous'
[&/, p. 293], and that what moves natural men in the arts is what
moves them in life. He forsakes the nineties 'art for art's sake' tenet
of arch aesthetes such as Wilde and Pater (himself deeply read in
Nietzsche), much as the young Nietzsche of The Birth of Tragedy
later comes to condemn /'art pour /'art in Twilight of the Idols as 'a
snake biting its own tail' ['Expeditions of an LJntimely Man' (24), TI,
p. 81 ]. For Nietzsche, the 'perfection of existence' is a central
function of art: 'art is essentially affirmation, blessing, deification of
existence. . . . Art affirms. Job affirms. - But Zola? But the
Goncourts? - The things they display are ugly: but that they display
them comes from their pleasure in the ugly' [WP (821) pp. 434-5].
By embracing what is conventionally seen as ugly, they also
embrace life and affirm all it entails.
The man who signed his last postcard to Peter Gast from Turin in
1889 'The Crucified' insists that there is beauty to be found in pain
and suffering. When he asks, 'How is the ugliness of the world
possible?' [WP (416) p. 224], his reply is to take
the will to beauty, to persist in like forms, for a temporary means

of preservation and recuperation: fundamentally, however, the
eternally-creative appeared to me to be, as the eternal compulsion
to destroy, associated with pain. The ugly is the form things
assume when we view them with the will to implant a meaning, a
new meaning, into what has become meaningless: the
accumulated force which compels the creator to consider all that
has been created hitherto as unacceptable, ill-constituted, worthy
ofbeing denied, ugly! [WP(804) pp. 423-4]
He goes on to add,
that which is instinctively repugnant to us, aesthetically, is proved

by mankind's longest experience to be harmful, dangerous,
worthy of suspicion .... To this extent the beautiful stands within
the general category of the biological values of what is useful,
beneficient, life-enhancing. . . .
Thus the beautiful and the ugly are recognised as relative to our
most fundamental values of preservation. It is senseless to want to
posit anything as beautiful or ugly apart from this. The beautiful
exists just as little as does the good, or the true ....
It is not possible to remain objective, or to suspend the
interpretive, additive, interpolating, poetizing power. . . . [WP

(804) pp. 423-4]
The 'herd' man will experience the value feeling of the beautiful in
the presence of things different to those amid which the exceptional
or 'overman' will.
To Nietzsche, beauty in art is thus personal, reflecting the values
of creator or beholder. Art is never concerned with prescribing the
values of morality at large:
The man who imagines that the effect of Shakespeare's plays is a

moral one, and that the sight of Macbeth irresistibly induces us to
shun the evil of ambition is mistaken. . . . How royally and with
how little of the knave in him does his ambitious hero run his
course from the moment of his great crime! It is only from this
moment that he becomes 'demoniacally' attractive .... Do you
think that Tristan and Isolde are warnings against adultery ... ?
This would be turning poets upside down, these poets who,
especially Shakespeare, are in love with the passions in
themselves, and not less so with the readiness for death which
they give rise to ... the tragic poet by his images of life does not
wish to set us against life. On the contrary, he exclaims: 'It is the
charm of charms, this exciting, changing, and dangerous
existence of ours .... ' Thus speaks the poet of a restless and
vigorous age, an age which is almost intoxicated and stupefied by
its superabundance of blood and energy, in an age more evil than
our own. 6
It is the poet's sovereign values that art expresses, and Yeats catches
Nietzsche's drift here in 'Samhain: 1904':
has art nothing to do with moral judgments? Surely it has, and its
judgments are those from which there is no appeal. The character
... who delights us may commit murder like Macbeth ... yet we
will rejoice in every happiness that comes to him and sorrow at
his death as if it were our own. It is no use telling us that the
murderer and the betrayer do not deserve our sympathy. We
thought so yesterday . . . but ... we are caught up into another
code, we are in the presence of a higher court.... Yet maybe we
are wrong to speak of judgment, for we have but contemplated
life, and what more is there to say when she that is all virtue, the
gift and the giver, the fountain whither all flows again, has given
all herself? ... the subject of all art is passion, ... not law, which
is a kind of death, but the praise of life, and it has no
commandments that are not positive. [Expl, pp. 154-5]
And in 'The Thinking of the Body' he says of art, 'Its morality is

personal, knows little of any general law .. .' [&/, p. 293]. Yet we
do recall that letter in which he speaks of the desire to pursue the
realisation of impersonal beauty as far as possible, evoking the
awesome dimensions aesthetic absolutism can assume. Nietzsche
unswervingly demands that art be evaluated on a purely personal
scale and always in relation to life, to the exclusion of all criteria
which remove art from the whole of life.
Art must not be regarded as something able to 'mimic' nature
completely, however. Art is moulded, nature is chaotic. The artist is
able to select and arrange, since he is dealing with something of
manageable size and is a 'perfector on a small scale, working on
material' [WP (795) p.419]. Rather than merely reflecting the
'surfaces' available to him through colours, shapes, sounds,
thoughts, the artist reshapes them to communicate his 'inner state'.
He does not simply reproduce what his senses apprehend as reality
(in the manner Plato claims he does, and so condemns him for
fashioning something that is at a third remove from the true reality
of ideal form). To Nietzsche, verisimilitude has nothing to do with
the value of a work of art. What matters is 'Honesty in art- nothing
to do with realism! ' 7 He considers 'Realism in art an illusion. You
reproduce what delights, attracts, you in an object - but these
sensations are quite certainly not caused by the realities! ' 8 The artist
imprints his own interpretation on objects in the sensual world
through his artistic Rausch, or frenzy - the equivalent of what Yeats
calls artistic 'imagination'. For Yeats, reality and value reside
ultimately in the 'world of the imagination'. He believes that it is
through his imagination that the artist approaches the heart of life
which beats in all men. As he says in 'Discoveries', 'If we poets are
to move the people, we must reintegrate the human spirit in our
imagination' [&/, p. 264].
In this enthronement of the imagination, Yeats is primarily the
disciple of Shelley and, more importantly, Blake. He is also thus an
important perpetuator of the Romantic spirit into the twentieth
century. Shelley's 'Defence of Poetry' speaks of a poem as 'the
expression of the imagination', which presents actions 'according to
the unchangeable forms of human nature', and does not participate

in conceptions of right and wrong', though the imagination may be
the great instrument of moral good' (in a positive sense, of course -
though Blake, and Nietzsche, would frown darkly at such
terminology), and a man, 'to be greatly good, must imagine intensely
and comprehensively'. 9 Of paramount importance to Blake is that
'Vision or Imagination is a Representation of what Eternally Exists,
Really & Unchangeably' ['A Vision of the Last Judgment', K,
p. 637]. To Nietzsche, the personal Rausch of the poet or artist also
provides insight of this kind into the pleasurable power of existence
that surges eternally beneath surface reality, and we recall that in
Blake's mythology it was Urizen, the principle of Reason, who
created this surface reality, a solid without fluctuation', from the
void of Eternity in an attempt to order things by imposing abstract
perfection on them. Newton's Opticks creates a view of the world, as
Nietzsche puts it, 'appropriated and made manageable' [WP (423)
p. 227].
Blake argues that man cannot be regarded as anything more than
a mere 'natural organ subject to Sense' when he ignores his
imagination [K, p. 147], which is that supreme faculty whose
energies penetrate to the eternal divinity which resides within the
human breast, and to the deepest secrets of the universe. Since this is
largely a matter of faith with Blake, he understandably never
provides wholly satisfactory reasons in a rational context for his
contentions. Imaginative visions of reality in its profoundest form,
the rational man might argue, would produce as many versions of
reality as there are men of imagination: quot homines, tot sententiae.
Not all men possess the sublime and soaring imagination of the kind
Blake has in mind, however, and the natural man who is unable to
attain what he terms the 'Divine Image' through imagination adopts
'Natural Morality or Self-Righteousness', a prisoner of limited
vision. He needs the ordering such virtues provide, and combs art
for the presence of morality- a sad comment on man's existence in
the fallen material world: 'You cannot have Liberty in this World
without what you call Moral Virtue, & you cannot have Moral
Virtue without the Slavery of that half of the Human Race who hate
what you call Moral Virtue' [K, p. 650]. Blake is fully aware of the
ironies and difficulties of the situation, acknowledging with utmost
regret the need for morality in a world where reason holds sway.
Only a few possess the creative imagination of genius that transcends
the surface reality of the world of the senses.
Art, Yeats writes in 'At Stratford-on-Avon', 'brings us near to the

archetypal ideas themselves, and away from nature, which is but
their looking-glass' [E&/, p. 102]. When we bear in mind that he is
speaking here in terms not of Platonic ideas (dearer to Shelley), but
of Blakean 'imagination' and his own anima mundi, we appreciate
how avidly he would have supported Nietzsche's contention that art
has 'nothing to do with realism'. The ancient stage, we read in
'Samhain: 1904 ', was more a platform than a stage, since thespians
'did not desire to picture the surface of life, but to escape from it. But
realism came in, and every change towards realism coincided with a
decline in dramatic energy' [Expl, p. 172].
This is not to deny the requirement of outward form. Nietzsche
maintains that 'convention is the condition of great art, not an
obstacle' [WP (809) p. 428], while Yeats praises the time when
'players understood that their art was essentially conventional,
artificial, ceremonious' [Expl, p. 172]. Nietzsche welcomes
convention for its harnessing and moulding of artistic Rausch, an
imposition which promotes the development of form. In
'Estrangement' (ii), Yeats puts forward his opinion .that 'Style,
personality - deliberately adopted and therefore a mask - is the only
escape from the hot-faced bargainers and the money-changers'
[Auto, p. 279/461]. Nietzsche's Case of Wagner describes fine style
as 'lightness in what is most difficult'. La gaya scienza is what 'we
halcyons miss in Wagner . . . light feet, wit, fire, grace; the great
logic; the dance of the stars; the exuberant spirituality; the southern
shivers of light; the smooth sea - perfection'. 10 These are the very
qualities he would find with Yeats to be the hallmarks of
Guidobaldo 's
grammar school of courtesies

Where wit and beauty learned their trade
Upon Urbina's windy hill ....
[CP, p. 120]
Good style always entails the vibrant synthesis of opposites - one
of the cornerstones of Nietzsche's view of beauty:
'Beauty' is for the artist something outside all orders of rank,

because in beauty all opposites are tamed; . . . that everything
follows, obeys, so easily and so pleasantly - that is what delights
the artist's will to power. [WP (803) p. 422].
To be 'classical', as opposed to 'degenerate', one must

arrive at the right time to bring to its climax and highpoint a genus
of literature or art or politics ... ; reflect a total state (of a people or
a culture) in one's deepest and innermost soul ... ; and one must
not be a reactive but a concluding and forward-leading spirit,
saying Yes in all cases, even with one's hatred. [WP (848)
pp. 446-7]
All that strengthens is beautiful, all that weakens, ugly. Decadence
means disintegration, in art as in everything. Buoyant, affirmative art
is Apollo's divine gift of illusion through which to endure the nausea
engendered by abysmal truth: 'Art and nothing but art! It is the
great means of making life possible, the great seduction to life, the
great stimulant of life' [WP (853.2) p. 452]. Paradoxically, its
beautiful illusion creates an artificial world which provides relief
from pain and suffering, a dose of stability amid flux (though
Dionysian penetration of surfaces does reveal that the essence of life
remains unchanged in its pleasurable power). Art gathers us 'Into
the artifice of eternity', as 'Sailing to Byzantium' puts it [CP, p. 218].
This artificiality, as Raymond Cowell suggests, makes art seem
less attractive to the ageing poet of 19 27 when he meets it close-up in
the final stanza of the poem, where the goldsmiths' bird is presented
as something which serves merely to pass the time for 'lords and
ladies' ; it is artificial in a somewhat sterile sense. The repetition of
'gold' and 'gold' connotes a feeling of limitation, and the word 'set'
implies passivity, as opposed to the kinetic fertility evoked in the first
stanza:
The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
[CP, p. 217]
Though such 'dying generations' lack the relative eternity of the

artificial bird, Yeats's fondness for the temporal is too deep to be
usurped by any artifact, whatever the appeal of its beauty and its
intimations of eternity- the eternity sought, too, by man's impulse
towards absorption in God, which we find in stanza m. Yeats is an
'aged man' and so nearing Phase 28 of his life, Phase 28 being the
highpoint of objectivity and desire for unity. Yet art must join hands
with life, and Yeats implores the sages he sees depicted in 'the gold
mosaic of a wall' to step from the 'holy fire' into the living world of
turbulence and strife, to 'peme in a gyre' and teach his 'soul'; his
'heart', tied to the living world, is a source of pain. Is such union
possible? A work of art is never living and natural but something
'out of nature'.
Ideally, however, one needs a fusion of art and life, and this is
approached in the final stanza, whatever the limitations inherent in
the artificial bird. The fact that the golden bird sings of 'what is past,
or passing, or to come' means that it is echoing the 'sensual music'
of'whatever is begotten, born, and dies', and is communicating with
the living world represented by the Emperor and his court.
So, for all its artificiality, art belongs for both Nietzsche and Yeats
primarily to the realm of the senses: 'Art bids us touch and taste and
hear and see the world', Yeats insists in 'The Thinking of the Body'
[E&J, p. 292]. The imagination-inspired artifice of the sculptor god
and the sensuality of Dionysus combine to mould the artist's poetic
interpretation of existence into an affirming, pleasurable work of art.
REASON, AESfHETICS AND ART IN THE PLAYS
The Nietzschean stances towards reason, aesthetics and art that we

have looked at are as much a part of Yeats's plays as they are of his
poems and essays. Their echoes can be heard most loudly in the later
plays, but there are resonances also in such early works as The
Hour-Glass, dated 1914 in the Collected Plays but first staged in
1903- the year in which Yeats wrote to Quinn, 'you have been the
first to introduce me' to Nietzsche [L, p. 403]. The play might well
have taken its very title from Zarathustra's metaphor of the 'sand
glass' in his discourse on eternal recurrence. Be that as it may, the
work clearly shows Yeats as out of sympathy with a character such
as the First Pupil, who demands proof by rational argument:
'Argumentis igitur proba; nam argumenta poscit qui rationis est
particeps '. 11
The play is by no means one-sided, though, carefully structured as
it is on the antagonism between the Socratic man and the Dionysian
in the form of the Wise Man and the Fool. John Rees Moore
comments on how
the Wise Man dominates everybody by the mocking power of his

intellect. But he has been twice troubled by a dream that 'the
stream of the world had changed its course' and the waters of
thought had run back to 'some cloudy thunderous spring'. If true,
this reversal, this 'frenzy of the mind', would undo all the work of
rational speculation, leaving what he had thought solid reality
reduced to the nothingness of wind.
The Fool 'represents the wise folly that overweening greatness

should always be shadowed by. . . . He has no fear of
nonconformity because he lives at the edge of society . . . and can
never be held responsible for common sense.' 12
It is a conflict Yeats comes to explore more fully later (as in The
Resurrection, 1925-31 ), emerging more vocally as the years pass on
the side offolly- mindful of that Blakean Proverb of Hell 'If the fool
would persist in his folly he would become wise.' Thus, though it
might present us with complex and manifold symbolism, At the
Hawk's Well ( 1916-17) leaves us with little doubt in its final song as
to the major sentiment of the play: 'Folly alone I cherish....
Wisdom must live a bitter life' [CP/, p. 144/219].
Oliver Gogarty claims that Yeats intended the Guardian of the
Hawk's Well to symbolise the intellect. 13 With this as our cue, we
should interpret the Hawk which cries through her as abstract
thought, and the Well itself in one sense as the receptacle which man
believes will offer the answer to the riddle of life, or the means
whereby one reaches eternity- the realm in which antinomies are
resolved and unity of being is achieved. Containing as it does 'that
miraculous water' which is reputed to make one live for ever [CP/,
p. 139/212], the Well harbours the elusive wisdom for which all
men long at the bottom of their hearts. The intellect denies access to
this; the girl guarding the Well and her dancers have drained the Old
Man of life:
You have deluded me my whole life through,
Accursed dancers, you have stolen my life.
[CPI, p. 143/218]
They are 'Deceivers of men' [CPI, p. 140/213] who have rendered

the Well a place fit only for 'all that's old and withered' [CPI,
p. 141 I 214]. The once young and passionate Old Man has spent his
whole life in preparation for what never comes.
The dancers are the enemy, too, of the passionate Cuchulain, one
of those natural men who does not 'hate the living world' but is
'crazy for the shedding of men's blood, I And for the love of
women' [CPl, p. 139/212]. Cuchulain is but 'a mouthful of sweet
air' [CPl, p. 144/219] at the confluence of temporal and timeless.
Yeats expresses the desire in 'Certain Noble Plays of Japan' that his
hero, wearing a 'noble, half-Greek, half-Asiatic face' that fuses
Apollo and Dionysus, should 'appear perhaps like an image seen in
reverie by some Orphic worshipper' [E&J, p. 221], who in his trance
beholds, as Nietzsche puts it, 'another vision outside himself, as the
Apollinian complement of his own state' [BT (8) p. 64]. It is
Dionysian self-transcendence that we should employ as a means to
attaining our urge for unity, not abstract thought- Yeats certainly
did 'divine an Irish hatred of abstraction'! [VPl, p. 961].
The Cuchulain of The Only Jealousy of Emer ( 1919) confronts
Fand as the bodily image of his spirit in a mysterious realm beyond
that of the senses. She is also a 'symbolical dream image' [BT (2)
p. 38] of the kind an Orphic worshipper would see in trance. Being
as she is
A statue of solitude,
Moving there and walking;
Its strange heart beating fast
[CPl, p. 129/295]
she is related in addition to the masked Christ of The Resurrection, a
phantom with a beating heart. So Emer recalls Yeats's now familiar
theme of the relationship between body and soul, each longing for
the other in the midst of their antagonisms. Beauty is a spiritual
concept that elevates copulation above the mire of sheer sexual
instinct, yet has no substance without it. 'Fair needs foul', as Crazy
Jane reminds us. 'Loveliness' is the product of the 'wounds' and
'bloody press' that 'drag' it into being [CPl, p. 185/282].
The Player Queen of 1922 (begun 1908), which G. Wilson Knight
describes as 'strictly Nietzschean in conception', 14 adumbrates from
its very opening lines that our knowledge of the world is thoroughly
unreliable: our intellect misinterprets what our senses apprehend.
The First Old Man asks the Second to report what he can see- 'You
have better sight than I.' His companion in turn asks, 'Do you hear
anything? You have better hearing than I.' We are unable to
perceive and comprehend accurately: those 'narrow streets' will
indeed 'be dark for a long while' [CPl, p. 248/388].
Reason, Aesthetics, Art l 01
The lurking terror of the unknown spurs the Queen's subjects to a

desperate resort to reason as a means of explaining phenomena, but
the strength of their inherent irrationality repeatedly gains the upper
hand. When rumours fly about wildly that the Queen is a witch, the
First Citizen asserts that 'We'd have no man go beyond evidence and
reason' [CPI, p. 252/396], only to offer the Tapster's bizarre sexual
fantasy as evidence enough to prove that 'we cannot leave her alive
this day- no, not for one day longer'. When the crowd 'mistake'
[CPI, p. 2531399] Decima for the real Queen, they rely on what their
senses convey to them as real ; their reality is delusion. The
'irrationality' of the Bishop casts out the Beggar, who is irrational
mystery made flesh, because the old man appears to have brayed
falsely on this occasion, since there has been no evident changing of
the crown. All previous brayings had signalled a new royal era, and
the apparent lack of a new dispensation leads the Bishop to conclude
that the Beggar had been in league with imagined conspirators
whose plans had gone awry. The Prime Minister, however, is of the
opinion that 'God or the Fiend has spoken' [CP/, p. 2721492], and
proposes to exterminate divine mystery (of whatever variety) by
hanging its representative. Sexually aroused by Decima's looks, even
he, once the abjurer of passions, now acts at the bidding of the body,
'mad' -like the crowd- 'after her pretty face' and 'the devil in her
eye'. He feels compelled by 'The Oracle' to 'have that woman for
wife' [CPI, p. 2731492], though a short while earlier he had
dismissed Decima as having 'a bladder full of dried peas for a brain'
[CPI, p. 257 I 404]. Ironically, it 1s her 'pretty face', not her 'brain',
that is the cause of the sober politician's present infatuation.
Septimus, on the other hand, the 'dramatist and poet' caring only
for 'Venus and Adonis and the other planets of heaven' [CP/,
p. 2501391], is 'drunk, but inspired' [CP/, p. 254/397] - the
antithesis of the pragmatic politician whom citizens and countrymen
alike regard as 'a crafty man' out to 'deceive' them [CP/,
p. 251 I 393]. Poetry and politics are mutually antagonistic. The
Prime Minister has no access to Dionysian wisdom; the intoxicated
poet is able to envision the ideal marriage of flesh and spirit, to
glimpse the eternal reality behind appearance. The 'great secret' that
'Man is nothing till he is united to an image' comes to him as a gift
from the god of intoxication 'at the second mouthful of the bottle'
[CPI, p. 267 I 420]. He feels 'extraordinarily wise', drinking still more
when he no longer feels 'wise enough' [CP/, p. 2681422], until again
'all is plain'. Dionysus elevates him to a level of wisdom beyond that
accessible to the 'rascally sober man' who engages in deception to

stave off the pain of revelation.
The victor in the conflict which informs The Player Queen is the
body. Decima, playing the Queen 'with my whole body' [CP/,
p. 2601408], triumphs over everyone else, with 'wicked mouth-
beautiful, drowned, flighty mouth' [CP/, p. 2691423], her 'pretty
face' and 'devil in her eye' [CPI, p. 2721 428]. She is placed above the
more spiritual Nona, who is, all the same, still body enough to
'please a man when there is but one candle' [CP/, p. 2631413]. The
Queen - like her patroness Holy Saint Octema, a martyr with an
overwhelming desire for absorption in God - has 'never known
love. Of all things, that is what I have had most fear of [CP/,
p. 2711426]. The Queen is the type of that objectivity which longs
for the 'God's mask' [cf. TSZ (37)], and escapes to a convent where
she can lose her identity in a world which negates the body. The
subjective Player Queen by contrast asserts her individuality,
thriving on power and will ('I bid you to obey', 'I choose' [CP/,
p. 2721 428]). The idealist Septimus is yet another type of objectivity,
the kind that experiences insight through drunken submersion of the
self. As a Dionysian, he taps the beats of his verse on Nona's
'shoulder' and 'spine' while he composes beside her in bed. But he
forswears the 'mouth' of woman in order to 'save the noble, high-
crowned hat of Noah' [CP/, p. 2691423], one of the artist's 'images
and implements' [CP/, p. 267 I 419-20] which must be defended
against the levelling 'mob'.
The need of body for soul and of soul for body - so striking in
Septimus's fantastic vision of Queen and Unicorn coupling- is also
evident in the songs of the play, with Decima singing that 'None has
found, that found out love, I Single bird or brute enough' [CP/,
p. 2651 416]. As the Queen points out, 'It was especially the bleeding
feet of Saint Octema that gave pleasure to the unicorn' [CP/,
p. 2581 406].
In The Resurrection, dated 19 31, Yeats's most urgent concern is
again the confrontation of the rational and the irrational. The 1938
revised edition of A Vision provides a nutshell summary of the play's
major theme, saying of God (or Christ) that,
considered as more than man He controlled what Neo-

Pythagorean and Stoic could not - irrational force. He could
announce the new age, all that had not been thought of, or
touched, or seen, because He could substitute for reason,
miracle. [V, pp. 274-5].
MASTER- AND SLAVE-MORALITY ut
pride in oneself, a fundamental hostility and irony
with respect to 'selflessness,' belong as distinctly
to the higher morality, as do careless indifference
and precaution in presence of sympathy and the
'warm heart.'- It is the powerful who know how
to honour; it is their art, their domain, their
invention. The profound reverence for age and
tradition-all law rests on this double reverence-
the belief and prejudice in favour of ancestors and
less favourable to new-comers, is typical of the
morality of the powerful; and if, reversely, men of
modern ideas' believe almost instinctively in
progress' and 'the future,' and are more and
more lacking in respect for the old, the ignoble
origin of these 'ideas' complacently betrays itself
thereby. The morality of the ruling class, how-
ever, is more especially foreign and irritating to
the taste of the present day, owing to the stem-
ness of the principle that one has only obligations
to one's equals, that one may act towards beings
or a lower rank, and towards all that is foreign
to one according to discretion, or ' as the heart
desires,' and in any case 'beyond Good and Evil.'
It is here that sympathy and similar ~entiments
lilr:e to have a place. The capacity and obligation
for prolonged gratitude and prolonged revenge
- both only among equals- artfulness in retalia-
tion, refinement of ideas in friendship, a certain
necessity to have enemies (as outlets for the
I
passions of envy, quarrelsomeness, arrogance- in
fact, in order to be a good friend) :- these are all
typical characteristics of the noble morality, which,
1 Annotated page from Yeats's copy of Thomas Common's !Vtetzsche as Critic,

Philosopher, Poet and Prophet.
MASTER AND SLAVl!-MORALITY 113 122 NIETZSCHE AS PHILOSOPHER
beiDa; desplo<.<L Accordinlf to olaftatOI'IJity1 the ' I see notblnt, 1 bear all tbc more. Tbcn is a
~e.:!!I' ma:-~also exdttl r.ear; ~rdmr . to muter.. eoutlouo, 111oldlouo, INPP"'- wbls~ of
morality, it Ia ~l)' the -load ma.a who excites people: In en.t'J' oooll: and comer. Thet seem to
fur a.o.d Reb to exdte it. whDc thi= bad man b commuokate lies to oae anotbu: a up.ry bf:...
rquded u tbt tontempbble bdq. The coatnst nlraltr cle&YQ ta .err tone. Wealcneoa lo to
att&lM ita m.aJClmum when, accon1.i.Qc to the be C&ll.ifted Uno tnerlt. tht-re i.l no doubt; In that
loa;lcal coDKquen... ln..,l-..1, a daa;< ot de~ rupect it ;. u you a.ld.'
tlclll at 1ut &ttac:heo !1&<11 to the a;oocl' ..... or Goool
111..&-morollty ; btc&uao In any cue be bas to be ADd tbe Impotence which doH a.ot rctaUate. ia
tbt w """' : be is a;ood-~~&tured,Ullly dccclftd, to be falllft~dInto u (OOCloeu, bmorous abjed:neal
perhaps a UtUe stupid, n boeboalarG. Wbert"'tf iato .,. bumllity. ubjectioa to tho.: whom oae
lla.,..!DOtal!~ a;uo the upper band, ' - " hat.u lato .. obedi~ce '" (to one: ho, tbq aay,
allows a W.cleuey to approximate the liplllca <Oftlm&ndo tbls aubj<ctloa - tbey u.ll blm God).
doni or tbe .orda roo4 and m.~pid.'-A .._. The fDofl'euiYen~ of the weak, their' ~
fuodam""t&l <llstln<:tion : II>< diOJ:'e f<>< 1/Nrll', ltodf, or wblcb they bne ample store, their
the l ...tiact lor happiness, ud llle ~ta ~Undmr-at-the-door, tbe u11uoldablc oec:culty of
ot tbe !..Una; ol freedotn. beloaa; u Det...nly to tbek "~itint - aU tbeoe pt a;ood ....,.. bert,
tbe <\om.&JJ1 or llaoe-mO<&I aod w... mOtallty, liS IUc..b U '"patiCDU,'" it f.a eft.tl called tit Yirtu~;
do ..,thualum and a.rt Lo renrcace aod dnotk>o lnabiloiJ-to-te"O"oaa-c is ailed u11wlJUora...m-~.
to tl>c rea;uw symptoiiiS or "" arislocnbc mode ~ pub&~tTCD fotcino~eu C" for tltJi know
oltbillk.ln&' aod nluina;. oot what they do-~ anlykoow h&t tbrdo1 .
...,...,.a... ... .:~
t-. They auo tallr: of u lo.e for their entmiet "-a.nd
peropiTc Lo doinr oa.'
Proceed I
In tbe opbt"' of H-Calle4 moral nlua.,_, Tbey are uadoubtedly wrftcbecl, all thKe- m.ut...
there is no a;r.. ter contnat Uwa that ...._., tc..rers and underrround forye.rs. thOUKh equattinc
tnMt,..morwllty and the monlitJ of the Cltl'ht,.. . wannJ,. beside one another; but tbey &aJ tbe
COI!Ceptioll& or wonll: tbe ....... ha..m. a;ro<nl wi'Ctcbedn- Is God'o cboosill&' and l.lle diltloc-
up 011 a tboroua;h)J mor1>1d ool!: .. bile ~. tl011 bo coolon; l.be dop which oro liked belt are
muter mOtalfty (Roman, butb., clasoial, ba:tHJ i petb&ps. &lao, the.lr wretchtda.nt~m&J be
Renain&o<e monlltyl lo tbc lf'DI>ohc ......,..,.. a pnpua.tion. tat, a KhooHnr. perh&p8 eYeD
of welt-<'Oftltitutcdo..., or -.<NU. Ul<. ot II>< man:-IDmellll.or wlllch will one day be &djuoted
ll
2 Annotated pages from Yeats's copy of Thomas Common's Nietzsche as Critic, Philosopher, Poet and Prophet.
3 Friedrich Nietzsche (by Foto Held).

0
0
acknowledges
acknowledgesacknowledges acknowledges acknowledges
acknowledges
acknowledges acknowledges acknowledgesacknowledges
The masked Christ of The Resurrection is thus the irrational

returning after centuries of Socratic domination. It is an impulse that
has occurred with cyclic regularity throughout history. At the
beginning of the play the musicians hail the return of an era of the
soul which will negate that of the body, as a 'staring virgin' calls 'out
of the fabulous darkness' [CP/, pp. 364, 3651579, 580]; at the end
they sing of another objective phase, of the Babylonian starlight'
that ushers in a fabulous, formless darkness' which will make all
Platonic tolerance vain I And vain all Doric discipline' [CP/,
p. 3731594]. Both are recurring irrational impulses which confound
the rational mind- the cyclical return of like eras, which is looked at
in greater detail in Chapter 6.
Up to the play's climax, the Greek is presented largely as the
advocate of the soul, speaking of a supernatural world where gods
are phantoms untainted by animal flesh; the Hebrew, seeing reality
as the world of the senses, promotes the cause of the self. The
Syrian, believing in Christ as god incarnate, is not prepared to accept
the limitations of either view and seeks their fusion. Recognising the
disorder within himself, he acknowledges that 'there is always
something that lies outside knowledge, outside order' [CP/,
p. 371 I 591]. Regarding Christ as simply a 'phantom' whose
qualities cannot be found in the flesh, the Greek laughs at His
crucifiers
because they thought they were nailing the hands of a living man
upon the Cross, and all the time there was nothing there but a
phantom. . . . No god has ever been buried; no god has ever
suffered. Christ only seemed to be born, only seemed to eat,
seemed to sleep, seemed to walk, seemed to die. [CP/,
p. 3661583].
He soon repeats this conviction that Christ was nothing but a god
who consisted of soul only: 'I am certain that Jesus never had a
human body; that he is a phantom and can pass through that wall'
[CP/, p. 3701 590]. The gods, he says,
can be discovered by contemplation, in their faces a high keen joy
like the cry of a bat, and the man who lives heroically gives them
the only earthly body that they covet. He, as it were, copies their
gestures and their acts. What seems their indifference is but their
eternal possession of themselves. Man, too, remains separate. He
does not surrender his soul. He keeps his privacy. [CP/,
p. 369 I 587-8]
Man simply reflects the divine through the personages of heroic

individuals, he does not combine with the supernatural, even though
the gods do 'covet' the 'earthly body'.
The worshippers of Dionysus in the play reveal the joy of 'self-
forgetfulness', 'self-abandonment' and 'surrender', the profoundest
varieties of which are among the more sublime aspects of
objectivity. The loss of ego they entail includes the loss of separating
sexual gender, leading to the 'oneness' of male and female- as the
transvestism of the revellers suggests: 'In Alexandria a few men
paint their lips vermilion. They imitate women that they may attain
in worship a woman's self-abandonment' [CP/, p. 368/585-6].
But the revellers also have their less attractive dimensions, as far
as the Greek is concerned. They 'are the most ignorant and excitable
class of Asiatic Greeks, the dregs of the population. Such people
suffer terribly and seek forgetfulness in monstrous ceremonies.'
These are Nietzsche's 'immoderate, disorderly Asiatic' Greeks out of
whose Dionysian subsoil the Apollinian Hellene emerged [WP
(1050) pp. 539-40]. Yeats here recognises the more abhorrent
qualities of objectivity, though he does not condemn them outright.
The Greek, however, feels that this Baechle abandon is not Greek-
the Greek gods sought out and revelled in the physical, they did not
desire escape from it: 'I cannot think all that self-surrender and self-
abasement is Greek, despite the Greek name of its god. When the
goddess came to Achilles in the battle she did not interfere with his
soul, she took him by his yellow hair' [CP/, p. 369 I 587].
The Hebrew, as the voice of the self in its opposition to the
disembodied supernatural, champions reason and the senses,
rationally considering Christ to have been 'nothing more than a
man, the best man who ever lived.... He preached the corning of
the Messiah. . . . Then some day when he was very tired, after a
long journey perhaps, he thought that he himself was the Messiah'
[CPI, p. 367 /583-4]. He is grateful that Christ was merely a natural
man of flesh and blood, that the sensual world is the 'real' and only
world, and that we need not suppress it in favour of some phantom
other world:
I am glad that he was not the Messiah; we might all have been
deceived to our lives' end, or learnt the truth too late. One had to
sacrifice everything that the divine suffering might, as it were,
descend into one's mind and soul and make them pure. One had
to give up all worldly knowledge, all ambition, do nothing of
one's own will. Only the divine could have any reality.
[CP/, pp. 367-81585]
The Syrian, feeling 'like a drunken man' [CP/, p. 369 I 588], argues
for acceptance of the irrational divine by the rational man of the
flesh. Christ 'is no phantom' [CP/, p. 3701590], nor would it matter
if it were true that the stone over the mouth of His tomb was rolled
away by what the Greek would call 'A hand without bones, without
sinews' [CP/, p. 371 I 590]. 'What matter if it contradicts all human
knowledge?', he asks. After all, 'What is human knowledge?', he
laughs in a way that suggests loss of control. 'The knowledge',
replies the Greek,
that keeps the road from here to Persia free from robbers, that
has built the beautiful humane cities, that has made the modern
world, that stands between us and the barbarian.
The Syrian. But what if there is something it cannot explain,
something more important than anything else?
The Greek. You talk as if you wanted the barbarian back.
The Syrian. What if there is always something that lies outside
knowledge, outside order? What if at the moment when
knowledge and order seem complete that something appears?
<He has begun to laugh.)
The Hebrew. Stop laughing.
The Syrian. What if the irrational return? What if the circle
begin again?
The Hebrew. Stop! He laughed when he saw Calvary through
the window, and now you laugh.
The Greek. He too has lost control of himself.
[CP/, p. 371 1591]
These are Nietzsche's ideas on the limitations of 'human

knowledge', on the fresh vigour of the 'barbarian' who breathes
new life into the 'humane cities' of stale civilisations, on the
comprehensive view that can come with the submersion of the ego
when man 'has lost control of himself.
The Greek screams when he touches Christ's side and discovers
that He is indeed 'blood and flesh':
The heart of a phantom is beating! The heart of a phantom is

beating! ... 0 Athens, Alexandria, Rome, something has come to

destroy you. The heart of a phantom is beating. Man has begun to
die. Your words are clear at last, 0 Heraclitus. God and man die
each other's life, live each other's death. [CPI, pp. 372-31593-4]
In A Full Moon in March of 1935, we find the confrontation of

'crown of gold' and 'dung of swine' [CPI, pp. 39Q-ll622] as
symbols of the antinomies that seek - but cannot achieve -
reconciliation. In life, their complete unity is at most only
approached in the act of sexual love. Its full attainment lies beyond
this world.
How, the play asks, is man's longing for aesthetic immortality to
join forces with his impulse towards eternity in the flesh? Man's
instinctive desire to express himself with his 'whole body' comes
into conflict with his urge to create aesthetic beauty and with his
intellect, which spurns animal behaviour. The Swineherd is able to
vent his animal instinct with mindless abandon; his antagonist the
Queen is a remote beauty whose intellect fights enjoyment of blood
and flesh. Iconographically, they represent extremes which are
unfulfilling in isolation.
The Queen has promised to take for husband 'He that best sings
his passion' [CPI, p. 391/623]. But there is, as the Swineherd points
out, a 'catch' : the beautiful Queen would not necessarily accept
'some blind aged cripple' as her consort, no matter how sweet the
song of his passion. Gross flesh made grosser would be repugnant
beyond endurance to her. The Swineherd, who wears a 'half-savage
mask' and is 'bearded' [CPI, p. 3901621] like a Dionysian satyr, has
come 'Through dust and mire' where 'Beasts have scratched my
flesh', and the reflection of his face 'makes me think I My origin
more foul than rag or flesh' [CP/, p. 3911623]. He eagerly embraces
'body and cruelty, I Desiring both as though I had made both' [CP/,
p. 392/624]. He has 'rolled among the dung of swine and
laughed. I What do I know of beauty?' As the principle of brutal
sexuality, he knows nothing of the 'soul', of 'perfection', of sublime
'beauty', of restraining 'intellect'. What he provides is' A song- the
night of love, I An ignorant forest and the dung of swine' [CPI,
p. 3931625]. Blood and flesh affirm life by perpetuating it, a fact the
Queen cannot bring herself to acknowledge. The Swineherd's story
of the woman who had 'a drop of blood' enter 'her womb and there
begat a child' is what triggers the Queen's command to have him
beheaded [CP/, p. 3931626].
In the midst of her chastity and lack of carnal knowledge, the

Queen does realise nevertheless that 'they that call me cruel speak
the truth, I Cruel as the winter of virginity' [CPI, p. 392/624]. It is
wrong to 'hold I That woman's beauty is a kindly thing'. The First
Attendant, 'singing as Queen', cries that wrongs done to 'Child and
darling' come from 'virgin cruelty', and that love is greater when
one loves 'in shame' [CP/, p. 3951628]. The Queen feels drawn to
hear the song of the decapitated Swineherd's head, the angelic
compellingly lured by the bestial. As Moore remarks, 'her virginity
is her soul just as his singing head is his virility. Body and soul must
equally be bruised to pleasure each other.' 15 The Queen's cold
spirituality is as barren as the Swineherd's hot passion when in
isolation: each demands fertilisation by the other to achieve
consummation at the full moon in March, when buried gods are
reborn and death brings regeneration - as Yeats would have read in
Frazer's Golden Bough. 16
The soul, as the First Attendant sings at the play's close, demands
'desecration and the lover's night' [CP/, p. 3961629]. Thus 'holy,
haughty feet' 'From emblematic niches' 'must descend'. It is
'desecration and the lover's night' which she 'whose emblem is the
moon' lacks. 'Time's completed treasure' is discovered with the
'desecration' of chaste spiritual beauty by carnal sex. This shocks the
Second Attendant, and a great 'fright' descends upon his 'savage,
sunlit heart' at the realisation. But all the same he urges his heart to
'delight' in this truth, to view it 'with understanding eyes'.
Yeats thus calls for a union of gold and dung in A Full Moon in
March. Yet, though he points to the inadequacy of each principle
when divorced from the other, his sympathies are very much with
the Swineherd, whose sexual love 'can make the loutish wise' [CP/,
p. 391 I 622]. The intellectual abstractions of Pythagorean logic
cannot match love's gift of days that 'go by in foolishness'- '0 how
great their sweetness is !'
In the same way that soul needs body, so artifacts and poetry must
always be bound up with the living, sensual world. Art relegated to
the Platonic realm of ideal forms or any other supernatural sphere is
sterile and worthless. What moves men in art moves them in life. In
The Herne's Egg (begun in 1935, published in 1938), Congal
believes - like Nietzsche - that all art is the sublimation of sensual
drives, denying any origin in the supernatural. 'Women', he
proclaims,
make
An image of god or bird or beast
To feed their sensuality.
[CPI, p. 409]
The 'prophetess' Attracta counters that 'There is no reality but the

Great Herne'. Not that the Herne represents only art in Yeats's
complex late play so infused with parody. Attracta, yearning for the
mystical, sees her heavenly bird as the only happiness, and declares
it is in union with the Herne that 'I know what may be known: I
burn I Not in the flesh but in the mind.' And yet her anticipated
ecstasy of their coupling is rooted firmly in the sexual, with her
longing to 'lie in a blazing bed I And a bird take my maidenhead'
[CPI, p. 4101650]. When envisaging her meeting with the Great
Herne, she feels that,
Though beak and claw I must endure, ...

No lesser life, man, bird, or beast,
Can make unblessed what a beast made blessed,
Can make impure what a beast made pure.
[CPI, p. 419 I 664]
This is beast as divinity, with heaven and eternity to be found in

the 'beak and claw' that 'horror stir in the roots of my hair'. The act
of sexual love, as we have seen Yeats contend before, is the closest
earthly approximation to unity of being. Attracta expects their
union, seated in the body, to lead to a frenzy of transcendence, in
which the fetters of mortal flesh are broken and 'I, all foliage
gone, I May shoot into my joy', since
Strong sinew and soft flesh

Are foliage round the shaft
Before the arrowsmith
Has stripped it.
[CPI, p. 412/654, 653]
In this condition, she believes, 'To the unbegotten I return, I All a

womb and a funeral urn' [CPI, p. 4101650]. The timeless riddle of
how this joyous transcendence is achieved is argued without
resolution by the girls Kate, Agnes and Mary: do Attracta and her
Godhead couple 'In the blazing heart of the sun' or 'In black-blue
midnight'? [CP/, p. 413/655].
Congal is of the opinion that Attracta's 'obsession' with the soul-
usually an impulse that spurns the sexual - is nothing which a dose
of fascistic sex won't cure, and prescribes a rape by seven brawny
males who
in the name of the law

Must handle, penetrate, and possess her,
And do her a great good by that action,
Melting out the virgin snow,
And that snow image, the Great Heme.
[CPI, p. 418/622]
Mathias, 'that coarse hunk of clay', hopes to be first, but, declares

Congal,
That's for the Court to say.

A Court of Law is a blessed thing,
Logic, Mathematics, ground in one,
And everything out of balance accursed.
[CPI, p. 419/663]
While Paul Ruttledge and Martin Hearne call for the abolition of
Law, Conga! hails it as a blessing bestowed by rationality, and the
enemy of the mysticism he sees in the Heme's embrace. In this case
Law conspires with the body to rid Attracta of her impulse towards
the mystic, her sensation of which is in actuality produced through
the rape by the seven: all spiritual joy is bred in 'desecration and the
lover's night'.
In her supposed coupling with the Great Heme, Attracta believes
she has learned the secret of the universe: 'I share his knowledge'
[CPI, p. 422/ 668]. Whatever it is she may have learned, it stems
from the mire of her physical violation. Her 'desecration' has
provided transcendent pleasure - a conundrum that persists into the
very last song of Yeats's very last play, as the Street-Singer in The
Death of Cuchulain (1938-9) sings of the harlot's exultation in
loathsome sex:
ll 0 Yeats and Nietzsche
But that the flesh my flesh has gripped

I both adore and loathe.
Are those things that men adore and loathe.
Their sole reality?
[CPI, p. 445 /704]
Raised as it is at the end of Yeats's life, her question never receives

definitive reply ...
5 TheHero
Here man is overcome at every mo-

ment; the idea 'superman' became
supreme reality here ....
- Nietzsche, speaking of Zara-
thustra [GOA, vol. xv, p. 95].
... the man who overcomes himself,
and so no longer needs ... the sub-
mission of others, or ... conviction of
others to prove his victory....
- Yeats, speaking of the hero
[V, p. 127].
HERO AND UBERMENSCH
A 1906 letter from John Butler Yeats to his son bears unshakable
testimony to Yeats's fervent interest in the idea of the Ubermensch
in the years following his initial passion for Nietzsche - needless
to say, much to the chagrin of his father, who scolds,
As you have dropped affection from the circle of your needs,

have you also dropped love between man and woman? Is this
the theory of the overman, if so, your demi-godship is after all
but a doctrinaire demi-godship .... The men whom Nietzsche's
theory fits are only great men of a sort, a sort of Yahoo great
men. The struggle is how to get rid of them, they belong to the
clumsy and brutal side of things. . . . [JBYL, p. 97}
Do Nietzsche's 'great men' 'belong to the clumsy and brutal

side of things'? Not according to The Will to Power, which speaks

of the new barbarian' as a man of superior intellect, not a dumb
brute; he is the rejuvenating breed of barbarian 'who comes from
the heights: a species of conquering and ruling natures....
Prometheus was this kind of barbarian' [WP (900) p. 479]. There
is a difference between such a barbarian and one from 'the
depths'. In talking of the 'blonde beast', Nietzsche contends that
The noble caste was in the beginning always the barbarian

caste: their superiority lay, not in their physical strength, but
primarily in their psychical - they were more complete human
beings (which, on every level, also means as much as 'more
complete beasts' -). [BGE (257) p. 17 3]
As Yeats writes in A Vision [p. 262], 'My instructors certainly

expect neither a "primitive state" nor a return to barbarism as
primitivism and barbarism are ordinarily understood.'
The Will to Power [(899) p. 478] provides the following outline
on barbarians:
cynics I union of spiritual superiority

new barbarians { experimenters r with well-being and an
conquerors J excess of strength
Nietzsche's 'master race' will not only be natural rulers, but also
have an excess of strength for beauty, bravery, culture, manners
to the highest peak of the spirit' [BGE (257) p. 17 3]. Just as for
Voltaire, that perfect cortegiano of The Gay Science with his
intellectual independence [(I 0 l) p. 15 7], courtliness and culture are
an indispensable part of the Ubermensch. And, given these
attributes, it is easy to see why EHmann says that Yeats's
'equivalent for Nietzsche's brotherhood of supermen was not a
gang of superb Irish roughnecks but an intellectual elite like that
of Duke Ercole in Castiglione's Courtier'. 1 It is less easy to see
why he claims that 'Yeats never accepted the superman', which
would mean that Yeats's 'equivalent' of the Ubermensch as a
cortegiano rather than a roughneck would be an incorrect one, a
juggling of the Ubermensch idea to suit his own views - the more
accurate reading being that of his father. The Ubermensch is a
manifold (and sometimes symbolic) creature whom Nietzsche
never subjects to the limitations of a single definition; but, in the
The Hero 113
light of the Nietzschea.n remarks we have just sampled, it is the

elder Yeats rather than the younger who is patently in error. And
such error is not uncommon - it is but a short leap between
seeing the Ubermensch as vigorous and creatively destructive and
seeing him as merely brutal. After all, 'the knightly-aristocratic
value judgments' he would espouse presuppose
a powerful physicality, a flourishing, abundant, even over-

flowing health, together with that which serves to preserve it:
war, adventure, hunting, dancing, war games, and in general
all that involves vigorous, free, joyful activity. [GM (I.7) p. 33]
These are not attributes comforting to the tame. Nietzsche

recognises that, judged by conventional morality, his Ubermensch
might well appear 'frightful in his goodness', and suspects we
'would call my Superman - a devil!' [TSZ (43) pp. 158, 159]
Yeats would have found this true of Satan in Blake's Milton too,
where Satan emerges as the vibrant alternative to passive good.
The Satan Milton would profess to despise would be a villain
despised by standard morality in the way Blake considers Christ
to have been. For Blake, all poets and men of genius draw on the
energies of what the conventional call 'hell'. Thus 'the reason
Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at
liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and
of the Devil's party without knowing it' [The Marriage of Heaven
and Hell, K, p. 182]. Men of genius terrify the 'good'. But,
frightful or not, Nietzsche's Ubermensch certainly exudes the
qualities of golden laughter and song, as Zarathustra so
exuberantly demonstrates.
J. B. Yeats's uncertain interpretation of Nietzsche's 'theory of
the overman' raises afresh the question of what his son
understood by it, and to what extent he considered the attributes
of the heroic man to be those of the Ubermensch. Indeed, what is
the relationship between hero and Ubermensch in Nietzsche
himself?
Given the elusive nature of the concepts that make up
Nietzsche's whirlpool of ideas on the superman, we should do
well to heed Eric Bentley's caution that Nietzsche's use of the
word Ubermensch is 'elastic' to the end: 'Christian poets have not
defined God, nor has Nietzsche defined the superman. ' 2 The word
is by no means a new one in German, and Nietzsche had already
used it at the age of fourteen to characterise Byron's heroes.

Kaufmann's Nietzsche points out in addition that 'the
hyperanthropos is to be found in the writings of Lucian in the
second century AD (/(atap/ous 16) - and Nietzsche, as a classical
philologist, had studied Lucian and made frequent reference to
him in his philologica'. 3
The eye of the whirlpool (if there is one) is Thus Spake
Zarathustra, but even here Nietzsche's mouthpiece is a herald of
the Ubermensch rather than his prototype. Zarathustra is 'a herald
of the lightning . . . the lightning, however, is the Superman'
[TSZ (Prologue, 4) p. 10]. The seer articulates most of Nietzsche's
sentiments through exhortation rather than by active example.
Zarathustra is one of the many heroes who are but rungs on the
long ladder to the indefinable Ubermensch. He says of the hero
that
also his hero-will hath he still to unlearn: an exalted one shall

he be, and not only a sublime one.... For this is the secret of
the soul: when the hero hath abandoned it, then only
approacheth it in dreams - the superhero. [TSZ (35)
pp. 128-9]
The man who overcomes himself is the hero; the hero who
overcomes himself is the superhero.
'Surpass yourself!' is a recurring injunction in Zarathustra and
elsewhere, and George Allen Morgan cites Nietzsche's recognition
of this quality in Michelangelo, whom he views as an artist who
saw
the problem of the victoriously completed one, who first had

need to overcome even 'the hero in himself; the man most
lifted up on high, who rose above his compassion even, and
mercilessly smashes and destroys what is unsuitable for him -
radiant and in undimmed divinity. 4
This is something very close to the Ubermensch, a condition

beyond that of the hero. Prior to this, the man who overcomes
something in himself is achieving 'merely' heroic action - of the
kind Yeats describes in A Vision when, as if in a sentence from
'Self-Surpassing' in Thus Spake Zarathustra, he speaks of 'the
hero, of the man who overcomes himself, and so no longer needs
The Hero 115
... the submission of others, or . . . conviction of others to prove

his victory' [V, p. 127; cf. TSZ (34) p. 122 ff.]. Nietzsche also
applies the notion of such Se/bstuberwindung to the writer,
insisting that 'Writing should always indicate a victory, indeed a
conquest of oneself which must be communicated to others for
their behoof.' 5 And in 'The Death of Synge' (xxiii), Yeats contends
that 'The self-conquest of the writer who is not a man of action is
style .... The act of appreciation of any great thing is an act of
self-conquest' [Auto, p. 314 I 516].
It appears in Thus Spake Zarathustra that an egregious few
'higher men' will develop in the course of time through repeated
self-conquest into a race from whom will spring the Obermensch.
Yeats was struck by Nietzsche's contention in The Anti-Christ that
'It is only the most intelligent men who have licence to beauty, to
the beautiful ; it is only in them that goodness is not weakness.'
Next to the pencil-marks he scored alongside this passage, Yeats
categorised this 'highest caste' as 'Rulers, that is to say the living,
or wholly free, wholly self moving' [C, p. 134]. Through their
feeling of power and superabundance, the men of the highest
caste celebrate life, embracing it in all its multifariousness.
Reading Nietzsche's remarks on the 'second caste' with its 'bold
warriors', Yeats commented, 'soldiers [,] they obey life' [C,
p. 135]. Beside Nietzsche's section on the 'mediocre' who engage
in 'business activity', he wrote 'business - the unfree, they serve
things, not life'. Yeats certainly supported such categorisation of
social hierarchies, even as late as the writing of On the Boiler, in
which he is of the opinion that 'the new-formed democratic
parliaments of India will doubtless destroy, if they can, the caste
system that has saved Indian intellect' [B, p. 19].
In his copy of Common, Yeats underlined or marked these
passages from Beyond Good and Evil (260) in which Nietzsche
says that
The noble type of man regards himself as the determiner of

worth, it is not necessary for him to be approved of, he passes
the judgment: 'What is injurious to me is injurious in itself; he
recognises that it is he himself only that confers honour on
things - he is a creator of worth. . . . his morality is self-
glorification. [C, p. 11 0]
'Estrangement' (li) says much the same thing:

Classical morality in its decay became an instrument in the

hands of commonplace energy to overthrow distinguished men.
A true system of morals is from the first a weapon in the hands
of the most distinguished. [Auto, p. 299 I 492]
It is these 'most distinguished', sovereign individuals who must

create laws for their inferiors, as 'Estrangement' (xlviii) stresses:
'No art can conquer the people alone- the people are conquered
by an ideal of life upheld by authority' [Auto, p. 298/491]. Yeats
wrote this in 1909, and by 1924 he was still pointing to the need
for 'the building up of authority, the restoration of discipline, the
discovery of a life sufficiently heroic to live without the opium
dream'. 6
Nietzsche's highest caste - 'the fewest' - would create a law-
book which would sum up 'the experience, sagacity, and
experimental morals of long centuries'. It would be a book of the
kind which 'comes to a final decision' and 'does not devise
expedients any longer', since, after a long passage of time,
At a certain point in the development of a nation, the book

with the most penetrative insight pronounces that the
experience according to which people are to live - i.e.
according to which they can live - has at last been decided
upon. 7
These remarks occasion Yeats to comment in the margin: 'A

sacred book is a book written by a man whose self has been so
exalted (not by denial but by an intensity like that of the
vibrating vanishing string) that it becomes one with the self
of the race [C, p. 132]. Highest castes have in the past always
set up such books, Nietzsche says, and applied to them the
sanction of God and tradition to enforce them - as with the Manu
Law-Book.
Zarathustra 's poetic language should not lead us to assume that
Nietzsche conceives of the Ubermensch as an entirely new
biological species - even Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche stresses in
her introduction to Common's translation of Thus Spake
Zarathustra that the Ubermensch is not 'a new species (in the
Darwinian sense) of which we can know nothing' [TSZ, p. xi].
'Never yet,' Zarathustra makes quite clear, 'hath there been a
Superman' [TSZ (26) p. 99], though exceptional men have
The Hero 117
appeared by chance from time to time. The Anti-Christ [(3) p. 116]

states that a 'more valuable type has existed often enough already:
but as a lucky accident, as an exception, never as willed'. Ecce
Homo speaks of Zarathustra's 'type of man' as being only 'a
relatively superhuman type' [('Why I Am a Destiny' (5), EH,
p. 331]; we should never lose sight of the fact that Zarathustra is
but a step on the way of faith, as Cuchulain is. When he does
come, 'so shall the Superman speak': 'I, for the first time, brought
the man of justice, the hero, the poet, the scientist, the prophet,
the leader together again .... ' 8 The hero is but one part of the
Ubermensch.
Zarathustra's Prologue (with its shattering pronouncement, 'God
is dead!') presents man as 'a rope over an abyss' stretched
between animal and superman [TSZ (Prologue, 4) p. 8]. This self-
overcoming and improvement should be man's great raison
d'etre. As Yeats says in his introduction to The Resurrection (ii),
'There is perhaps no final happy state except in so far as men
may gradually grow better' [Exp/, p. 398]. In section 4 of his
Prologue Zarathustra chronicles not so much the qualities of the
Ubermensch himself as those of the men who long for him - the
attributes of nobility, courage, pride, generosity through
magnanimity rather than through compassion (which Nietzsche
rejects as being a wasteful reduction of the compassionate person
to the miserable level of the sufferer, and thus not an affirmative
quality). These are the strengthening attributes with which the
'higher men' of part IV are imbued, and it is the higher man
rather than the superman whom we should view as the
Nietzschean hero.
Zarathustra derides Christian charity and meekness, and the
eighteenth-century positivism that champions reason, virtue and
happiness, those 'herd ideals'. They are the virtues that Blake too
derides: his great man has no time for false modesty and the kind
of humility preached by established morality, but follows his own
inner code - as this Nietzsche-like assertion proclaims: 'The
strong Man acts from conscious superiority, and marches on in
fearless dependance on the divine decrees, raging with the
inspirations of a prophetic mind' [Descriptive Catalogue, K,
p. 611]. Conscious display of humility is simply another of
morality's shallow 'goods'. Blake's picture of Jesus (whose
lineaments Nietzsche denies the face of modern Christianity)
shows Him as one who acted 'with triumphant, honest pride'. As
Blake asks rhetorically, 'Was Jesus humble? or did he I Give any

proofs of Humility?' [K, p. 13 5]. Man need be humble only to
God - and the true worship of God, says the Devil of The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, is 'loving the greatest men best' [K,
p. 191]; 'those who envy or calumniate great men hate God; for
there is no other God.'
Zarathustra's words and his list of desirable attributes bring
only jeers from the townspeople to whom he has come down to
preach: 'they think me cold, and a mocker with terrible jests'
[TSZ (Prologue, 5) p. 13]. This is how Nietzsche views his own
fate in some sense, and what he judges himself in part to be. The
townspeople, like the buffoon who knocks the rope-walker off his
rope, want the 'last man', not the superman. They choose the
worse of the two directions Nietzsche sees open to mankind:
The one movement is unconditionally: the levelling of

humanity, great ant-hills, etc.
The other movement, my movement: is conversely the
sharpening of all antitheses and clefts, abolition of equality, the
production of supreme men.
The former generates the last man, my movement the
superman. 9
Rejected by the rabble, Zarathustra decides to address himself to

the select few, and in part 1 of his lesson teaches that life is
guiltless, decrying past emphasis on sin. For what, as Blake's
Jerusalem asks, 'is Sin but a little I Error & fault that is soon
forgiven?' [K, p. 456]. And 'To record the Sin for a reproach',
sing his Daughters of Beulah, 'is a Woe & a Horror, I A brooder
of an Evil Day' [K, p. 498]. The notion of sin is bound up with
society-inflicted shame and guilt, with punishment, retribution and
vengeance, all of which are negative: forgiveness is the far nobler
response. And it is forgiveness that we have seen Blake praise as
'The Glory of Christianity' [K, p. 498].
It is its encouragement of shame, guilt and ressentiment that
Nietzsche would condemn as Christianity's great ignominy.
Zarathustra condemns, too, its elevation of saintliness, asceticism
and life-denying denigration of the body, its perpetuation of the
'slave insurrection in morals' inaugurated by the Jews. It was the
Jewish prophets, we read in a passage Common included from
The Hero 119
Beyond Good and Evil, who fused 'the terms "rich", "godless",
"evil", "violent", and "sensuous" into one idea, and for the first
time coined the expression "world" as a term of reproach' [C,
p. 126]. This signalled the overthrow of previous values: ' "The
chosen people among the nations", as they themselves say and
believe - the Jews performed the miracle of the inversion of
valuations.' And in the margin next to this passage Yeats has
clinically noted, 'Swedenborg thought the Jews "chosen" because
the worst - the[y] could not corrupt the spirit having none and
would obey.'
Zarathustra declares that man needs to undergo three
metamorphoses: he must first become a camel, bearing the
burden that comes with denial of evasion and so gaining strength,
then become a lion, acquiring nobility and freedom, and at last
become like a child, with its newborn values and unprejudiced
innocence: 'Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new
beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy
Yea' [TSZ (l) p. 25]. In 'Estrangement' (xxvi) Yeats regards the
Blake who loved the 'happy thoughtless person' as being at one
with the Nietzsche who 'imagined the "Superman" as a child'
[Auto, p. 288/475]. Just as a child approaches things without fear
of defilement, so man should adopt a fresh moral outlook which
will not recoil from what is currently viewed as terrible. He
should free himself of Christian men who drag down the hero
and promote stagnation and neurasthenia, men such as sapless
academics, 'those belauded sages of the academic chairs' who,
finding wisdom in 'sleep without dreams', 'knew no higher
significance of life' [TSZ (2) p. 28]. Men like ascetics who turned
away from their own bodies; like cowards, turned into eunuchs
in their retreat from struggle; like those who parade righteous
indignation to hide inner decay. The friendships of such men are
as sterile as their enmities: 'If one would have a friend, then must
one also be willing to wage war for him: and in order to wage
war, one must be capable of being an enemy' [TSZ 04) p. 58].
Even loving is 'painful ardour', but 'Beyond yourselves shall ye
love some day! Then learn first of all to love' [TSZ (20) p. 7 4].
The human ideal is the complete man who runs the whole gamut
of experience and includes everything, 'good' and 'evil', within
himself.
In part n of Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche's herald of the
Obermensch rages against democracy with its cowardliness,
pettiness and levelling ignobility. Sir Herbert Grierson recounts

how Yeats, during his visit to him in Edinburgh, excitedly spoke
of Nietzsche's elitist theories: 'I had not left the bedroom, to
which I conducted him to change, before he had told me of his
interest in Nietzsche as a counteractive to the spread of
democratic vulgarity.' 10 Zarathustra maintains that democracy
undermines the productive Rangordnung among different men,
claiming in part m that command is actually more difficult than
obedience, and that life is a will to power rather than a
Darwinian will to survival. In 'If I were Four-and-Twenty' (iv),
Yeats writes of Balzac that 'he explained and proved even more
thoroughly than Darwin, the doctrine of the survival of the
fittest', and that 'Nietzsche might have taken, and perhaps did
take, his conception of the superman in history from his
Catherine de Medici' [Expl, pp. 269-70].
In part IV, Zarathustra selects his disciples from among the
higher men, those who have the spark of the Ubermensch within
them. He urges them to surpass the 'petty people' who 'preach
submission and humility and policy and diligence and
consideration and the long et cetera of petty virtues' [TSZ (73.3)
p. 321]. Real virtue lies in courage, in the strength to affirm the
dominant self: 'he who with eagle's talons graspeth the abyss: he
hath courage' [TSZ (73.4) p. 322].
Evil, too, is essential, Zarathustra insists: ' "Man must become
better and eviler" - so do I teach. The evilest is necessary for the
Superman's best. . . . I . . . rejoice in great sin as my great
consolation' [TSZ (73.5) p. 322]. He ridicules those 'who think
themselves good because they have crippled paws' [TSZ(35) p. 128].
Man is a potent creator and destroyer:
And he who hath to be a creator in good and evil - verily, he

hath first to be a destroyer, and break values in pieces.
Thus doth the greatest evil pertain to the greatest good: that,
however, is the creating good. [TSZ (34) p. 126]
Nietzsche's higher men are 'creating ones' whose entire love and
entire virtue is in their hopes for their children, and so for the
Ubermensch.
Honesty, especially to the self, is another indispensable in
Zarathustra 's canon of desired attributes: 'nothing is more
precious to me, and rarer, than honesty' [TSZ (73.8) p. 324]. On
The Hero 121
the other hand, 'He who cannot lie, doth not know what truth is'
[TSZ (73.9) p. 325]. Zarathustra begs his higher men to perceive
that 'even the worst thing hath two good reverse sides' [TSZ
(73.19) p. 331]. The world is one of contradictions, and in
Human, All-too-Human Nietzsche reserves the right to contradict
himself - he too is subject to the vagaries of the intellect, that
surface determiner of truth.
In The Dawn of Day [(556) p. 387] the Four Virtues are seen as
our being 'honest towards ourselves, and to all and everything
friendly to us; brave in the face of our enemy; generous towards
the vanquished; polite at all times: such do the four cardinal
virtues wish us to be'. These reverberate in Yeats's 'Gods and
Fighting Men' (v) in connection with old Ireland's heroes:
It has been said, and I think the Japanese were the first to say
it, that the four essential virtues are to be generous among the
weak, and truthful among one's friends, and brave among
one's enemies, and courteous at all times. [Expl, p. 21]
These would make of Zarathustra's 'creating ones' something

very different from the 'sort of Yahoo great men' Yeats's father
considered them to be [JBYL, p. 97]. Zarathustra urges his higher
men to learn to 'play and mock' [TSZ (73.14) p. 328], to 'laugh'
[TSZ (73.14, 15) pp. 328-9]- even at themselves. 'Every artist',
we read in On the Genealogy of Morals [(m.3) p. 99], 'arrives at the
ultimate pinnacle of his greatness only when he comes to see
himself and his art beneath him - when he knows how to laugh
at himself. Such mocking laughter must be fought for; it is a
victory: Beyond Good and Evil [(294) p. 199] describes laughter in
the face of all serious and holy things as done in a 'superhuman
way', a sentiment Yeats endorses in a remark from 'Dramatis
Personae, 1896-1902' (x) about The Countess Cathleen: 'The
Countess sells her soul, but she is not transformed. If I were to
think out that scene to-day, she would, the moment her hand has
signed, burst into loud laughter, mock at all she has held holy
... ' [Auto, p. 252/ 417]. The liberating laughter of Zarathustra's
creating ones will make for 'light feet', 'good dancers' [TSZ
(73.17) p. 330]. The higher men should embrace
that good, unruly spirit, which cometh like a hurricane unto all
the present and unto all the populace, -
- Which is hostile to thistle-heads and puzzle-heads, and to

all withered leaves and weeds. [TSZ (73.20) p. 331]
But Zarathustra's message is a hard one. Ultimately, even the

select few desert him, and he is left to propagate his teachings
quite alone.
Thus Spake Zarathustra by no means provides all the pointers
to Nietzsche's portrait of his ideal man. Nietzsche never did apply
all the finishing touches. Morgan finds the fullest description of
the Ubermensch in this comment on Zarathustra:
He contradicts with every word, this most affirmative of all
spirits; in him all opposites are bound into a new unity. The
highest and the nethermost forces of human nature, the
sweetest, wantonest and fearfullest, flow out from one spring
with immortal sureness. . . . Here man is overcome at every
moment; the idea 'superman' became supreme reality here ....
The halcyon quality, the light feet, the ubiquity of
mischievousness and exuberant gaiety, and all else typical of
the type Zarathustra, have never been dreamed of as essential
to greatness. Precisely in this amplitude of space, in this
accessibility to the diametrically opposed, Zarathustra feels
himself to be the highest species of all existence.. .. 11
Nietzsche goes on to list as 'the idea of Dionysus himself so
many of the hallmarks peculiar to the excessive heroes of the
Yeats plays, those prodigal qualities of the 'amplest soul' which
'plungeth with zest into chance', the 'possessing one' which
'rushes into willing and craving', the 'wisest soul, to which folly
speaks most sweetly', and 'the most self-loving in which all things
have their current and countercurrent ebb and flow'.
The quality of superabundance is central to Nietzsche's
conception of Selbstiiberwindung, where self-overcoming results
from an overflowing of the will to power:
All great things bring about their own destruction through an

act of self-overcoming: thus the law of life will have it, the law
of the necessity of 'self-overcoming' in the nature of life - the
lawgiver himself eventually receives the call: 'patere legem,
quam ipse tulisti'. [GM (m.27) p. 161]
The great man', the genius' -
The Hero 123
in his works, in his deeds - is necessarily a prodigal: his greatness

lies in the fact that he expends himself . . . One calls this
'sacrifice'; one praises his 'heroism' therein, his indifference to his
own interests, his devotion to an idea, a great cause, a fatherland:
all misunderstandings. . . . He flows out, he overflows, he uses
himself up, he does not spare himself - with inevitability,
fatefully, involuntarily, as a river's bursting its banks is
involuntary.
['Expeditions of an Untimely Man' (44), TI, p. 98]
This overflowing strength affirms even the 'terrible' as 'beautiful':
The feeling of plenitude, of dammed-up strength (which permits

one to meet with courage and good-humour much that makes
the weakling shudder) - the feeling of power applies the
judgment 'beautiful' even to things and conditions that the
instinct of impotence could only find hateful and 'ugly'. [WP
(852) p. 450]
Nietzsche describes his great ideal of 'perfection' in The Will to

Power [(801) p. 422] as an organism's 'extraordinary expansion of
its feeling of power, riches, necessary overflowing of all limits'.
The idea of surpassing oneself is closely tied to Nietzsche's and
Yeats's views on conflict within the psyche, the combat between
self and soul, self and anti-self. 'We are necessarily strangers to
ourselves', we remember Nietzsche declaring in On the Genealogy
of Morals [(Preface, 1) p. 15], 'we do not comprehend ourselves,
we have to misunderstand ourselves, for us the law "Each is
furthest from himself' applies to all eternity .... ' It is an inner
strife of which Nietzsche himself is his own best example.
'Nietzsche's works', as Michael Hamburger has commented, 'are
the record of a struggle - unique in its intensity and excess -
between self and anti-self, between his conditioned and his
imagined selfY We consist of several selves, Nietzsche says, and
one's real 'higher self is that to which we aspire, the purpose we
give to life - which is ultimately the attainment of the
Ubermensch.
The battles between these different selves is a painful process,
as the various impulses strive to overcome each other. As Morgan
puts it, we live through
a series of temporary 'selves', each of which is effective because

believed permanent at the time, under the unconscious
guidance of the ultimate self which finally makes itself known
and uses the previous selves as functions.
Finding oneself means attaining one's own standard of good
and evil, a personal 'legislation' derived from the ideal selfY
What we are surges in our dominant instinct, and becoming what

we are means planting the other impulses around this 'tyrant in
us', and fostering the blooming of our inherent talent. With this
realisation of self comes joyous self-sufficiency, and in
'Discoveries' Yeats writes of 'what sweetness, what rhythmic
movement, there is in those who have become the joy that is
themselves' [E&J, p. 271].
Nietzsche symbolises the struggle involved in one's 'becoming'
what one 'is' by the personage of the tragic hero. The hero's inner
strife makes of him a 'complete' man, that great desideratum of the
maturing Yeats. And the final attainment of wholeness requires that
one learn to love oneself- 'Not, to be sure, with the love of the sick
and infected. . . . One must learn to love oneself . . . with a
wholesome and healthy love: that one may endure to be with
oneself, and not to go roving about' [TSZ(55.2) p. 214]. When one is
able to move from 'I will' to 'I am', one can 'fly', 'dance', 'laugh',
'sing'- the self one has learned to love no longer being a burden.
The whole man loves all his contrasting elements, from basest to
loftiest. We recall that it is, ironically, man's lack of harmonious
animal instincts, producing inner tension, that has raised his
potentiality: 'bad conscience', born of the 'making inward' of man
when he turned his savage instincts against himself, was exploited
by priests, so that through them the human soul first attained depth
and became evil in a higher sense. The resulting states of distress and
happiness within man's 'inner world' have over-brimmed
stagnation, and when one has
inherited and cultivated a proper mastery and subtlety in

conducting a war against oneself, that is to say self-control,
self-outwitting: then there arise those marvellously
incomprehensible and unfathomable men, those enigmatic men
predestined for victory and the seduction of others....
[BGE (200) p. l 03]
The Hero 125
Such men, like the isolated hero of the Cuchulain plays, feel
themselves very remote from those who do not demand great
things of themselves, and through this distance are branded as
'self-opinionated', though they themselves know what perpetual
war such self-imposed demands entail.
Tied to this psychic conflict within the individual is the
antagonism within aristocracies and between different classes and
moralities :
Without the pathos of distance such as develops from the

incarnate differences of classes, . . . that other, more mysterious
pathos could not have developed either, that longing for an
ever-increasing widening of the distance within the soul itself,
. . . the elevation of the type 'man', the continual 'self-
overcoming of man', to take a moral formula in a supra-moral
sense. [BGE (257) p. 173]
It was through this 'pathos of distance' that aristocracies 'first

seized the right to create values and to coin names for values' [GM
(I. 2) p. 26].
And all these different kinds of creative distance are the product
of different kinds of strife, all reducible to the comprehensive
formula of will to power. The competing urges within the self are
simply conflicting wills to power: through each urge seeking
dominion over the others, we desire power even over ourselves.
OBJECfiVITY AND SUBJECfiVITY
A Vision provides the most comprehensive systematisation of Yeats's

formulation in symbolic terms of Nietzsche's psychology of inner
antagonism, of man's quarrel with himself in desiring - and
idealising - his opposite, his daimon, his anti-self or antithetical self.
It is also the most comprehensive outlay of Yeats's esoteric concepts
of objectivity and subjectivity, of primary and antithetical impulses.
The presence of Nietzsche is so evident in so many of these notions
that we can readily concur with Wilson's carefully considered
verdict that Nietzsche gave Yeats 'the terms "subjective" and
"objective" for the divisions of the human psyche'. 14 That he gave
Yeats the terms for application to much else besides will become
evident as we consider the principles enunciated in the poet's
emblematic designs.
With his elaborate schemata of circles and gyres, Yeats fashions
the theory that all existence is made up of two great rhythms, one a
movement towards unity, the other a movement towards
individuality. This is as much true of civilisations and religions as it
is of the human psyche. Recalling his insistence that the world
would be 'impossible without strife', we find him symbolising the
two opposing rhythms as two interpenetrating gyres, so that, in
Northrop Frye's description, 'a movement in one direction ... , as it
grows more pervasive, develops the counteracting movement within
itself, so that the apex of the next gyre appears in the middle of the
base of the preceding one and moves back through it'. 1s Each gyre
thus contains some attributes of the other, the primary or objective
impulse being, as we have seen before, predominantly a movement
towards communal unity, towards effacement of self and absorption
in God, and the other a drive towards the assertion of individuality
and absorption in self. Also viewed as a primary sphere is the world
of 'outward things and events', from (and into) which flows the
antithetical world of 'our inner world of desire and imagination' [ V,
p. 73].
As is often the case with terminology in both Nietzsche and Yeats,
the terms 'objectivity' and 'subjectivity' do not convey any narrow
meaning and vary according to context. Thus we find Years placing
Dionysus and his promotion of pristine 'oneness' in a superior sense
at his objective pole alongside the degraded sense of unity which
produces sameness and the herd instinct. Similarly, the subjectivity
which pertains to splendid Apollinian individuals also includes the
narrowing ego which tears man from the bosom of the 'primordially
One'. We recall that, while Nietzsche's Apollo is the god of
individuation, worship of Dionysus - so crucial to participation in
tragic theatre - brings loss of separating individuation and
acquisition of a sense of being 'at one' with the universe. In objective
religions of this sort the worshipper hopes to achieve union with the
mystic godhead through oblivion of the self. Hence Yeats's
catergorisation of Dionysus-worship and Christianity as like
expressions of objectivity.
'The Magi', a 1914 poem, is an early instance of this allignment of
Christ and Dionysus, so integral to The Resurrection, dated 1931.
The poem's 'pale unsatisfied ones' hope
The Hero 127
to find once more,

Being by Calvary's turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.
[CP, p. 141]
We recall further Nietzsche's hand in the promotion of this linkage,

as suggested by Yeats's annotations in Common, which assign to
objective man the characteristics ofbeliefin 'one god', the 'denial of
self, and 'the soul turned outwards towards spirit', and to subjective
man the attributes of 'Homer' with his 'many gods', 'affirmation of
self and exultation in 'life' [C, p. 122]. That Yeats uses objectivity in
more senses than one is indicated in his note to Calvary, which
refers to the Roman Soldiers as 'a form of objectivity' which lay
beyond the help of Christ [P&C, p. 460]. So it is that objectivity can
have a sublime dimension and also encompass the inferior realm of
the 'reasonable and moral' [V, p. 73]. Generally, it is in this debased
sense that Yeats most often uses the term: 'The antithetical tincture
is noble, and, judged by the standards of the primary, evil, whereas
the primary is good and banal .. .' [V, p. 155].
Yeats includes his narrow men of science in the sphere of
objectivity, and Jaspers comments of Nietzsche that he sees a
striving for objective observation as being the essence of scientific
insight, since objectivity increases the more one's feelings are
expressed in words and the more one's eyes are directed on
phenomena. This process - so liable to misinterpret - is not
disinterested awareness, but a result of forces struggling to impose
limitations upon each other through methodological investigation
according to models. 16 Blake would also regard such a process of
investigation and comparison as liable, through its limitations, to
misinterpret and falsify: he 'will not Reason & Compare: my
business is to Create' [K, p. 442]. Yeats incorporates most of his
attitudes to rationality and aesthetics according to these principles of
objectivity and subjectivity - science the product of a primary
nature, art that of an antithetical one. Similarly, slave morality
opposes master as primary against antithetical, abysmal truth
opposes beautiful illusion, the reasoning the sensual, cerebral
wisdom natural folly, the lunar the solar, Agape Eros.
The impulse towards individuality is one towards the instinctive
and natural: the antithetical drive from 'Phase I to Phase IS is
towards Nature. Phase 15 to Phase I is towards God' [V, p. I 04].
Mankind's passage between the conflicting impulses is charted as a

great wheel of history containing twenty-eight phases of a symbolic
moon; individual man's passage between his impulses towards a
state of objectivity and one of subjectivity is charted on an identical,
but smaller, wheel. The goal of individuality is complete self-
fulfilment, that state of unity of being which we approach in the
phases near Phase 15, the phase which, as we have seen, achieves
this unity so completely that it can occur only beyond flesh and
blood. The contrary urge towards objective, primary unity aims at
absorption in God, with Phase l a similarly supernatural state:
Twenty-and-eight the phases of the moon,

... and yet but six-and-twenty
The cradles that a man must needs be rocked in.
[CP, pp. 184-5]
The wheel of the individual shows
every completed movement of thought or life, twenty-eight

incarnations, a single incarnation, a single judgment or act of
thought. Man seeks his opposite or the opposite of his condition,
attains his object so far as it is attainable, at Phase 15 and returns
to Phase l again. [V, p. 81]
A note of 1921 to The Only Jealousy of Emer, written prior to A

Vision, characterises each movement as either light or dark:
the soul through each cycle of its development is held to incarnate

through twenty-eight typical incarnations, corresponding to the
phases of the moon, the light part of the moon's disc symbolizing
the subjective and the dark part the objective nature. [VPI,
p. 566]
Yeats's cherished 'wisdom of instinct' [V, p. 110] is found at Phase 4,

with men of the phase opposite 'worn out by a wisdom held with
labour and uncertainty'. Phase 28 houses the man who has 'no
active intelligence', 'nothing of the exterior world but his mind and
body ... his thoughts are an aimless reverie; his acts are aimless like
his thoughts; and it is in this aimlessness that he finds his joy' [V,
p. 182].
The Hero 129
Each type of individual is assigned a phase in Yeats's system, with

a man of any phase able to appear 'out of phase' at any point in
history. Descriptions of model phase types often begin with an
account of this variant of the type - much as Napoleon is regarded
by Nietzsche as belonging to an era other than his own. He was an
'ideal of antiquity' who appeared in the midst of the French
Revolution with its ressentiment mob, 'the most isolated and late-
born man there has ever been ... Napoleon, this synthesis of the
inhuman and superhuman' [GM (I.l6) p. 54]. Yeats appraises each
individual in terms of two objective and two subjective concepts,
known as the four 'Faculties': 'Will', 'Mask', 'Creative Mind' and
'Body of Fate'. As we recall, will is feeling that has not become
desire because there is no object to desire; mask is the image of that
which we wish to become or to idealise; creative mind is the
intellect, the mind that is constructive ; and body of fate is the
physical and mental environment, the stream of phenomena outside
an individual with which he comes into contact.
In describing the wheel on which an individual life symbolically
turns, Yeats employs the example of the Commedia del/'Arte, in
which
The stage-manager, or Daimon, offers his actor an inherited

scenario, the Body ofFate, and a Mask or role as unlike as possible
to his natural ego or Will, and leaves him to improvise through his
Creative Mind the dialogue and details of the plot. [V, p. 84]
Will is thus man in natural, unreflective action, creative mind man

in thought or sentience, mask man's vision of what he desires to
make of himself, and body of fate the world in which man finds
himself. Man (as we saw in Chapter 2) is defined by the phase of his
will, with his mask deriving from the phase directly opposite, a
distance of fourteen phases. In the same way the creative mind and
the body of fate are diametrically positioned. The four faculties can
also be viewed as four 'Principles', in which case will and mask
become 'Husk' and 'Passionate Body', the two principles of physical
subject and physical object, while creative mind and body of fate
become 'Spirit' and 'Celestial Body', the principles of soul and
eternal forms.
MASK, SELF AND ANTI-SELF

Yeats's concept of the mask, though subsequently much
embellished, derives in substance from Nietzsche's idea of the
'heroic mask' and its ramifications; a jotting Yeats made in his copy
of Common is his earliest reference to the mask. The reference
occurs in the note we looked at earlier which was made in the
context of opposition between self and soul, assertion of the ego and
its absorption in God, where Yeats speaks of
Day {Homer} many gods day - affirmation of self, the soul

turned from spirit to be its
mask and instrument when
it seeks life.
[C, p. 122]
Nietzsche had developed his theory from his early realisation that
man perforce wears a mask of some kind, since full communication
with his fellows is impossible. A deliberate choice of masks or
'foregrounds' is essential to the great man. 'Everything profound
loves the mask', we read in Beyond Good and Evil [(40) p. 51];
There is not only deceit behind a mask - there is so much
goodness in cunning. I could believe that a man who had
something fragile and valuable to conceal might roll through life
thick and round as an old, green, thick-hooped wine barrel: the
refinement of his shame would have it so.
Masks are in a sense inevitable, since nobody is consistently any one
thing. Personality is constantly changing - as Yeats concurs in his
assertion that personality 'is a constantly renewed choice' [V, p. 84].
The Nietzschean mask protects both the wearer and the viewer by
minimising instrusions and providing an acceptable front.
Zarathustra recommends the wearing of masks even with one's
friends:
Thou wouldst wear no raiment before thy friend?
It is in honour of thy friend that thou showest thyself to him as
thou art? But he wisheth thee to the devil on that account!
He who maketh no secret of himself shocketh: so much reason
have ye to fear nakedness! Aye, if ye were Gods, ye could then be
ashamed of clothing!
The Hero 131
Thou canst not adorn thyself fine enough for thy friend. [TSZ
(14) p. 58]
And while one changes outward masks, there are also masks within
and behind masks, extending like onion skins to the core of the
psyche: 'Ah! there are too many depths for all anchorites', says
Zarathustra, which is why we seek friends who 'betrayeth wherein
we would fain have faith in ourselves' [TSZ(I4) p. 57]. Friends are
themselves a kind of mask through their reflecting of our own
countenance in a sort of 'coarse and imperfect mirror' [TSZ (14)
p. 58].
Since masks can in some sense be an idealised form of the self, the
Ubermensch is the desired mask of all higher men, men who
consciously develop their own masks, their own personae; the
objective type of man steals into a mask of something vaster (like
God), avoiding affirmation of individuality. Nietzsche complains that
the objective man's
mirroring soul, for ever polishing itself, no longer knows how to

affirm or how to deny; he does not command, neither does he
destroy .... The objective man is an instrument, a precious easily
damaged and tarnished measuring instrument and reflecting
apparatus. [BGE (207) p. 116]
Yeats picks up this thread in 'Estrangement' (xxvii) with his view

that 'the ideal of culture expressed by Pater can only create feminine
souls. The soul becomes a mirror not a brazier' [Auto, p. 289/477].
Penned in 1909, this signals a change from what appeared in his
'Rosa Alchemica' (i) of 1896, where the narrator says, 'I ... held
myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished steel'
[Myth, p. 268].
Nietzsche adopts masks for himself in a wholly deliberate way,
speaking through such figures as the Greeks, Voltaire,
Schopenhauer, Wagner, Zarathustra, the 'Free Spirit'. Feeling
himself to have appeared on the scene too early for widespread
comprehension and consumption by the vulgar mass of humanity (a
'Forerunner' 'out of phase' in terms of Yeats's system), Nietzsche
wrote to Overbeck on 12 October 1886, 'I must first supply a
multitude of educative premises until I have finally trained my own
readers, I mean readers who may be allowed to see my problems
without breaking on them'. 17 His masks were part of his method to
the end, though Morgan feels he was on the point of coming out 'as
openly for his ideas as was possible in public' when catastrophe
struck. 18 Yet one might well wonder whether Nietzsche's madness
was not just the last in a long line of masks adopted with varying
degrees of conscious intention. The sense of isolation he endured, of
course, did exert a great strain; as Yeats remarks of the man out of
phase',
Where the being has lived out of phase, seeking to live through
antithetical phases as though they had been primary, there is now
terror of solitude [Nietzsche's 'terrible mistress'], its forced,
painful and slow acceptance, and a life haunted by terrible
dreams. [V, p. 136]
Nietzsche's conviction that our natural urges tend to protect us
from the truth supports this adoption of masks, but raises the
difficulty of reconciling his doctrine of the mask with his abhorrence
of dishonesty and Schauspielerei- 'acting', 'affectation', 'pretence'
in their worst form. Yeats may well provide an answer in speaking
of the 'created' mask and the 'imitative' mask [cf. V, p. 84]- not all
masks are desirable. The preferred kind is the one which is the
creation of the individualist who seeks unity with his opposite or
strives after that which he admires. It is this chosen mask of the
subjective hero that is admirable, rather than the 'God's mask' of the
objective man. The noble lie which Nietzsche's mask entails is
further redeemed by its provision of 'distance' and protection for
both wearer and beholder. The great man would be splendide
mendax. He
knows he is incommunicable: he finds it tasteless to be
familiar .... When not speaking to himself, he wears a mask. He
rather lies than tells the truth: it requires more spirit and will.
There is a solitude within him that is inaccessible to praise or
blame, his own justice that is beyond appeal. [WP (962) p. 505]
The heroic mask also conveys 'symbolic truth', as The Birth of

Tragedy [(10) p. 73] suggests:
all the celebrated figures of the Greek stage - Prometheus,

Oedipus, etc. - are mere masks of this original hero, Dionysus.
That behind all these masks there is a deity, that is one essential
reason for the typical 'ideality' of these famous figures ... the one
The Hero 133
truly real Dionysus appears in a variety of forms, in the mask of a

fighting hero, and entangled, as it were, in the net of the
individual will.
Nietzsche condemns Euripides, however, for adopting 'a copied,

masked myth that, like the ape of Heracles, merely knew how to
deck itself out in the ancient pomp ... your heroes, too, have only
copied, masked passions and speak only copied, masked speeches'
[BT(IO) pp. 75-6]. And, ironically, 'Even Euripides was, in a sense,
only a mask: the deity that spoke through him was neither Dionysus
nor Apollo, but an altogether newborn demon, called Socrates' [BT
(12) p. 82].
Yeats is no less an opponent of shallow simulation, observing that
among the Stoics- who were 'the first beneficiaries of Plato's hatred
of imitation - we may discover the first benefactors of our modern
individuality, sincerity of the trivial face, the mask torn away' [V,
p. 272]. He complains that, when Anaxagoras 'declared that thought
and not the warring opposites created the world', 'all that had been
imagined by great poets and sculptors began to pass away', echoing
The Birth of Tragedy and its scorn of' Anaxagoras with his "nous" ',
who 'is said to have appeared among philosophers as the first sober
person amid a crowd of drunken ones', and to have postulated that
'In the beginning all things were mixed together; then came the
understanding and created order' [BT ( 12) p. 85].
Nietzsche does not provide his references to the mask with any
real systematisation, but his ideas were quickly espoused by Yeats,
who, as EHmann mentions, 'had been concerned since childhood
over the discrepancy between what he was and what he wanted to
be, between what he was and what others thought him to be'. 19 Men
are actors playing roles in a drama being performed in time and
space. As Zarathustra declares, life 'needeth good actors'. And
'Good actors have I found all the vain ones: they play, and wish
people to be fond of beholding them - all their spirit is in this wish.
They represent themselves, they invent themselves ... ' [TSZ (43)
p. 157]. Yeats's diary of 1909 speaks of
a relation between discipline and the theatrical sense. If we cannot

imagine ourselves as different from what we are and assume that
second self, we cannot impose a discipline upon ourselves, though
we may accept one from others. Active virtue as distinguished
from the passive acceptance of a current code is therefore
theatrical, consciously dramatic, the wearing of a mask. It is the

condition of arduous full life.
['Estrangement' (xxii), Auto, p. 285/469]
The following year, in a lecture delivered on 9 March 1910, we find

Yeats describing Renaissance culture as being based
not on self-realisation, on a knowledge of things, on things

reflecting themselves in the soul, but upon the deliberate creation
of a great mask. What else was the imitator of Alcibiades? Do you
not always feel that mask consciously created when at the death
scenes of Plutarch's people ?20
Yeats's poem 'The Mask' appeared just a few months after this
lecture, expressing the desire to 'but find' 'what's behind' the masks
we wear [CP, p. 106]. On this occasion mask refers essentially to the
self displayed to society, and also to the lover. One should not seek to
remove the masks of others completely, the poem suggests, since
their masks are part of them and are what 'engaged your mind' in
the first place. They are far more than mere artificial application. In a
diary entry made at the time- August 1910- Yeats comments, 'I see
always this one thing, that in practical life ... the Mask is more than
face.' 21 And in 'Anima Hominis' he writes of how
Saint Francis and Caesar Borgia made themselves overmastering,

creative persons by turning from the mirror to meditation upon a
mask .... I think all happiness depends on the energy to assume
the mask of some other life, on a re-birth as something not one's
self, something created in a moment and perpetually
renewed. . . . [Myth, p. 333]
A central aspect of Yeats's theory of the mask is his view of

conflict as an inherent part of all life. 'The Forerunner' of Phase 12-
Nietzsche's phase - in A Vision [pp. 128-9] 'follows an Image,
created or chosen by the Creative Mind from what Fate offers;
would persecute and dominate it; and this Image wavers between
the concrete and sensuous Image'. We struggle ceaselessly to
become united to a more splendid image of ourselves: 'Man is
nothing till he is united to an image', is 'the great secret' that comes
to Septimus 'at the second mouthful of the bottle' [CP/, p. 267 /420].
Speaking of his poem 'The Cat and the Moon' Yeats says,
The Hero 135
I wrote a little poem where a cat is disturbed by the moon, and in

the changing pupils of its eyes seems to repeat the movement of
the moon's changes, and allowed myself as I wrote to think of the
cat as the normal man and of the moon as the opposite he seeks
perpetually.
['Introduction to The Cat and the Moon' (ii), Expl, pp. 402-3]
All unity derives from the mask, our 'antithetical mask' being the
'form created by passion to unite us to ourselves' [V, p. 82].
This creative strife entailed in progression towards attainment of
the mask is depicted, too, in 'The Phases of the Moon', where
From the first crescent to the half, the dream

But summons to adventure and the man
Is always happy like a bird or a beast;
But while the moon is rounding towards the full
He follows whatever whim's most difficult
... and ...
His body moulded from within his body
Grows comelier....
The thirteenth moon but sets the soul at war
In its own being ...
and after,
Under the frenzy of the fourteenth moon,
The soul begins to tremble into stillness,
To die into the labyrinth of itself!
[CP, p. 185]
And, with 'the crumbling of the moon',
The soul remembering its loneliness

Shudders in many cradles; all is changed,
It would be the world's servant, and as it serves,
Choosing whatever task's most difficult
Among tasks not impossible, it takes
Upon the body and upon the soul
The coarseness of the drudge.
Aherne. Before the full
It sought itself and afterwards the world.
[CP, pp. 186-7]
In antithetical phases it is an image fashioned from the self which

inspires action; in primary phases action is motivated by a desire to
'be the world's servant' and be engulfed by it. 'The primary is that
which serves, the antithetical is that which creates' [V, p. 85].
The desire for a mask derives, as we have said, from our quarrel
with ourselves, from that inner combat of which Nietzsche so
frequently speaks. Zarathustra asks whether we perceive the 'double
will' of his heart, too:
This, this is my declivity and my danger, that my gaze shooteth
towards the summit, and my hand would fain clutch and lean-
on the depth!
To man clingeth my will ; with chains do I bind myself to man,
because I am pulled upwards to the Superman: for thither doth
mine other will tend. [TSZ (43) p. 156]
Again we call to mind Yeats saying of his 'instructors' that 'It was
part of their purpose to affirm that all the gains of man come from
conflict with the opposite of his true being' [V, p. 13]. Each man
yearns to join with the anti-self to be the type of his antipodal phase:
the non-intellectual man of Phase 3, a phase of perfect bodily sanity,
becomes the mask for the 'Daimonic' man like Shelley of Phase l 7 ;
the saint longs to become the swordsman. 'In one's friend', who is
one countenance of oneself, 'one shall have one's best enemy', says
Zarathustra. 'Thou shalt be closest unto him with thy heart when
thou withstandest him' [TSZ(l4) p. 58]. The need for friends comes
in part from a need to diffuse opposites in the psyche and the inner
arguments they provoke : 'I and me are always too earnestly in
conversation', and this must be prevented from 'sinking into the
depth' [TSZ(l4) p. 57]. The opposite of the Yeatsian hero would be
found in the phase of the hunchback, which is the mask or 'ought'
of'The Forerunner' whose will or 'is' exists in the 'fragmentary and
violent' Phase 12.
Nietzsche argues that even that despicable creature the moralist
desires his opposite: 'the self-overcoming of the moralist into his
opposite - into me - that is what the name of Zarathustra means in
my mouth' ['Why I Am a Destiny' (3), EH, p. 328]. For the matur-
ing Yeats, Nietzsche proved to be the very opposite or mask he
sought to lend tartness to the sweetness of the Innisfree years.
There is combat involved not only in attaining the mask, but also
in the opposing impulses in different types of men to strive for the
mask or to reject it. In 'Ego Dominus Tuus' [CP, pp. l8o-3], the
The Hero 137
piece of verse most crucial to the doctrine of the mask, llle (or
'Willie', in Pound's estimation) puts forward the impulse
experienced by antithetical man:
By the help of an image

I call to my own opposite, summon all
That I have handled least, least looked upon.
Hie counters with an expression of primary man's contrary urge: 'I

would find myself and not an image.' 'That', laments /lle,
is our modern hope, and by its light

We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind
And lost the old nonchalance of the hand; ....
Hie. And yet
The chief imagination of Christendom,
Dante Alighieri, so utterly found himself
That he has made that hollow face of his
More plain to the mind's eye than any face
But that of Christ.
/lle . ... I think he fashioned from his opposite
An image that might have been a stony face
Staring upon a Bedouin's horse-hair roof
From doored and windowed cliff....
Being mocked by Guido for his lecherous life,
Derided and deriding ...
he found
The most exalted lady loved by a man.
Hie. Yet surely there are men who have made their art
Out of no tragic war, lovers of life,
Impulsive men that look for happiness
And sing when they have found it.
/lle. No, not sing.
For those that love the world serve it in action ...
What portion in the world can the artist have
Who has awakened from the common dream
But dissipation and despair?
Hie. And yet
No one denies to Keats love of the world;
Remember his deliberate happiness.
/lle. His art is happy, but who knows his mind?
To file, Keats's 'deliberate happiness' is a mask expressly adopted to

enable him to produce art amid an unhappy body of fate. Rather
than finding his 'style' by 'sedentary toil I And by the imitation of
great masters', as Hie would, Il/e seeks 'an image, not a book'. He
invokes
the mysterious one who yet

Shall walk the wet sands by the edge of the stream
And look most like me, being indeed my double,
And prove of all imaginable things
The most unlike, being my anti-self,
And, standing by these characters, disclose
All that I seek. . . .
This depiction of man's anti-self, so constant a theme throughout

The Tower and The Winding Stair, was particularly satisfying to
Yeats. In 'Hodos Chameliontos' (ix) he writes,
And as I look backward upon my own writing, I take pleasure

alone in those verses where it seems to me I have found
something hard and cold, some articulation of the Image which is
the opposite of all that I am in my daily life. [Auto, p. 165/274]
The words might easily have been penned by Friedrich Nietzsche.

But, though to Yeats the assumption of one's opposite brings
satisfaction, the achieving of one's image does entail pain and
discord, as the words of 'Anima Horninis' (v) testify:
The other self, the anti-self or the antithetical self, as one may
choose to name it, comes but to those who are no longer deceived,
whose passion is reality. . . . He only can create the greatest
imaginable beauty who has endured all imaginable pangs, for
only when we have seen and foreseen what we dread shall we be
rewarded by that dazzling, unforseen, wing-footed wanderer....
He is of all things not impossible the most difficult, for that only
which comes easily can never be a portion of our being. [Myth,
pp. 331-2]
In part vn of Fighting the Waves, Yeats speaks of the love that brings
us into contact with our opposite as being,
The Hero 139
like the man-at-arms in the Anglo-Saxon poem, 'doom-eager'.

Young, we discover an opposite through our love; old, we
discover our love through some opposite neither hate nor despair
can destroy, because it is another self, a self that we have fled in
vain. [VP/, p. 571]
What we are lies neither in the self nor the anti-self alone. We are
the product wrought from the struggle to attain their union: 'Man is
nothing till he is united to an image' [CP/, p. 267 /420].
THE HERO IN THE PLAYS
In summarising the hallmarks of the Nietzschean hero, we find him

endowed above all with superabundant strength of will and passion.
He is the sovereign creator of his own values, self-possessed, self-
affirming, self-revering - a splendid embracer of all the contraries
within himself. He is the supreme individual.
But Nietzsche does not lose sight of the fact that the desire for
individuation is merely one phase in life, realising that 'there comes
a point when we wish to go beyond the individual and idiosyncratic:
but only in alliance with the individual, with the opposite, can we
lend force to this endeavour'. 22 The hero- that upward step on the
ladder to the Ubermensch - actively involves his Apollinian self in
the world of Dionysus, for 'how narrow this everlasting meditation
on the ego makes us! ' 23 The heroic desideratum is synthesis,
wholeness, completeness through the fusion of Dionysian excess
and Apollo's golden qualities of measure and limitation which
illuminate the beauty of form and style. In spite of the hero's
passionate, unbridled actions, he should appreciate subtlety and
delicacy: 'Set around you small, good, perfect things, ye higher men.
Their golden maturity healeth the heart. The perfect teacheth one to
hope' [TSZ (7 3.15) p. 328].
The higher man who has elements of the Ubermensch in him
possesses the 'golden nature' of ripeness and self-assurance, the
laughter of one who affirms all things. He is a Ja-sagender full of
amor fati who is able to meet death by choice, not chance.
The most spiritual human beings, as the strongest, find their

happiness where others would find their destruction: in the
labyrinth, in severity towards themselves and others, in
attempting; their joy lies in self-constraint: with them asceticism

becomes nature, need, instinct. ... They are the most venerable
kind of human being: this does not exclude their being the most
cheerful, the most amiable. They rule not because they want to
but because they are. . . . [AC (57) p. 178]
An intellectual of nobility and culture, the ideal hero is a purist who
despises cheap Schauspielerei and emphasises courageous sincerity
and integrity. He is 'the Roman Caesar with Christ's soul' [WP(983)
p. 913], the perfect union of those Dionysian and Apollinian
qualities so adroitly encapsulated in this passage from The Will to
Power [(1050) p. 539]:
The word 'Dionysian' means: an urge to unity, a reaching out

beyond personality, the everyday, society, reality, across the abyss
of transitoriness: a passionate-painful overflowing into darker,
fuller, more floating states; an ecstatic affirmation of the total
character of life . . . the great pantheistic sharing of joy and
sorrow that sanctifies and calls good even the most terrible and
questionable qualities of life; the eternal will to procreation, to
fruitfulness, to recurrence; the feeling of the necessary unity of
creation and destruction.
The word 'Apollinian' means: the urge to perfect self-
sufficiency, to the typical 'individual' ....
Plenitude of power and moderation, the highest form of self-
affirmation in a cool, noble, severe beauty: the Apollinianism of
the Hellenic will.
Nietzsche's ultimate sympathies lie, of course, with the deity of
procreation, and he describes himself as 'the last disciple and initiate
of the god Dionysus', the god who would advance man and 'make
him stronger, more evil and more profound than he is' [BGE (295)
pp. 200-l].
Of all these Dionysian and Apollinian impulses so abundantly
discernible in the Yeatsian hero, it is the Nietzschean insistence on
strength of will, passion, self-sufficiency, solitude and boundless self-
overflowing that are the mark of such men as Cuchulain and
Seanchan. We see Yeats moulding his hero as a type strong both in
the attributes of subjectivity, or 'self-exaggeration' as he calls it in A
Vision, and in Dionysian fullness. The hero of Phase 12 has 'the
greatest possible belief in all values created by the personality'; his
study is 'subjective philosophy'. But he is also 'fragmentary and
The Hero 141
violent', full of recklessness and folly [V, pp. 126-7]. And we

remember again that it is Nietzsche whom Yeats offers as the type of
the hero in his system, as, with the passing of the eleventh phase of
'The Phases of the Moon',
Athene takes Achilles by the hair,

Hector is in the dust, Nietzsche is born,
Because the hero's crescent is the twelfth.
[CP, p. 185]
In The King's Threshold ( 1903-4), written during the years of the
playwright's first great enthralment with Nietzsche, the trenchant
Seanchan gives full voice to the German's heroic rhetoric in his
soaring vision of a 'mightier race' [CP/, p. 89/135]. From the
beginning Nietzsche's figure looms large over the play: as Moore
observes, 'The originally happy ending ... shows how far Yeats
was when he first conceived it from the elevated austerity of the
Nietzschean vision'. 24 The self-imposed starvation upon which
Seanchan embarks amounts to a conscious, active choosing of death
in the manner of the Nietzschean hero: 'He has chosen death', the
King says in the opening moments of the play [CP/, p. 70/108];
'Dead faces laugh', comes the bard's exultant cry at the end, his
words echoed by his pupils [CP/, p. 93/1411. Brimful of that 'self-
possession' of which Yeats speaks in the essays, Seanchan embraces
his death with joyous eagerness: 'some strange triumphant thought',
says the Oldest Pupil, 'So filled his heart with joy that it has burst'.
The Youngest Pupil, recognising his mentor's revolutionary attitude
to death as something willed rather than inflicted, announces that
'The ancient right is gone, the new remains, I And that is death.' In
a display of his Apollinian individualism, Seanchan resists all
attempts to 'persuade him' [CP/, p. 71 I 109], and, though weak from
hunger, spurns any assistance when- by sheer effort of will - he
rises and walks down the palace steps:
I need no help.
He needs no help that joy has lifted up
Like some miraculous beast out of Ezekiel.
[CP/, p. 93/141]
Seanchan, complementing the finest of Apollo's qualities with all
that is desirable in Dionysus, finds joy not only in death but also in
the apocalyptic destruction of mediocrity:
I would have all know that when all falls

In ruin, poetry calls out in joy,
Being the scattering hand, the bursting pod,
The victim's joy among the holy flame,
God's laughter at the shattering of the world.
And now that joy laughs out, and weeps and burns
On these bare steps.
[CPI, p. 75/114]
This is poetry as viewed by the exultant Dionysian man, and
Seanchan meets death and destruction with all the harsh mirth and
mockery he ascribes to that 'mightier race' of which he heard the
stars sing,
that great race
That would be haughty, mirthful, and white-bodied,
With a high head, and open hand ...
Laughing, it would take mastery of the world.
[CPI, p. 89 I 135]
Here is an unadulterated vision of Nietzsche's Obermenschen, those

proud, laughing, noble, magnanimous 'lords of the earth'.
Seanchan's efforts, like Nietzsche's, are directed towards the
'breeding' of those 'exalted ones' who are beyond even the 'sublime
ones' [TSZ (35) p. 128]:
I am labouring
For some that shall be born in the nick o' time,
And find sweet nurture, that they may have voices,
Even in anger, like the strings of harps....
[CPI, p. 74/113]
Seanchan is also like Nietzsche in demanding a transvaluation of

all values- unlike politicians such as the Mayor or the Chamberlain,
who bellows to the Cripples causing a disturbance on the steps,
'Have you no reverence for what all other men I Hold honourable?'
[CPI, p. 791 121]. The old servant Brian advises the Mayor to 'root up
old customs, old habits, old rights' [CP/, p. 781 119], while Seanchan
displays unfeigned contempt for traditional authority and its
representatives, who understand his words no more than they do
'the baa of a sheep'. When the Soldier sneeringly calls him 'old
The Hero 143
hedgehog', Seanchan replies with Nietzschean remoteness, with an

attitude that conveys arrogant self-assurance born of access to higher
knowledge,
You have rightly named me.
I lie rolled up under the ragged thorns
That are upon the edge of those great waters
Where all things vanish away, and I have heard
Murmurs that are the ending of all sound.
I am out of life; I am rolled up, and yet,
Hedgehog although I am, I'll not unroll
For you, King's dog! Go to the King, your master.
Crouch down and wag your tail. ...
[CPl, p. 82/125-6]
'Dog' is of course a favourite Nietzschean term for the base, fawning

breed of man.
In exulting at God's 'shattering of the world', Seanchan is by no
means advocating a merely anarchic form of destructive action: any
destruction of old values must entail the creation of new and better
ones. Nietzsche similarly decries sheer anarchy: in On the Genealogy
ofMorals he condemns the ' species anarchistica within the educated
proleteriat' [(m. 26) p. 157], and the ressentiment attitudes of
'anarchists and anti-Sernites'. [(u.ll) p. 7 3] In The Anti-Christ [(58)
p. 179] he writes that 'One may assert an absolute equivalence
between Christian and anarchist: their purpose, their instinct is set
only on destruction.' Wilson surely misreads Nietzsche when
reaching his verdict that The Unicorn from the Stars is 'a clear sign'
of Yeats's 'rejection of the superman theory' because the hero of the
play 'is made to turn away from a life of anarchic action to one of
mystical contemplation' _2S The superman does not engage in
anarchism for its own sake when creating values, and his Apollinian
contemplatio is an important adjunct to his Dionysian fury.
Seanchan's superior 'distance' from the rabble makes of him a
lonely, and in this sense an Apollinian, hero. Not many lines into the
play the Oldest Pupil introduces the picture of the solitary
crane, that starves himself
At the full moon because he is afraid
Of his own shadow and the glittering water.
[CPl, pp. 72-3/lll]
This is an early instance in the plays of the bird imagery which

recurs so importantly as emblematic of Apollinian contemplatio; as
Yeats's note to Calvary reads, 'such lonely birds as the heron, hawk,
eagle, and swan, are the natural symbols of subjectivity, ... while
the beasts that run upon the ground, especially those that run in
packs, are the natural symbols of objective man' [P&C, p. 459].
Seanchan despises these 'herd' types with their anaemic faith in
reason: 'How comes it that you have been so long in the world', he
asks the Mayor, 'and not found reason out?' [CPl, p. 77 I 117]. The
King regards as 'most mischievous' Seanchan's
wild thought that overruns the measure,

Making words more than deeds, and his proud will
That would unsettle all ....
[CPl. p. 72/110]
The Monk views Seanchan as setting a bad example for the flock,
since 'If pride and disobedience are unpunished I Who will obey?'
[CPl. p. 81 I 123]. The cleric whines that the poet 'is a man that hates
obedience, I Discipline, and orderliness of life' [CPl, p. 841 128]. His
Dionysian mettle roused, Seanchan in turn scorns the Monk's 'tame'
god, his spineless Church that panders to the whims of state, his
'little God I With comfortable feathers, and bright eyes' [CPl,
p. 85/130]. While his celibate detractor condemns dancing and the
'wanton imagination' [CPl, p. 85/129], the poet urges the girls
whose enticements he had rejected to
Go to the hurley! ...

Your feet delight in dancing, and your mouths
In the slow smiling that awakens love ....
Go to the young men.
Are not the ruddy flesh and the thin flanks
And the broad shoulders worthy of desire?
[CPl, pp. 85-6/130]
These are the Dionysian injunctions of the passionate man who sees
the spirit of music at the heart of the world, the champion of life
whose pupils end the play by hailing his envisioned super race of the
future:
The Hero 145
0 silver trumpets, be you lifted up

And cry to the great race that is to come.
Long-throated swans upon the waves of time,
Sing loudly, for beyond the wall of the world
That race may hear our music and awake.
[CPl, p. 94/143]
Like Seanchan, the Cuchulain of On Baile's Strand (also 1903,

dated 1904 in the Collected Plays) is resolutely disdainful of political
expediency, and pursues his heroic integrity with all the tragic
isolation from other men that this commitment entails. He is of the
same breed as Robert Gregory, whom 'A lonely impulse of
delight I Drove to this tumult in the clouds' [CP, p. 15 2]. Gregory
obeys his own inner compulsions: 'Nor law, nor duty bade me
fight, I Nor public men, nor cheering crowds'. Like Gregory,
Cuchulain is not 'biddable as others', having within himself the
attributes of 'that clean hawk out of the air' which raise him to
isolated superiority over other men. 26 Like one born of a father who
'came out of the sun' [CPl, p. 167 1256], he experiences the
Apollinian individual's conflict with the pressures of his
environment, his passion deriving from that 'straining of man's
being against some obstacle that obstructs its unity' ['A People's
Theatre' (iv), Expl, p. 252]. Yet even in the very throes of this
conflict he revels in his overflowing quota of Dionysian laughter,
song and dance, excessive in everything.
The great Irish Red Branch Saga depicts much the same qualities
in its picture of the young Cuchulain, making him well suited to
embellishments by the Yeats who had found them so much more
forcefully presented in Nietzsche. The narrator, referring to
Cuchulain's first day of knighthood, speaks of his 'manly rage' and
of Emain Macha's women trooping out to placate him bare-
bosomed, 'without subterfuge of any kind', 'their manoeuvre being
based on Cuchulain's well-known modesty, which like all his other
qualities, was excessive'. 27 But not, of course, false modesty.
If the Cuchulain of On Baile's Strand is the proud, reckless,
excessive, solar individual, Conchubar is the stolid advocate of that
which Yeats dislikes in the objective world. He is the upholder of
society's values, of 'the threshold and the hearthstone' [CPl,
p. 1731263], the bastion of order who 'would leave I A strong and
settled country to my children' [CPl, p. 167 1255]. He, the prudently
crafty, 'reasonable' politician [CP/, p. 168/257], is Blind Man to

Cuchulain's Fool. Their contrasts form the fulcrum of the play. They
are hunchback and hero. We saw Yeats himself call them 'the cold
moon and the hot sun' [L, p. 425]. As the Blind Man says, Cuchulain
is 'wild', with 'his head in the clouds' [CP/, pp. 163, 164/249, 251];
when Conchubar wishes to discuss pragmatic issues, Cuchulain's
'fancy I Runs as it were a swallow on the wind' [CP/, p. 1701259].
He is bewitched by his dream of the ideal; as Louis MacNeice
comments, Yeats, 'having come to admire men of action ...
rationalized his admiration by the theory that the man of action is a
dreamer who embraces his opposite, who dramatizes his dream in
action'. 28 In Nietzschean terminology Cuchulain is the man with
access to both the Apollinian dream state and Dionysian fury. This
helped Yeats alleviate some of his early jealousy of young men of
action - a jealousy which Hone points to in a quotation from
MacGreevy's poem 'Homage to Louis IX': 'W. B. Yeats, turned
man of action, said, "MacGreevy, it's difficult to like men of
action." ' 29
When the king takes Cuchulain to task for 'hunting or dancing
with your wild companions', thereby allowing entry to the
'youngster out of Aoife's country', the young man's independent
spirit retorts,
I '11 not be bound.

I '11 dance or hunt, or quarrel or make love,
Wherever and whenever I've a mind to.
If time had not put water in your blood,
You never would have thought it.
[CP/, p. 166 I 254-5]
With aristocratic strength of will, he refuses to 'be obedient in all

things; I Give up my will', to 'swear obedience I As if I were some
cattle-raising king' [CP/, p. 167 1255]. He will yield even less readily
to the High King's progeny, who
have no pith,
No marrow in their bones, and will lie soft
Where you and I lie hard.
[CP/, p. 168]
The Hero 147
While Conchubar hopes for orderly perpetuation of the establish-

ment, Cuchulain would 'mock at every reasonable hope, I And
would have nothing, or impossible things' [CP/, p. 168/257]. Aut
Caesar aut nul/us: Cuchulain prefers annihilation to perpetuation of
mediocrity, and would have his adherents praise
Whatever life could make the pulse run quickly,

Even though it were brief, and that you held
That a free gift was better than a forced.
[CPI, p. 172/263]
A short, sharp life rather than a long, dull one is also Robert
Gregory's choice:
I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
[CP, p. 152]
When it comes to women, Cuchulain snorts that Conchubar,

'having lived among the spinning-wheels', would
have no woman near that would not say,

'Ah! how wise !' 'What will you have for supper?'
'What shall I wear that I may please you, sir?'
[CPI, p. 169/258]
Against this picture of woman as the tame, fawning chattel he recalls

Aoife,
With that high, laughing, turbulent head of hers

Thrown backward, and the bowstring at her ear,
Or sitting at the fire with those grave eyes
Full of good counsel as it were with wine,
Or when love ran through all the lineaments
Of her wild body ....
[CPI, p. 169/258-9]
This is woman painted in Dionysian hues, 'high, laughing,

turbulent', her warrior's 'bowstring' complemented by her 'good

counsel' and the wisdom imparted by the god of wine, her 'wild
body' coursing vibrantly with sexual 'love'.
Her son, whose appearance Cuchulain greets with heroic
equanimity, is of similar fettle: he will not stoop to offer any proof of
his nobility other 'than the hawk gives I That it's no sparrow!' [CPI,
p. 1731265]. He has no fear of death, asserting with the fatalism of
the noble warrior, 'Whether I live or die is in the gods' hands' [CPI,
p. 1741266]. He has his mother's fierceness, Conchubar notes, 'And
nobody is as fierce as those pale women' [CPI, p. 1751266]. He is
passionate, not sentimental, and Cuchulain would have his
friendship because he has 'a hot heart and a cold eye' [CP/,
p. 1741266]. Casting his own 'cold eye on life, on death', 30
Cuchulain asserts,
Boy,
If I had fought my father, he'd have killed me,
As certainly as if I had a son
And fought with him, I should be deadly to him.
[CPI, p. 177 /270]
Though J. B. Yeats would have regarded Cuchulain's pursuit of

his impersonal, perfect ideal as having led him to have 'dropped
affection from the circle of ... [his] needs' [JBYL, p. 97], the hero's
grief over his slaying of his son bespeaks a very deep love. As Moore
remarks, 'Yeats's most militant and masculine tragedy is also the
warmest in human passion. ' 31 Ironically - and the play is a quilt of
ironies - this succumbing to affection leaves him vulnerable to the
remorseless tides of life. Though he 'has killed kings and giants'
[CPI, p. 182/278], the waves master him despite the heroic frenzy
with which he battles them. Such frenzy is, of course, an important
attribute of the heroic figure, the poet's artistic Rausch - cousin to
Roman furor poeticus- being a frenzy able to create truth, as in' An
Acre of Grass', in which Jeffares recognises traces of passages in
Nietzsche's Dawn. 32 A Vision apportions 'an element of frenzy' to the
men of Phase 16, who delight in glowing images of concentrated
force [cf. V, pp. 138-9]. As Cuchulain fights the waves, the unheroic
creatures around him merely exploit the moment of 'the quenching
of this greatness' to put their bourgeois hands 'into the ovens' [CPI,
pp. 178, 182/272, 278]: 'Life drifts between a fool and a blind
man I To the end' [CPI, p. 1781271].
The Hero 149
Conchubar had sought to join his prudent brand of 'wisdom' to

Cuchulain's 'might of hand and burning heart' [CP/, p. 1701260],
but the hero's sprezzatura tragically leaves little room for reflection,
since 'What's wisdom to the hawk, when that clear eye I Is burning
nearer up in the high air?' [CPI, p. 1741265], the hawk being a
composite image of nobility, defiance, bravery, and pride of the kind
Birgit Bjersby describes. 33 Conchubar's giving of his wisdom and
taking of Cuchulain's natural strength did nothing but remove the
hero's liberty and independence. Once Cuchulain loses these, his
tragic urrapay,.Ws in a thoroughly physical sense sets in with
inexorable tread.
The familiar heroic qualities of pride and prodigality appear again
in the Cuchulain of At the Hawk's Well (1916-17), with the
Musicians of the opening moments calling
to the mind's eye

Pallor of an ivory face,
Its lofty dissolute air.
[CPl, p. 1361208]
The Old Man goes on to speak of Cuchulain as one who does 'not
hate the living world' and is 'crazy for the shedding of men's
blood, I And for the love of women' [CPI, p. 1391211-12]. He has
'that proud step I And confident voice' [CP/, p. 141 /215], fearless in
his belief that 'My luck is strong' [CPl, p. 1401214]: 'I am not afraid
of you, bird, woman, or witch' [CPl. p. 142/216]. And, when Aoife
and her troop of 'fierce women of the hills' confront him with the
'clash of arms', he meets then undaunted: 'I will face them. I He
comes! Cuchulain, son of Sualtim, comes!' [CPl. p. 144 I 218].
Asserting his own identity he storms valiantly to his tragic destiny, a
lonely subjective destiny devoid of comforting 'human
faces, I Familiar memories' [CPI, p. 1441219]. He is self-possessed to
the end.
Yeats endows the Cuchulain of The Green Helmet (the 191 0
version in verse) with an equally fierce independence. Here the
hero's self-assurance in his own destiny propels him into combat
with the Red Man in reckless disregard of his own safety. His grand
gesture brings him no material reward. In this heroic farce (as the
play is subtitled), the other 'heroes' and their wives cluck after
personal glory, highlighting Cuchulain's true achievement of
honour in his self-sacrifice and self-overcoming. Though itself a
form of egotism, this 'sacrifice' is unconscious, the product of that

involuntary 'indifference to his own interests' which flows from the
higher man's superabundance of power ['Expeditions of an
Untimely Man' (44), TI, p. 98]. And Zarathustra teaches that the
bestowing virtue is the highest virtue ....

Ye constrain all things to flow towards you and into you, so
that they shall flow back again out of your fountain as the gifts of
your love ....
When your heart overfloweth broad and full like the river, a
blessing and a danger to the lowlanders: there is the origin of your
virtue. [TSZ (22) pp. 78-80]
Cuchulain is intransigently spirited in the face of hardship and wins

the support of the Red Man, who chooses the
laughing lip
That shall not turn from laughing, whatever rise or fall;
The heart that grows no bitterer although betrayed by all.
[CPI, p. 159 I 243]
The First Musician in The Only Jealousy of Emer ( 1919) speaks of

Cuchulain as 'That amorous, violent man' [CPI, p. 185/283], a man
of 'passion' and 'the violent hour' [CPI, pp. 188, 187/287, 285]. No
longer 'The young and passionate man I was' [CPI, p. 191/292], he
nevertheless still belongs to the phase of the 'violent and
fragmentary' man in Yeats's system, where the hero is 'wrought to a
frenzy of desire for truth of self. He 'follows an Image, created or
chosen by the Creative Mind ... and this Image wavers between the
concrete and sensuous Image' [V, pp. 128-9]. The images that
Cuchulain seeks to make himself whole find embodiment in, on the
one hand, Emer and Eithne Inguba, and, on the other, Fand. Emer
is the steadfast woman of the 'hearth' 'who loved him first I And
loved him through the years when love seemed lost' [CPI,
p. 187 /285], but whose ties to the objective world make Cuchulain
'impure with memory' [CPI, p. 192/293]; Eithne lnguba with her
sexuality provides but temporary gratification, for women like her
who lap men 'in cloudy hair or kiss their lips' 'Are flung into some
corner like old nut-shells', 'the violent hour passed over' [CPI,
pp.l90, 187/290, 285]. Cuchulain is able to possess Emer and
Eithne lnguba in the physical world, while Fand emerges as an
The Hero 151
image of spiritual beauty beyond the pain of'flesh and blood' and of
human memory, 'beauty's bitterest enemy' [CP/, pp. 192, 1911293,
292]. Cuchulain's daimonic figure of beauty, she appears on the
threshold of Phase 15, the phase of complete, superhuman
subjectivity:
Ghost of Cuchulain. Who is it stands before me there

Shedding such light from limb and hair
As when the moon, complete at last
With every labouring crescent past,
And lonely with extreme delight,
Flings out upon the fifteenth night?
Woman of the Sidhe. Because I long I am not complete.
[CPI, p. 1911291]
She still requires the hero's sexuality to complement her, the

physical leading to transcendence of human flesh and emotion:
When your mouth and my mouth meet

All my round shall be complete
Imagining all its circles run;
And there shall be oblivion
Even to quench Cuchulain 's drouth,
Even to still that heart.
[CPI, p. 192/292-3]
But the Figure of Cuchulain, 'Fand's enemy', 'Maker of discord

among gods and men, I Called Bricriu of the Sidhe' [CPI, pp. 192,
1881294, 287], continues to dangle the lure of the sublunar world
through Emer and Eithne. Their incompleteness keeps him in life:
'When beauty is complete I Your own thought will have died.'
Even as a state of oblivion, devoid of desire, is about to be achieved,
the 'danger' of the objective world remains, and 'When the moon's
round is finished'
He that has loved the best

May turn from a statue
His too human breast.
[CPI, p. 1941295]
Cuchulain is still too much the hero of the world to pursue

impersonal Apollinian beauty to its limits. He is not yet the
Ubermensch, still but the hero - who is, after all, menschliches,
allzumenschliches. 'His hero-will hath he still to unlearn .. .' [TSZ
(35), p. 128].
The Ghost of Cuchulain can thus be viewed as the hero's mask,
the Figure of Cuchulain as his will. And Cuchulain, ever the heroic
man of passion, forsakes his ideal, Fand, for the loving 'arms' of his
mistress and the resilient love of his wife - the self-sacrificing,
courageous Emer, her love transcending sexual jealousy. For all her
allure, Fand is a 'statue of solitude' who would remove the hero
from humanity [CPl, p. 193/295]. Yet Cuchulain remains one of
those tragically divided men who strive for that 'emotional antithesis
to all that comes out of their internal nature', those subjective men of
whom Yeats writes in 'The Trembling of the Veil' ['Four Years:
1887-1891' (xxi), Auto, p. 116/189].
In The Death ofCuchulain (1938-9), the final work in the cycle,
we find the hero melting into the completed image of the antithetical
quest he forsook at the last moment in The Only Jealousy of Emer.
No longer concerned with anything but his ideal, his mask and will
merge. His reality is what he chooses it to be: I make the truth!'
comes the Nietzschean flourish when a servant questions
Cuchulain's interpretation of Eithne's words [CPl, p. 441/698].
In death, as Donoghue comments, Cuchulain 'is no longer
interested in the external marks of heroism, because his existence is
purely internal; he lives now in the dream, concentrating whatever
will he has upon the next tum of his gyre'. 34 He is serenely self-
possessed, ignoring his body of fate, controlling all from within. Not
that this control is strictly of the Nietzschean kind alone: Yeats
recognises its Indian origins too in the Upanishads, where deity is
described in Blakean terms as one's own Self, the immortal; the
controller. Yet even with all his control of self Cuchulain does yield
to the brutal and sordid forces of destruction, a Fool to the end, the
oneiric hero falling to the base man of 'good sense' who sees the
reward of'twelve pennies' as the best 'reason for killing a man' [CPl,
p. 444/702]. Scornful of the Blind Man's ilk, Cuchulain utterly
ignores his knife-strokes, his mind fixed only on his 'soul's first
shape' as he begins to die his life and live his death. A sense of
weariness and taedium vitae, a loss of his once-abundant 'passion
necessary to life', is transfigured into joy in his fate: in the same way
as the heroic Cuchulain sang amid the tragedy of life, so now his
The Hero 153
soul 'is about to sing' [CPI, pp. 441, 444/697, 703]. He has not
'changed' his ideal, and so appears 'monstrous' to the ordinary
'sublunary' breed of man [CPI, p. 441 /697].
Having always pursued his own egoistic will, 'That very day' on
which Cuchulain surrendered it and swore to do Conchubar's will
he 'went mad' and 'fought against the sea' [CPI, p. 443/700]. It is a
bitter fate that yields the hero's dignity up to the crassness of the
world and its clamour for suffrage universe/ [cf. WP (854, 861, 862)
pp. 457-9], to 'the dancers painted by Degas' with 'their short
bodices, their stiff stays, their toes whereon they spin like peg-tops'
in 'this vile age' [CP/, pp. 439, 438/694).3 5
Though the dying Cuchulain experiences complete self-
absorption, it is the solitary heron of Calvary (1920) that remains
Yeats's most telling depiction of subjective man and his lonely self-
sufficiency, his Apollinian contemplatio lending him access to
'higher truth' [BT (I) p. 35), to 'a new world, clearer, more
understandable, ... and yet more shadowy' [BT(9) p. 66]. With this
absorption comes remoteness, and 'solitude' is a key-word for the
rejected Zarathustra in his 'stillest hour'. 'Solitary men', Yeats had
written in 'The Symbolism of Poetry' of 1900, 'make and unmake
mankind, and even the world itself, for does not "the eye altering
alter all"?' [E&I, pp. 158-9]. The question of what reality is had
occupied him long before he began to systematise his own
explanation of it in A Vision and the poems and plays.
In his note to Calvary, Yeats explains that he uses his bird-
symbolism
to increase the objective loneliness of Christ by contrasting it with

a loneliness, opposite in kind, that unlike His can be, whether
joyous or sorrowful, sufficient to itself.... I have ... represented
in Lazarus and Judas types of that intellectual despair that lay
beyond His sympathy, while in the Roman soldiers I suggest a
form of objectivity that lay beyond His help. [P&C, pp. 459-60]
In the light of this, the esoterics of the play lose much of their
obscurity.
The 'white heron' of which the Musicians sing, absorbed in its
ideal, 'Shivers in a dumbfounded dream', in terrible solitude, as it
attempts, in Moore's phrase, 'to fix its identity in the distorting
mirror of time', 36 staring 'Upon the glittering image of a
heron I That now is lost and now is there' [CP/, p. 288/450]. Not
only is man's identity elusive, but so is his mask or desired image of

himself. As that note to Calvary goes on, 'Objective men, however
personally alone, are never alone in their thought, . . . while
subjective men are the more lonely the more they are true to type,
seeking always that which is unique or personal' [P&C, p. 459].
Christ, with his engulfing objectivity, is unable to satisfy the
subjective temperament: 'God has not died for the white heron'
[CPI, p. 2881450]. Ultimately, though, both Christianity and the
religion of the self are depicted as leading to a kind of oblivion. The
moon's phases charted on the wheel of history will soon continue on
their cycles, objectivity and subjectivity alternating ceaselessly:
But that the full is shortly gone

And after that is crescent moon,
It's certain that the moon-crazed heron
Would be but fishes' diet soon.
[CPI, p. 2881 450]
The remnants of the passing age of subjectivity taunt Christ,

urging Him to call on His Father 'before your bones I Have been
picked bare by the great desert birds' [CP/, p. 2891450] - the
antithetical birds that accompany the beast of 'The Second Coming'.
To the disturbed Musicians, this 'mockers' cry' has the sound of a
'cleverly, softly played'
flute of bone
Taken from a heron's thigh,
A heron crazed by the moon.
[CPI, p. 289 I 451]
Subjective Lazarus does not want Christ's objectivity and sees in

death his only means of escaping His 'love'. His raising from the
dead has robbed him of his ability to go 'to the desert, or chuckle in a
corner, I Mere ghost, a solitary thing'; he longs for the 'howling
wind and solitary birds' [CPI, p. 2901452].
Judas is just as strongly individualistic. The idea that God has 'put
all men' into Christ's hands is intolerable to him:
That was the very thought that drove me wild.

I could not bear to think you had but to whistle
The Hero 155
And I must do; but after that I thought,

'Whatever man betrays Him will be free'; ...
When I planned it
There was no live thing near me but a heron
So full of itself that it seemed terrified.
[CP/, pp. 291-2/454]
He is another of those sovereign Apollinian individuals who affirm

their own inherent freedom. In A Vision Yeats speaks of the
hunchback as one whose 'greatest temptation may be to defy God, to
become a Judas, who betrays, not for thirty pieces of silver, but that
he may call himself creator' [V, p. 178].
In contrast to Lazarus and Judas are the pack 'gathered round'
Christ who 'live but in His love' [CP/, p. 291 /453], oblivious of their
own individuality in the manner Nietzsche ascribes to all followers
of objective religions. Losing themselves in the Dionysian spectacle
of the Cross and Christ's 'Blood-dabbled feet', the disciples have
submerged their individuality, herons 'drowned' in the sea of self-
abnegation.
And, as the Roman soldiers with their dice from polytheistic
Ephesus dance the dance of the quarrelling multi-faceted dice-
throwers, the Musicians review the subjective nature of lone sea-
birds wheeling in the 'blue deep of the upper air' [CP/, p. 293/457],
the zone of the soaring spirit and free intellect. The ger-eagle may be
'content with his savage heart', but there is a decided tinge of
dissatisfaction lurking in that final question, 'What can a swan need
but a swan?' [CP/, p. 294/457]. Subjectivity and objectivity, the
question suggests, need each other after all if wholeness is to be
achieved.
6 Cyclical History
... the plexus of causes returneth in

which I am intertwined, - it will again
create me!'
- Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zara-
thustra (57.2), p. 247 .
. . . every phase returns, therefore in
some sense every civilisation....
-Yeats, A Vision, p. 206.
EWIGE WIEDERKEHR
From Nietzsche's view of the world as 'a monster of energy', 'a sea
of forces' in relentless strife engendered by conflicting wills to
power, spring all his ensuing aesthetics and doctrines of tragedy, of
the divided psyche, of Rangordnung, of master and slave moralities,
of the Obermensch, and, ultimately, of the notion which he comes to
regard as the crowning glory of his entire philosophy, the idea of
ewige Wiederkehr.
Nietzsche sees all life as a pattern of birth and decay: in the
organism, in man, in the seasons, in epochs and cultures - all a
continuous ebb and flow, integration and disintegration, exhaustion
and rejuvenation, systole and diastole [cf. TSZ, m. And Yeats,
coupling the German's views as before to his own ideas and to
similiar ones encountered elsewhere, adopts and modifies the
Nietzschean conception of eternal recurrence within his own
cyclical design of history.
Nietzsche describes the origin of his theory in his Ecce Homo
remarks on Zarathustra, relating that
Cyclical History 157
the idea of the eternal recurrence, this highest formula of

affirmation that is at all attainable, belongs in August 1881: it was
penned on a sheet with the notation underneath, '6000 feet
beyond man and time'. That day I was walking through the
woods along the lake of Silvaplana; at a powerful pyramidal rock
not far from Surlei I stopped. It was then that this idea came to
me.
['Thus Spake Zarathustra' (1), EH, p. 295]
It is an idea he pursues with nothing less than religious faith -

Dionysian faith, to be sure- as a means to transform humanity, as
the 'highest formula of affimation', fashioning it into a system in a
way he usually decries - though by no means in the manner of
Yeats, with all the convoluted esotericism that his symbolic scheme
entails.
We need a doctrine, Nietzsche writes in The Will to Power [(862)
p. 458] 'powerful enough to work as a breeding agent: strengthening
the strong, paralysing and destructive for the world-weary'. In The
Gay Science [(341) pp. 273-4] he speaks of a demon who whispers
the prophecy that your life as you lived it
'will have to return to you, all in the same succession and

sequence .... The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside
down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!'
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and
curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced
a tremendous moment when you would have answered him:
'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' ...
The question in each and every thing, 'Do you desire this once
more and innumerable times more?' would lie upon your actions
as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to
become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than
this ultimate eternal confirmation . . . ?
In the first edition of A Vision [(London, 1925) p. xiii], Yeats recounts

himself whispering a similar acceptance of eternal recurrence in
Capri:
I murmured, as I have countless times, 'I have been part of it

always and there is maybe no escape, forgetting and returning life
after life like an insect in the roots of the grass.' But murmured it
without terror, in exultation almost.
This is the sentiment of Nietzsche's supreme Ja-sagender, the

affirming embracer of amor fati. Eternal recurrence is, in Richard
Lowell Howey's phrase juste, the 'necessary fiction' of the
Ubermensch. 1 Zarathustra's affirmation produces ecstasy and
courage which strikes even death dead: '"Was that -life?" will I
say unto death. "Well! Once more!" '[TSZ(79.l) p. 357]. For Yeats
the adoption of amor fati engenders 'an energy so noble, so
powerful, that we laugh aloud and mock, in the terror or the
sweetness of our exaltation, at death and oblivion'. 2
Through ewige Wiederkehr man is able to dispense with the idea
of a Great Beyond and yet not be crushed by the thought that this
single life is all, after which- nothing. With the endless return of the
forces that constitute us we become eternal. Fate acts through our
own willing and we can thus overcome perpetual nihilism by the
strength of our willing ourselves to a higher sphere, redeeming and
conditioning all existence, past, present, and future, since time is
circular. For the supra-historical man of Thoughts out of Season, the
world is complete and fulfils its aim in every single moment. 3 And
for Zarathustra, too, every moment becomes exalted:
Wanted ye ever once to come twice; said ye ever: 'Thou pleasest
me, happiness! Instant! Moment!' then wanted ye all to come
back again!
- All anew, all eternal, all enlinked, enlaced and enamoured,
Oh, then did ye love the world, -
- Ye eternal ones, ye love it eternally and for all time: and also
unto woe do ye say: Hence! Go! But come back! For joys all want
-eternity! [TSZ (79.1 0) p. 363]
Thus speaks Zarathustra, teacher of the eternal recurrence. And, like

Zarathustra, Yeats longs for the eternal return of passion: 'Passion
desires its own recurrence more than any event' ['Anima Mundi'
(viii), Myth, p. 354]. Though the passion central to the full arduous
life entails pain, 'I am content', we read in 'A Dialogue of Self and
Soul',
to live it all again
And yet again, if it be life to pitch
Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch ....
I am content to follow to its source

Every event in action or in thought;
Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.
[CP, p. 267]
Complete though Nietzsche's own belief in ewige Wiederkehr is,

the philosopher demands unflagging scepticism from his readers:
Let us beware teaching such a theory as a sudden religion! .. .

You must have lived through every degree of scepticism .. .
else yoti have no right to this idea; I wish to defend myself against
the credulous and fanatical !4
Convinced of its truth largely through his own desperate longing

and the sense of comfort it avails - 'My consolation is that
everything that has been is eternal' [WP(l065) p. 548]- he does all
the same try to devise arguments against his 'inevitable hypothesis' :
'Perhaps it is not true:- let others wrestle with it. s He makes no
claim of proof beyond all doubt, and Lou Salome says that at Leipzig
Nietzsche realised full well the impossibility of grounding his
hypothesis in rationality. But he does, nevertheless, impart a feeling
that his crowning doctrine, conceived with such fervour in the
woods of Silvaplana, si non e vero, e ben trovato. It should be true.
Aware though he is of his doctrine's tenuous connection with
empirical science and rationality, Nietzsche does none the less foist
scientific explanations upon it- it is 'the most scientific of all possible
hypotheses', he declares in The Will to Power [(55) p. 36]. Time, runs
his argument, is infinite; thus, if the world were capable of coming
to an end it would already have done so: 'If the world could in any
way become rigid, dry, dead, nothing, or if it could reach a state of
equilibrium, ... then this state must have been reached. But it has
not been reached .. .' [WP (1066) pp. 548-9]. We are in a world of
constant flux, and this would not be the case had the world once
reached a state of equilibrium from which it would have been
unable to dislodge itself. Only an infinite being outside it - a Divine
Creator - could have achieved this, a conception Nietzsche finds

philosophically untenable. Though this flies in the face of the theory
of relativity and of the second law of thermodynamics with its
postulate of ever-increasing entropy, Nietzsche does state that the
scientific 'law of the conservation of energy demands eternal
recurrence' [WP (1063) p. 547]. Interestingly, with Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle and more recent proposals that matter's
building blocks merely have 'tendencies' to exist, Nietzsche's view
of irrational universal chaos, of the world as flux down to the nth
degree, continues to receive hints of justification.
Nietzsche feels that, while time is infinite, energy and space are
not:
the world, as force, may not be thought of as unlimited, for it

cannot be so thought of; we forbid ourselves the concept of an
infinite force as incompatible with the concept 'force'. Thus- the
world also lacks the capacity for eternal novelty.
[WP (1062) p. 547]
All energy would long since have utterly dispersed had space been
infinite. In any case, space an Sich does not exist: in a world where
everything is 'a play of forces and waves of forces', 'empty' space is
a fallacy [WP (1067) p. 550]. Since finite energy can only have a
finite number of possible configurations, these configurations must
eventually begin to repeat themselves, and, when the universe
reaches a total state wholly identical to any that has gone before, the
entire process of events between the two states must recur identically
ad infinitum:
From the gateway, This Moment, there runneth a long eternal

lane backwards: behind us lieth an eternity.
Must not whatever can run its course of all things, have already
run along that lane? Must not whatever can happen of all things
have already happened, resulted, and gone by? ... must we not
all have already existed?
- And must we not return and run in that other lane out before
us, that long weird lane - must we not eternally return?
[TSZ (46.2) p. 174]
So we find Nietzsche proposing a new form of reincarnation:

'Now do I die and disappear', wouldst thou say, 'and in a moment

I am nothing ....
'But the plexus of causes returneth in which I am intertwined,
- it will again create me ! I myself pertain to the causes of the
eternal return.
I come again ... not to a new life, or a better life, or a similar
life:
-I come again eternally to this identical and selfsame life, in its
greatest and its smallest.... ' [TSZ (57.2) pp. 247-8]
Nietzsche does not fully deal with the question of whether the
Ubermensch too would already have existed and been re-created
identically were he at all capable of being realised. It has not been
our purpose in the course of this exploration to take issue with
Nietzsche's ideas, since what is more important than their feasibility
is whether they held any appeal for Yeats - which ewige Wiederkehr
certainly did (as we shall see in a moment), though it is perhaps the
most susceptible to (rational) attack of all Nietzsche's major theories,
and the one most readily ascribed to psychological factors.
Nietzsche's view of history thus entails recurrence that is both
eternal and identical, and as such is an exception to his denial of
eternal regularities and exact duplications in nature. It and the will to
power are the only processes in the whirl of existence not subject to
change (though they do obviously contain change within
themselves). Yet even here, in spite of this divergence from the
tendency of his other cosmological views, Nietzsche welcomes the
anomaly of ewige Wiederkehr as triumphant synthesis in which
mechanism and Platonism unite [cf. WP ( l 061) p. 546]. Here we find
eternity within time and not beyond the real world: 'That everything
recurs is the closest approximation of a world of becoming to a world
of being:- high point of the meditation' [WP (617) p. 330].
Among the aspects of Nietzsche's ewige Wiederkehr which prove
particularly useful to Yeats is the idea of cyclical patterns in all
things, the alternating integration and disintegration of forces, which
depends on the manner in which energy is utilised- as happens, in a
sense, in llya Prigogine's 1977 theory on 'open systems', to which
the second law of thermodynamics does not apply:
Regarded mechanistically, the energy of the totality of becoming

remains constant; regarded economically, it rises to a high point
and sinks down again in an eternal circle. This 'will to power'
expresses itself in the interpenetration, in the manner in which

force is used up .... The same quantum of energy means different
things at different stages of evolution. [WP (639) p. 340]
Existence is an eternal deifying and undeifying,
retreat from the high point in becoming (the highest

spiritualization of power on the most slavish ground) to be
represented as a consequence of this highest force, which, turning
against itself when it no longer has anything left to organize,
expends its force on disorganization. [WP (712) p. 379]
The last physical state of energy must necessarily be the first as well,
and a state of the highest affirmation follows one of utter negation.
So, while there exists a dialectical world pattern of strife and self-
overcoming, there is also a cyclical one, as evidenced in the growth
and decay of the organism and of cultures within human history.
Ewige Wiederkehr encompasses all these smaller rhythms, with
identical recurrence occurring on a supra-historical scale, as we
gather from Nietzsche's dismissing the doctrine of Pythagoras in
Thoughts out of Season. 6 This repudiation would suggest that, while
epochs of opposite impulses follow each other in alternating cycles
through galactic history and similar (not identical) cycles recur in
human history, exactly identical recurrence is not possible within
the span of known history. The Platonic magnus annus, it would
seem, is sufficiently long to include alternating cycles, but repeats
itself within observable time. Nietzsche never indicates how long it
takes before energy configurations begin their recurrence according
to his theory, but his argument implies a great year or great wheel of
enormous duration.
The Apollinian-Dionysian polarity thus alternates through
history (at times achieving a glorious synthesis approaching Yeats's
unity of being), with all higher cultures beginning in barbarism, then
ascending, descending, and being revitalised again by the energy of
'evil' barbaric forces. The pre-Homeric age of Titanic strife was the
bedrock of the age of Aeschylus, that culmination of culture when
individuality came closest to perfection, only to be demolished by
that roturier Socrates. In this way the pendulum of history swings
from Hellenism to Orientalism and back.
In Europe, the 'blonde beasts' established feudal aristocracy, with
peaks occurring in Italy during the Quattrocento and in France
under /e roi solei/. Voltaire's free-minded individuality was dragged

down by Rousseau, that canaille whose ressentiment nature sprang
from a hatred of aristocratic culture [cf. WP (1 021) pp. 528-9]. On
the Genealogy of Morals [(1.16) p. 52] chronicles this oscillation
between master and slave moralities as the conflict between Roman
and Jew: 'The symbol of this struggle, inscribed in letters legible
across all human history, is "Rome against Judea, Judea against
Rome".'
The Renaissance and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France
almost saw a reinstitution of Rome's values:
There was, to be sure, in the Renaissance an uncanny and

glittering reawakening of the classical ideal, of the noble mode of
evaluating all things; Rome itself, oppressed by the new
superimposed Judaised Rome that presented the aspect of an
ecumenical synagogue and was called the 'church', stirred like
one awakened from seeming death: but Judea immediately
triumphed again, thanks to that thoroughly plebeian (German and
English) ressentiment movement called the Reformation....
With the French Revolution, Judea once again triumphed over
the classical ideal . . . the mendacious slogan of ressentiment,
'supreme rights of the majority', ... the will to the lowering, the
abasement, the levelling and the decline and twilight of
mankind. . . . [GM (I.l6) pp. 5 3-4]
In the midst of this collapse, however, there did appear Napoleon,

'the noble ideal as such made flesh' [GM (I.l6) p. 54], only to be cut
down by the German wars of independence.
As Judaic religious principles undermined Rome, so in ancient
India cultures declined with the self-destruction of religious bases
and in China atheism was followed by the apotheosis of moral
values, with both regions declining into cultural cesspools. Europe is
also heading for a period of being 'more Chinese' [GM(I.l2) p. 44],
of experiencing a 'new Buddhism' [GM (Preface, 5) p. 19]. But,
though Europeans might become complete herd animals, Nietzsche
contends, it is from them that the 'new barbarians' will spring, bred
by the same conditions. Thanks to the tension produced in the
European soul by absolute morality, decadents will be eradicated
and the healthy will revaluate all values. Moral values are a
succession of antithetical ideals, and 'what is new ... is always evil,
being that which wants to conquer and overthrow ... and only
what is old is good' [GS (4) p. 79], occasioning its own destruction
through self-overcoming - the unavoidable result of its preceding
history.
Essentially, the world contains fluctuating cultures which are
either 'dominantly Socratic or artistic or tragic' or, 'if historical
exemplifications are permitted, there is either an Alexandrian or a
Hellenic or a Buddhistic culture' [BT (18) p. II O]. The value of such
cultures should be determined not by their length, but by their level:
'Humanity must live in cycles, sole form of duration. Not culture as
long as possible, but as short and high as possible. ' 7
Not that any part of history can be dismissed. The past lives on in
its consequences and in human memory, and can be justified by
being given a meaning and a goal in retrospect. That goal is the
Ubermensch.
If everything is a great ring, then everything is equally valuable
and necessary. Yet, though all cycles and ewige Wiederkehr are
necessary, they are not the product of purposed, teleological order:
The 'chaos of the All' as exclusion of every purposiveness does

not stand in contradiction to the idea of periodic return: the latter
is precisely an irrational necessity, without any formal, ethical,
aesthetic consideration. 8
Yeats, too, reconciles his view of perpetual strife and his concept of
patterned cyclical history: 'Life is no series of emanations from
divine reason ... , but an irrational bitterness, no orderly descent
from level to level, no waterfall but a whirlpool, a gyre' [V, p. 40].
Strangely, Nietzsche's theory has a far gentler, more comforting
and benign quality than Yeats's with its perception of history as
harsh cyclical gyration. As we recall Bentley suggesting, 9 ewige
Wiederkehr is a form of feminine antidote to the harsh masculinity
of Nietzsche's Weltanschauung- a harshness he forces himself to
revel in, even though it is itself perhaps but a reaction to his
essentially feminine psyche.
Ideas postulating the cyclical nature of history are of course by no
means anything new. As a Greek scholar Nietzsche certainly knew
of similar theories in antiquity, and his knowledge (albeit
disparaging for the most part) of Eastern philosophy acquainted him
with like ones there. In relating Nietzsche's thought to Greek
literature and thought, A. H. J. Knight has traced the history of the
idea of recurrence in Greek philosophy, as in the concept of
the Jd'yar; ivtaut'or; and the Stoic theory of iKrriJpwcTLr; , the

periodic destruction of the world by the fire which is its basis. 10 But
in that summer of 1881 Nietzsche perceived something new in all
this, something so revolutionary to him that it imbued him with the
'fundamental conception' of Thus Spake Zarathustra ['Thus Spake
Zarathustra' ( 1), EH p. 295], and found him writing to Overbeck a
good three years later,
it is possible that there has come to me for the first time the idea
which will cleave the history of mankind into two halves .... If it
is true, or rather: if it is believed true- then everything changes
and revolves and all previous values are devalued. 11
This and his remarks on Zarathustra in Ecce Homo suggest the

originality of the conception as Nietzsche himself formulated it, and
so narrows the extent of any outside influence - at least as far as the
author himself is concerned. Yeats, too, would ascribe his cyclical
system in A Vision to unknown 'instructors' rather than to previous
philosophy. Nietzsche is certainly never slow to make claims for
himself as an originator and forerunner - as when he speaks of
himself as the first tragic philosopher and the father of psychology in
philosophy. In this he would seem to be very much one of those
who believe in the realisation of their wish, pareant qui ante nos
nostra dixerunt.
In The Will to Power [(1 066) p. 548], Nietzsche does concede that
'I have come across this idea in earlier thinkers', but immediately
adds the qualification that 'every time it was determined by other
ulterior considerations'. Twilight of the Idols speaks of the Hellene
guaranteeing to himself through the 'Dionysian mysteries' 'Eternal
life, the eternal recurrence of life; the future promised and
consecrated in the past; the triumphant Yes to life beyond death and
change; true life as collective continuation of life through
procreation' ['What I Owe to the Ancients' (4), Tl, p. 109]. In Ecce
Homo comes the acknowledgment that
the doctrine of the 'eternal recurrence', that is, of the

unconditional and infinitely repeated circular course of all things
- this doctrine of Zarathustra might in the end have been taught
already by Heraclitus. At least the Stoa has traces of it, and the
Stoics inherited almost all of their principalotions from Heraclitus.
['The Birth of Tragedy' (3), EH, pp. 273-4]
Zarathustra makes a direct reference to the Heraclitean great year'

in 'The Convalescent':
Thou teachest that there is a great year of Becoming, a prodigy of

a great year; it must, like a sand-glass, ever turn up anew, that it
may anew run down and run out: -
- So that all those years are like one another in the greatest and
also in the smallest, so that we ourselves, in every great year, are
like ourselves in the greatest and also in the smallest [TSZ(57 .2)
p. 247]
He speaks also of the great wheel': Everything goeth, everything

returneth; eternally rolleth the wheel of existence. Everything dieth,
everything blossometh forth again; eternally runneth on the year of
existence' [TSZ (57.2) p. 244]. Knight points to the mention of this
wheel also in Human, All-too-Human, where Nietzsche talks of the
great wheel which ' has turned and keeps on turning'Y For Yeats
too, the great wheel becomes a pivotal element in the scheme of
history: just as Nietzsche had had his thoughts on recurring cycles
prompted - unconsciously perhaps - by earlier thinkers, so Yeats
drew from the ancients of both hemispheres to develop his views on
cyclical epochs, finding fresh sanction in the German.
While Nietzsche proves helpful to Yeats in substantiating other
cyclical theories, the singular attitude of exultant affirmation
generated by his doctrine of ewige Wiederkehr is adopted without
inducement from previous philosophies; Yeats is unlikely to have
perceived this dimension of the Dionysian myth without having
come across Nietzsche's interpretation of it. Where Shelley, voicing
the Platonic tradition, meets cyclic return with weary despair in the
final chorus of He/las, Nietzsche and Yeats rejoice in recurrence.
Shelley would welcome only the 'world's great age' and the 'golden
years'; Nietzsche and Yeats delight in all return. Zarathustra calls it
'the marriage-ring of rings' [cf. TSZ (60) p. 257 ff.], Yeats's lapis
lazuli Chinamen have 'ancient, glittering eyes' that 'are gay' amid
recognition of the tragic pattern of history [CP, p. 339].
YEATS'S 'STYLISTIC ARRANGEMENTS' OF HISTORY
Not far into A Vision [p. 24] Yeats raises the question of 'whether I
believe in the actual existence of my circuits of sun and moon'. And
well he might. His is a theory enwebbed in a dizzying maze of

circular symbols and calendars of see-sawing lengths, his 'stylistic
arrangements' designed to systematise his abstract ideas into a
cohesive structure. But, constrained though he feels, like Blake, to
create his own system which will join the ranks of other men's,
Yeats does feel that all philosophies are spawned by a sense of terror,
of the inexplicable:
An abyss opens under our feet; inherited convictions, the pre-

suppositions of our thoughts, ... drop into the abyss. Whether we
will or no we must ask the ancient questions: Is there reality
anywhere? Is there a God? Is there a Soul?
['Modem Poetry', E&l, pp. 502-3]
Though he minimises the influences of earlier thinkers on the

formulation of his system, Yeats does - like Nietzsche - make
extensive mention of cyclic return as an idea known to antiquity. In
A Vision [p. 246] he links Empedocles, who in 'The Gyres' 'has
thrown all things about' [CP, p. 337], with Heraclitus as claiming
that 'the universe had first one form and then its opposite in
perpetual alternation'. In the Sophist (242 D, E), Plato cites
Empedocles and Heraclitus as teachers of the belief that God appears
as One during one cycle of civilisation, and as Many in the next
This, together with the Platonic system of 'inferior' and 'superior'
cycles, fits well into Nietzsche's views of objective and subjective
epochs, Dionysus against Apollo, Judea against Rome, one god
against many - ideas so intrinsic to the themes of plays such as
Calvary and The Resurrection.
Heraclitus is an important figure for both Nietzsche and Yeats.
We recall the former mentioning that the Stoics derived most of their
notions from Heraclitus, and in On the Boiler [pp. 19-20] Yeats
alludes directly to 'the old Stoic prophecy of earthquake, fire and
flood at the end of an age', the Heraclitean tradition
of EKrrvpwutl) which has so many parallels in Hindu and Jainist
myth, fire being both the substance and the destruction of the
world. 13 As Wilson observes, the Platonic magnus annus too has
parallels in Indian and Buddhist philosophy, being the time
necessary for one complete revolution of an historical pattern in all
its detail. 14 But, judging from those remarks on Pythagoras,
Nietzsche would view Zarathustra's great year or great wheel as
repeating identically in its greatest and smallest parts only beyond
the realm of known history. Within this larger turn of the wheel,
shorter cycles of similar impulse recur in periodic alternation with
ones of opposite impulse.
For all this, Yeats maintains that his central treatise on cyclical
history - A Vision - was fashioned from his wife's 'automatic
writing', his 'teachers' speaking through her and providing him with
his 'symbolical maps' [cf. V, pp. 8-25]. Hardly the sort of basis for a
philosophy of history Nietzsche would have approved! Indeed,
Yeats professes ignorance of any philosophical explanations of
history before the composition of A Vision: 'When the automatic
script began, neither I nor my wife knew, or knew that we knew,
that any man had tried to explain history philosophically' [V, p. 261].
He writes that his teachers had 'asked me not to read philosophy
until their exposition was complete, and this increased my
difficulties. Apart from two or three of the principal Platonic
Dialogues I knew no philosophy' [V, p. 12].
Be that as it may, there is much in the revised edition that bears
traces of antiquity, not least of all book IV and its 'great year of the
ancients'. Yeats employs several calendars of different lengths,
stating that 'the symbolic wheel is timeless and spaceless' [V, p. 205],
and offering variations on the great year as found in classical
literature: 'There was little agreement as to the length of the Great
Year, every philosopher had a different calculation' [V, p. 251]. And
in the same way as all those philosophers who preceded him lent
their own calculations to concepts that had gone before, so Yeats
embroiders his vision of history on a canvas already there.
Much of his information as to what the ancients thought derives
from Pierre Duhem's Le Systeme du monde, with Yeats making
repeated mention of Graeco-Roman writings. He speaks of the
Etruscans and their trumpet which signalled 'the mutation of the age
and a general revolution of the world'; of Vergil's prophecy a
generation later that 'the cycles in their vast array begin anew' [V,
p. 243]; and he echoes Nietzsche (and Ibsen) in the view that 'Caesar
and Christ always stand face to face in our imagination' [V, p. 244].
He also quotes Cicero's uncertainty as to
when the whole of the constellations shall return to the positions

from which they once set forth, thus after a long interval re-
making the first map of the heavens, that may indeed be called the
Great Year wherein I scarce dare say how many are the
generations of men. [V, pp. 245-6].
Proclus found in the 'golden number' of Plato's Republic a greatest

year and in his Timaeus a much smaller year; scholars, Yeats says,
have found fourteen different solutions to the number: to Taylor it
suggested 36,000 years, 360 incarnations of 'Plato's Man ofUr' (or
Er) [V, p. 248]. In the second century before Christ, Yeats continues,
Hipparchus pointed out that the zodiacal constellations were
moving, but only in the next century did Ptolemy fix the rate of
movement at l 00 years for each degree, so that the precession of the
equinoxes would be completed - and Aries return to its original
position - every 36,000 years. He named this period the Platonic
Year. 'In the East', Yeats writes in his 'Introduction to The
Resurrection' (ii), multiplied by twelve as if it were but a month of a
still greater year, it became the Manvantra of 432,000 years ... '
[Exp/, p. 395].
So Yeats presents his own great year as a rhythm in history larger
than individual historical cycles, a year lasting (according to one of
several calculations) for 26,000 years, being made up of twelve
'months' of about 2,200 years each. And 26,000 years certainly
transcends the bounds of recorded history, though it is hardly likely
that the identical, not merely similar, configuration of finite energy
in finite space and infinite time, which Nietzsche's theory demands,
could begin afresh after so short a duration. But, as Yeats points out,
'whatever its length', the great year 'divided, and so did every unit
whose multiple it was, into waxing and waning, day and night, or
summer and winter' ['Introduction to The Resurrection' (ii), Expl,
p. 369]. In A Vision [p. 203], 'The Lunar Months of 2,200 years
apiece, in a year of 26,000 years, are years of civilisation, while the
Solar Months of a similar symbolical length correspond to periods of
religion.'
Thus in one reading of Yeats's mandala, in each ofthe great year's
months we encounter the rhythms of growth, florescence and decay
as found in the organism, with the period of highest development
coinciding with the age of greatest individuality - that quality
Nietzsche finds so laudable in his cherished age of Aeschylus. Yeats
sees in both the early and the late periods of each month the opposite
impulse towards objective communality, which appears initially as
primitive mentality and ultimately as decadent mentality. These
opposing cycles of objectivity and subjectivity alternate endlessly,
recurring with no overall progress- a keen reminder of Nietzsche's
questioning of actual progress, as in The Will to Power (684) and
Human, All-too-Human (24, 26).
In Phase 8 of each cycle's twenty-eight phases, the tug of

individuality begins to mount as an outgrowth of the early phases of
impulse towards unity, and we pass into the antithetical sphere, with
individuality rising to heroic dimensions as the phases pass.
Consequently we find men such as Parnell in Phase I 0 and
Nietzsche in Phase 12, until we begin the return to communal
consciousness after Phase 15. Now individualistic heroes such as the
Napoleon of Phase 20 begin to view themselves as the world's
servants. By Phase 26 fragmented personality assumes the figure of
the physically deformed hunchback - as opposed to women of
mature physical beauty- or of the rationally weak fool by Phase 28.
The religious leader of Phase 25 and the saint of Phase 27 seek to
surrender themselves to a greater objectivity, sharing the desire for
absorption in God characteristic of Phase l.
Every cycle lasting about 2,000 contains two sub-cycles of 1,000
years, each of which also has twenty-eight phases, analogous to
those of the individual. In this way we find charted on the circular
great wheel a great year having twelve cycles of about 2,000 years
apiece which are complete twenty-eight-phase wheels in themselves,
and each of which contains two circular sub-cycles individually
lasting 1,000 years. On one scale, then, a completed rhythm of
objective and subjective cycles spans 4,000 years.
When one divides this completed wheel into twenty-eight phases
and marks its cardinal points at Phases 1, 8, 15 and 22, each of these
points is 1,000 years from the other. Phase I is the point assigned to
the year 2000 sc, Phase 8 thus the point assigned to I 000 BC, Phase
15 the one to the time of Christ, Phase 22 that to AD I 000. It follows
that Phase I also marks the year AD 2000 (roughly our present time),
and Phase 8 also AD 3000. Yeats positions classical civilisation
between Phases 8 and 22 (1000 sc to AD 1000), and Christian
civilisation between Phases 22 and 8 (AD 1000 to 3000). Midway
through each of these 2,000-year cycles the counteracting movement
begins to rise, and so we find Christ appearing at the midpoint of the
classical era, the Christian civilisation commencing under his aegis a
thousand years later. With him, 'Instead of that old alternation,
brute or ascetic, came something obscure or uncertain that could not
find its full explanation for a thousand years' [V, p. 285]. Religions
emerge at right-angles, as it were, to secular epochs.
Since we are at present halfway through the Christian cycle of
civilisation, we are on the point of encountering the religious
antithesis of Christ who is to preside over the subjective civilisation
destined to materialise a millennium hence. And if anyone deemed

himself the Anti-Christ, it was Friedrich Nietzsche. Our current
civilisation, Yeats says, is 'about to reverse itself, or some new
civilisation about to be born from all that our ... rejected, from all
that my stories symbolised as a harlot' ['Introduction to The
Resurrection' (i), Expl, p. 393]. We are now where the classical age
was at the time of Christ, at the midpoint of a cycle.
Yeats offers Troy and Byzantium as symbols for Phases 8 and 22
(1000 sc and ADIOOO), the start and finish of the classical cycle and,
conversely, the end of one earlier objective cycle and the beginning
of another - that of the Christian dispensation. When it refers to our
present time, Phase I is represented by the rough beast' or 'Savage
God', and hence requires different symbolism when referring to
2000 Be, the point at which the herald of the classical age was to
have appeared. This promulgation of the Greek cycle of culture
survives in the myth of Leda and the Swan (whose union meant the
eventual fall of Troy), and in the myth of Oedipus, whose patricide
and incest inaugurated a tragic - but heroic - epoch. The Christian
cycle was prefigured by the myth of the Virgin and the Dove, so our
own will therefore experience the annunciation of new Ledaean and
Oedipal myths: 'When our historical era approaches Phase I, or the
beginning of a new era, the antithetical East will beget upon the
primary West and the child or era so born will be antithetical' [ V,
p. 257]. Since Christ's mother was a virgin, the new Messiah's
mother will be a harlot, as she is in 'The Adoration of the Magi'.
Phase I as 2000 BC is the midpoint of the pre-classical period, that
cycle which was the objective antecedent of the Christian objective
cycle. Yeats associates this cycle symbolically with 'Babylonian
starlight', recalling Nietzsche's reference to 'Babylon and the
orgiastic Sacaea' as embodiments of an objective 'Dionysian
impulse'. It is that same impulse Nietzsche discerns in the 'singing
and dancing crowds' of 'the German Middle Ages': 'In these
dancers of StJohn and St Vitus, we rediscover the Bacchic choruses
of the Greeks, with their prehistory in Asia Minor' [BT (I) p. 36].
Being objective cycles, both are dominated by a primary mentality.
Classical civilisation and the civilisation to follow AD 3000 must thus
have antithetical, individualistic and heroic traits, emerging as tragic
rather than comic, aristocratic rather than democratic.
Because the classical and Christian eras each have a duration
of 2,000 years and we are now midway through the Christian, we
are nearing the end of its first millennium, the end of one sub-cycle
of a vaster objective circuit. The acme of this sub-cycle - its Phase

15, the antithetical highpoint of individuality - occurred during the
Quattrocento, a time Nietzsche singles out for its aristocratic and
heroic individuals. The Renaissance was nurtured by the Byzantine
glory which had finally collapsed 400 years earlier, a period of
opposite 'tincture':
Each age unwinds the thread another age had wound, and it
amuses one to remember that before Phidias, and his westward-
moving art, Persia fell, and that when full moon came round
again, amid eastward-moving thought, and brought Byzantine
glory, Rome fell; and that at the outset of our westward-moving
Renaissance Byzantium fell. [V, pp. 27Q-l]
After the Renaissance we find that 'The world begins to long for the
arbitrary and accidental, for the grotesque, the repulsive and the
terrible' [V, p. 295], bringing Phases 19, 20, and 21 from 1650 to
1875. In the mid-nineteenth century, though, there appear men such
as 'Blake, Coventry Patmore at moments, Nietzsche ... begotten in
the Sistine Chapel' who still dream
that all can be transformed if they be but emphatic; yet Nietzsche,

when the doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence drifts before his eyes,
knows for an instant that nothing can be so transformed and is
almost of the next gyre. [V, p. 299]
The period from 1875 to 1927 (Phase 22) is one of abstraction,

and now men, 'for the first time since the seventeenth century, see
the world as an object of contemplation, not as something to be
remade' [V, p. 300]. As for our present age, it is not only Phase 15 of
the 2,000-year-long Christian cycle but also Phase 1 of the larger
turn of 4,000 years, which spans both the Christian and the classical
dispensations. As a result, we are in the crescent of the 'fool' and are
about to hear 'the irrational cry, revelation- the scream of Juno's
peacock' announcing the antithetical age which will manifest itself
in AD 3000 [V, p. 268].
Yeats explains 'the fundamental symbol' of his 'instructors' for A
Vision in terms of Empedocles 's Discord and Concord, thinking
of the vortex attributed to Discord as formed by circles

diminishing until they are nothing, and of the opposing sphere
attributed to Concord as forming from itself an opposing vortex,

the apex of each vortex in the middle of the other's base.
[V, p. 68]
The twelve months constituting the great year can therefore also be
seen as making up
an expanding cone, and to this is opposed another cone which

may also be considered as divided into twelve cycles or months.
As the base of each cone has at its centre the apex of the other
cone the double vortex is once more established. [V, p. 209]
So, as objective and subjective cycles gyrate endlessly up and down

and in and out within each other, we have the complex situation of
history being cyclical in three dimensions.
How much in all of this intricate system of great years, months,
wheels, gyres, cycles, sub-cycles, circles, phases emerges as an echo
of Friedrich Nietzsche? The symbolic elaborations are naturally
Yeats's, but many of the premises against which they are developed
clearly find much precedent in Nietzsche, who lends immediacy to
ancient notions - much though he might frown on the obscure
network of mandalic intricacies Yeats imposes on them. Ironically
enough, it is Yeats who complains of just such obscurity in
Nietzsche, commenting in his copy of Common's selections, 'How
full he is of esotericism[.] It is so with all the mystics?' [C, p. 131]. It
is a comment that would certainly have been endorsed by P. D.
Ouspensky, who claims that, though Nietzsche never explicitly
refers to 'contemporary "occult" literature ... he obviously knew it
well and made use of it'Y Yeats's annotation appears next to
Neitzsche's remark that 'a new type of philosophers and
commanders will be needed some time or other, at the very idea of
which everything that has existed in the way of occult, terrible, and
benevolent things might look pale and dwarfed' [C, pp. 13G-l].
Esoteric though Yeats might at times have found Nietzsche to be,
there are nevertheless so many ways in which the essence of their
cyclical views of history do intertwine. We think again of the
Yeatsian echo of Zarathustra's assertion that 'the plexus of causes
returneth in which I am intertwined' [TSZ (57.2) p. 247], though
Yeats postulates not so much exact duplication as that 'every phase
returns, therefore in some sense every civilisation' [V, p. 206]. We
discern in Yeats's views the Nietzschean belief in cyclical world

rhythms, those fluctuations which occur within cultures as much as
in the smallest organism, and the belief in superseding opposites,
that a state of affirmation must follow one of negation. Yeats also
takes from Nietzsche his terms 'objective' and 'subjective' as
synonyms for 'primary' and 'antithetical' in application to
civilisations, and embraces his sense of exultation in the thought of
eternal recurrence - not to mention his joy in the apocalyptic
emergence of new values with changing epochs, welcoming the fact
that 'the whole turns bottom upwards, Nietzsche's "transvaluation
of all values" ' [B, p. 25].
Most of Yeats's compulsion to design elaborate schemata derives
in all likelihood chiefly from the mystic Blake, who has a passion for
such intricacies. Shelley's ideas meet with less approval. As
Northrop Frye reminds us, Yeats finds that, 'great as Shelley is,
those theories about the coming changes of the world, which he has
built up with so much elaborate passion, hurry him from life
continually' . 16 In 'The Mental Traveller' -whose aphoristic notions
on cyclical theory find amplification in Nietzsche - Blake divides his
larger symbolic cycle into four principal phases, and in 'My Spectre
Around Me' allots seven 'loves' to each of four phases, ending up
with a total of twenty-eight divisions, the number of phases used in
the various diagrams of A Vision.
There are also numerous gyres in the writings of another likely
'instructor', Madame Blavatsky, whom Yeats first met following his
1887 move to London. 17 Blavatsky records in Isis Unveiled that
classical philosophy 'divided the interminable periods of human
existence on this planet into cycles, during each of which mankind
gradually reached the culminating point of highest civilisation and
gradually relapsed into abject barbarism'. 11 There is much of
Nietzsche in this, though he - and Yeats with him - regards
barbarism as a force which rejuvenates worn out civilisations, rather
than as an 'abject' phenomenon. Yeats encountered similar theories,
too, in the eleventh-century monk Joachim de Flora, whose works
were well known to yet another 'instructor', Swedenborg. They
both, however, believe in eventual consummation, in contrast to
Greek and Indian teachings, which view history as an endless
procession of cycles.
Yeats contends that all these possible sources for A Vision were of
little use to him in formulating what his 'instructors' conveyed to
him through his wife:
I had once known Blake as thoroughly as his unfinished confused

Prophetic Books permitted, and I had read Swedenborg and
Boehme, and my initiation into the 'Hermetic Students' had filled
my head with Cabalistic imagery, but there wa:s nothing in Blake,
Swedenborg, Boehme or the Cabala to help me now. They
encouraged me, however, to read history in relation to their
historical logic, and biography in relation to their twenty-eight
typical incarnations, that I might give concrete expression to their
abstract thought. [V, p. 12]
The mystics and other philosophers who dealt with cyclic theory
must have had a considerable impact on Yeats's fertile unconscious,
in spite of his minimising their contribution. The rational mind is left
perplexed, however, when one takes at face value Yeats's account of
his work's similarity to Spengler's chronicle of European history,
which was published in English well after the 1925 publication of
the first edition of A Vision. 'I found', Yeats writes,
that not only were dates that I had been given the same as his but
whole metaphors and symbols that had seemed my work
alone .... I knew of no common source, no link between him and
me, unless through
The elemental things that go
About my table to and fro.
[V, pp. 18-19]
Yeats's 'instructors' had drawn their first symbolical map
some days before the publication of the first German edition of

Spengler's Decline of the West, which, though founded upon a
different philosophy, gives the same years of crisis and draws the
same general conclusions. [V, p. 11]
The poet soon found further similarities in Petrie's Revolutions of

Civilisation, and then discovered
Spengler's main source in Vico, and that half the revolutionary

thoughts of Europe are a perversion of Vico's philosophy....
Certainly my instructors have chosen a theme that has deeply
stirred men's minds.... [V, pp. 261-2]
Yeats claims that further reading failed to provide precedents for

his complex diagrams: 'I found neither the geometrical symbolism
nor anything that could have inspired it except the vortex of
Empedocles' [V, p. 20]. But, having said this, he does mention the
related symbolism of 'Daniel's angels, the Pythagorean numbers,
. . . those complicated mathematical tables that Kelly saw in Dr.
Dee's black scrying-stone, the diagrams in Law's Boehme', as well
as those in the Speculum Angelorum et Hominum of 'a certain
Giraldus' which included 'a large diagram in the shape of a wheel
where the phases of the moon were mixed up with an apple, an
acorn, a cup, and what looked like a sceptre or wand' [V, pp. 23, 38].
He speaks too of the gyres in the Timaeus and in St Thomas
Aquinas, 'in Macrobius, in an unknown medieval writer' [V,
pp. 68-9], and of Flaubert's double cone, which is not as
complicated as those dictated by Yeats's 'instructors'. He also
perceives a circular movement similar to his wheel as 'fundamental
in the works of Giovanni Gentile', Italy's Fascist Minister of
Education [V, p. 81 n.].
If Yeats did indeed not know of the existence of this related
symbolism before embarking on the writing of A Vision, Nietzsche's
claim to influence might actually be strengthened, since Yeats
certainly had read him well before the days of A Vision and knew his
thoughts on ewige Wiederkehr. Yet the poet insists on the originality
of his cyclical view of history and its attendant symbolism,
answering that question as to whether he believes in all his elaborate
circuits by saying that
if sometimes, overwhelmed by miracle as all men must be when

in the midst of it, I have taken such periods literally, my reason
has soon recovered; and now that the system stands out clearly in
my imagination I regard them as stylistic arrangements of
experience comparable to the cubes in the drawing of Wyndham
Lewis and to the ovoids in the sculpture of Brancusi. They have
helped me to hold in a single thought reality and justice.
[V, p. 25]
Later he wonders, with Nietzschean self-scrutiny, 'Will some

mathematician some day question and understand, as I cannot, and
confirm all, or have I also dealt in myth?' [V, p. 213]. His assignation
of historical dates to points on his system is largely an attempt, he
says, 'to substitute particulars for an abstraction like that of algebra'

[V, p. 301].
Ultimately, the plethora of views on cyclical history akin to
Yeats's which preceded his cannot simply be disregarded. At some
point exposure to previous theories must have permeated - hence
the elements of Graeco-Roman notions, of Eastern philosophies, of
de Flora, Blake, Vico, Swedenborg, Shelley, Boehme, Spengler,
Blavatsky, Nietzsche. Thus it is that we find Yeats echoing the
German so repeatedly in the fundamentals of his theory and
particularly in the joy with which he embraces eternal return.
CYCLICAL HISTORY IN THE POEMS
Yeats's views on history and their attendant symbolism as set out in

A Vision do not receive prominence in the poems and plays until
Responsibilities of 1919. But they then soon become axial themes of
many of the most important poems, from 'The Second Coming'
through to 'Under Ben Bulben' and the lines penned during Yeats's
final year, and of dramatic works such as The Player Queen, Calvary
and The Resurrection.
The great wheel appears in its entirety only in 'The Phases of the
Moon', which is incorporated into A Vision and which we have seen
describe the individual life as man strives for unity with his anti-self,
and also mankind as it lives through opposing epochs. The first
direct instance in the poems of history shown as being subject to a
rhythm of eternally recurring cycles is 'The Magi' from
Responsibilities. Here the 'pale unsatisfied ones' hope 'to find once
more' 'The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor', the kind of
irrationality which characterised a previous age [CP, p. 141].
Christianity, constricting man in 'stiff, painted clothes', is not a one-
time phenomenon destined to endure in a single form for ever; its
impulse will be superseded by one of opposite tincture, just as
'Calvary's turbulence' wrecked the age that went before it. The end
of any cycle is accompanied by turbulence and 'loss of control' [ V,
p. 268], as 'the whole thing turns bottom upwards, Nietzsche's
"transvaluation of all values" ', and the birth of Christ occurred not
only at the end of a cycle or gyre, but also at the end of a zodiacal
great year. Hence the heightened tumult. In a note to 'The Dolls'
Yeats describes the Magi as 'complementary forms of those enraged
dolls' [VP, p. 820], who- as representatives of a long-established,
stable order - express their disgust at the presence of the Christian

babe, 'A noisy and filthy thing' [CP, p. 142]. The 'wretch' has
signalled their collapse; they will fall as Troy had to fall to Greece.
If there was turbulence at the birth of Christ, so there is
turbulence once again at the birth of the Anti-Christ - a turbulence
which is given its most powerful evocation in 'The Second Coming',
where
Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
[CP, pp. 21G-ll]
Avoiding unnecessary speculation as to the parochial meanings of

the poem and its allusions to contemporary events, we recognise
here the fragmentary Phase 15 of the Christian dispensation, a phase
which, in the words of A Vision [p. 268], 'comes also at a period of
war or trouble'. We are thus at Phase 28 of one of its two sub-cycles
which each last a thousand years, and towards the end of any cycle
we always find 'first a sinking in upon the moral being, then the last
surrender, the irrational cry, revelation' [V, p. 268]. Today, then,
amid violent turmoil, 'Surely some revelation is at hand; I Surely
the Second Coming is at hand' - the Second Coming (indeed, the
Umpteenth Coming) of an antithetical, subjective era, 'its hour come
round at last'.
From the deep well of human memory, which Nietzsche sees as
containing man's entire racial history, surges forth the frightening
vision of a terrible beast akin to that Paul Ruttledge encounters in
Where There Is Nothing. It is a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi, that
'general storehouse of images which have ceased to be a property of
any personality or spirit' [note to 'An Image from a Past Life', VP,
p. 822]. Any 'antithetical revelation is an intellectual influx neither
from beyond mankind nor born of a virgin, but begotten from our
spirit and history' [V, p. 262]. The 'rough beast' is a monstrous
Nietzschean spectre of apocalypse, 'with lion body and the head of a
man', his gaze 'pitiless as the sun', a powerful herald of solar values
who has transcended Zarathustra's last sin [cf. TSZ (62) p. 268]. The
beast's 'lion body' recalls Zarathustra's picture of the 'laughing

lions ' that will come for his 'higher ones, stronger ones,
triumphanter ones' [TSZ (71) p. 316], an image that might well have
contributed to the genesis of Yeats's own long-pictured vision of 'a
brazen winged beast that I associated with laughing, ecstatic
destruction', the image 'described in my poem "The Second
Coming" '['Introduction to The Resurrection', Expl, p. 393].
'Twenty centuries'- a 2,000-year cycle- since the appearance of
the herald of lunar values, the 'rough beast' now 'Slouches towards
Bethlehem to be born'. In A Vision [p. 105] we learn that
when the old primary becomes the new antithetical, the old
realisation of an objective moral law is changed into a
subconscious turbulent instinct. The world of rigid custom and
law is broken up by 'the uncontrollable mystery upon the bestial
floor'.
The beast 'moving its slow thighs' 'somewhere in sands of the

desert' is about to unleash a Nietzschean 'destruction of ideals, the
new desert' [WP(617) p. 331].
Yeats's note to 'The Second Coming' makes explicit reference to
his theory of cyclical history :
the end of an age, which always receives the revelation of the

character of the next age, is represented by the coming of one gyre
to its place of greatest expansion and of the other to that of its
greatest contraction. At the present moment the life gyre is
sweeping outward, unlike that before the birth of Christ which
was narrowing, and has almost reached its greatest expansion.
[VP, pp. 824-5]
Religious and secular eras being at right-angles, we find with the

birth of Christ that
religious life becomes primary, secular life antithetical - man

gives to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. A primary
dispensation looking beyond itself towards a transcendent power
is dogmatic, levelling, unifying, feminine, humane, peace its
means and end; an antithetical dispensation obeys imminent [i.e.
immanent] power, is expressive, hierarchical, multiple, masculine,
harsh, surgical. [V, p. 263]
So the cycles come and go, and in 'Nineteen Hundred and

Nineteen' we find again how
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 a gong.
[CP, p. 234]
We are now once more in a time of 'Violence upon the roads:

violence of horses', 'Thunder of feet, tumult of images', and,
Nietzsche-like, we 'Traffic in mockery' [CP, pp. 236-7].
The myth of l..eda and the Swan alluded to in A Vision appears as
a 1923 poem in The Tower collection of 1928, 'A shudder in the
loins' begetting the destruction of Troy, 'The broken wall, the
burning roof and tower I And Agamemnon dead' [CP, p. 241]. In A
Vision [p. 268] Yeats adds that, though he imagines the rape to be
'the annunciation that founded Greece', he finds that 'when in my
ignorance I try to imagine what older civilisation that annunciation
rejected I can but see bird and woman blotting out some corner of
the Babylonian mathematical starlight'.
In the anthology's next poem, 'On a Picture of a Black Centaur by
Edmund Dulac', the poet has 'gathered old mummy wheat I In the
mad abstract dark', seeking the antithetical in the primary in pursuit
of unity of being. [CP, p. 242]. The closest historical approximation
of unity of being is evoked by Byzantium, which celebrates
Justinian's reign as that glorious Phase 15 in which 'maybe never
before or since in recorded history, religious, aesthetic and practical
life were one' [V, p. 279]. In 'Conjunctions' Yeats revels in the
prospect of a new combination of Saturn and Jupiter which would
preside over an age in which unity of being is possible: 'If Jupiter
and Saturn meet, I What a crop of mummy wheat!'[CP, p. 333]. As
A Vision [p. 208] elaborates, when
a religious dispensation begins and ends at Phase 15, a
Mars-Venus conjunction presides over its beginning and a
Saturn-Jupiter over its close. The group of phases so dominated
are those where Unity of Being is possible. . . . A primary
revelation begins . . . under Mars-Venus, an antithetical under
Saturn-Jupiter.
The historical symbols are seldom far from the surface throughout
the Last Poems. Their presence is ushered in by the very opening
poem of the collection, 'The Gyres' - with its ringing declaration
that 'all things run I On that unfashionable gyre again' [CP, p. 337].
Once more we come across the elements of modern apocalypse and
the Nietzschean exultation with which they are greeted:
Irrational streams of blood are staining earth;

Empedocles has thrown all things about;
Hector is dead and there's a light in Troy;
We that look on but laugh in tragic joy.
Our age was announced by Christ 'Out of cavern' ; as we read in A

Vision [p. 204],
At or near the central point of a lunar month of classical

civilisation- the first degree of Aries on the Great Wheel- came
the Christian primary dispensation, the child born in the Cavern.
At or near the central point of our civilisation must come
antithetical revelation, the turbulent child of the Altar.
A footnote relates the two symbols to those 'discovered by

Frobenius in Africa, the Cavern, symbol of the nations moving
westward, the Altar at the centre of radiating roads, symbol of the
nations moving eastward'. Now as 'the turbulent child of the Altar'
stirs,
Those that Rocky Face holds dear,

Lovers of horses and of women, shall ...
disinter
The workman, noble and saint. ...
In 'Lapis Lazuli' those who build up what falls 'are gay' [CP,
p. 339], the Chinese figures emerging as men like Zarathustra, 'who
climbeth on the highest mountains, laugheth at all tragic plays and
tragic realities' [TSZ (7) p. 40]. The theme of endless collapse and
resurrection is repeated in 'What War Lost', where, though 'Feet to
the Rising and Setting may run, I They always beat on the same
small stone' [CP, p. 359].
The spiralling primary and antithetical historical impulses are
evoked, too, in 'The Statues', in which 'All Asiatic vague
immensities' are transformed by the 'plummet-measured' sculptures

of Phidias, only to have 'One image' cross the 'many-headed' and
become 'a fat I Dreamer of the Middle Ages', so that 'When gong
and conch declare the hour to bless I Grimalkin crawls to Buddha's
emptiness' [CP, p. 375]. The Irish, out of phase 'upon this filthy
modern tide', should 'Oimb to our proper dark, that we may
trace I The lineaments of a plummet-measured face' [CP, p. 376].
With 'Under B~n Bulben' of September 1938 we are given a last
brilliant telescoping of the ageing poet's conviction that the 'Gyres
run on', that grave-diggers 'but thrust their buried men I Back in the
human mind again' :
Measurement began our might:

Forms a stark Egyptian thought,
Forms that gentler Phidias wrought.
Michel Angelo left a proof
On the Sistine Chapel roof,
Where but half-awakened Adam
Can disturb globe-trotting Madam
Till her bowels are in heat,
Proof that there's a purpose set
Before the secret working mind:
Profane perfection of mankind.
Quattrocento put in paint
On backgrounds for a God or Saint
Gardens where a soul's at ease....
Gyres run on;
When that greater dream had gone
Calvert and Wilson, Blake and Claude,
Prepared a rest for the people of God,
Palmer's phrase, but after that
Confusion fell upon our thought.
[CP, pp. 398-400]
Here, within the compass of an acorn, is Yeats's oak of a theory.
CYCLICAL HISTORY IN THE PLAYS
Those recurring circular symbols which make up Yeats's design of

history appear repeatedly throughout the plays as well. In On Baile's

Strand the Fool and the Blind Man signal the passing of the
Cuchulain cycle, the Blind Man being the false Creative Mind -
cunning - of the 'natural man, the Fool' of Phase 28, the
culminating figure of objectivity as 'The Child of God' [V, p. 182].
The Fool of The Hour-Glass is another fool from this phase, while in
The Cat and the Moon blind man and lame man combine to from the
'Multiple Man, also called "The Hunchback" ' of Phase 26 [V,
p. 176], who is placed alongside the Saint, Yeats's representative of
Phase 27. Yeats expressly cites The Cat and the Moon as an
illustration of cyclical history, and in the first edition of the work
[p. 35] says that 'when the Saint mounts upon the back of the Lame
Beggar he personifies a certain great spiritual event which may take
place when Primary Tincture . . . supersedes Antithetical'. The
Lame Beggar's union with the Saint suggests a state of unity of being
of the kind Yeats discerns in Justinian's Byzantium; he can dance in
the midst of life's struggle.
In The Unicorn from the Stars (as much Augusta Gregory's play
as Yeats's 19), we see in Martin Hearne's vision the Dionysian
injunction to 'Destroy, destroy, destruction is the life-giver!' and 'To
bring again the old disturbed exalted life, the old splendour' [CP/,
pp. 225, 227/346, 349].
Once men fought with their desires and their fears, with all that
they call their sins, unhelped, and their souls became hard and
strong. When we have brought back the clean earth and
destroyed the Law and the Church, all life will become like a
flame of fire, like a burning eye . . . all that is not life will pass
away. [CP/, p. 233/360]
Martin hears and sees 'a thousand white unicorns trampling' to

pieces the sterile Christian age [CP/, p. 243/378]; the unicorn of The
Player Queen, however, 'alas, he is chaste, he hesitates', and must be
bidden to 'trample mankind to death and beget a new race' [CPI,
pp. 265, 266/ 417]. The new cycle is slow to manifest itself- we
remember how Christianity triumphed only a thousand years after
the birth of Christ.
In spite of the unicorn's reticence, his herald, Septimus,
unequivocally raises him up as the symbol of the new antithetical
age which will supplant Christianity: 'Gather about me, for I
announce the end of the Christian Era, the coming of a New
Dispensation, that of the New Adam, that of the Unicorn' [CP/,

p. 2651416-17]. He is the opposite the Christian era seeks, its mask
or anti-self: 'the Unicorn is both an image and beast' [CP/,
p. 267 I 420]- a beast with a 'terrible blue eye', though by no means
of the horrendous proportions of the 'rough beast' in 'The Second
Coming'. He does have a 'most milky whiteness', even though he be
'an heroic brute that bathes by the sound of tabors at the rising of the
sun and the rising of the moon, and the rising of the Great Bear'
[CPJ, p. 2541398]. Like Nietzsche's Ubermensch, Yeats's New Adam
is terrible when viewed in the light of present morality. To the
supramoral man of vision, however, he is a thing of 'beauty', 'a
most noble beast' which 'dances in the sun' [CPI, p. 2531397], the
Dionysian 'beast' delighting in that symbolic activity which
connotes halcyon lightness and ease as he frolics about Apollo's
celestial emblem.
The Player Queen evokes all the atmosphere of an age at the
reversal of a gyre. The desiccated Christian epoch has been reduced
to platitudes such as 'my Saviour was content with a stable' [CPI,
p. 2501391], and man's spirit has begun flexing its muscles to snap
the weakening strictures of Christian culture. Septimus does not
'care for any one now except Venus and Adonis and the other
planets of heaven' [CPI, p. 2501391]. He considers himself to be in a
distinctly 'unchristian place' [CPI, p. 249 I 389], with its witch-
strangling 'crowd becoming wickeder every minute' as 'confusion'
sets in [CPI, p. 2581406]. Decima sings 'the song of the mad singing
daughter of a harlot' [CPI p. 2591407], the exact opposite of the
virgin Queen she deposes. She is 'a bad wife' who has 'offered
herself to every man in the company' [CPI, pp. 249, 2691389, 423], a
'beautiful, bad, flighty woman' who is 'beautiful as the Unicorn, but
fierce' [CPI, pp. 269, 2681423, 421], 'terrible' to her husband, just as
the 'Unicorn will be terrible when it loves', 'flighty beast' that it is
[CPI, pp. 268, 2541421, 398]. Such similarities cast Unicorn and
Player Queen into the same role as spirits of the new age. They are
antithetical creatures whom Septimus would save from being
absorbed by the great oneness of the dying primary age, from the
'danger of drowning' [CPI, p. 2551400]. Drowning is the very fate
that befell Noah's sister, representative of an earlier antithetical cycle
with 'her rosy cheeks and rosy mouth, that drowned, wicked
mouth' [CPI, p. 267 1420]. The play chosen for performance by the
players is 'The Tragical History of Noah's Deluge', the cataclysmic
annihilation of a past era. The company had performed 'The Fall of
Troy' before Kubla Khan, and now they are about to witness the
crowd actually destroy this town, 'bum the place down as if it were
Troy' [CP/, p. 2661 419], and so effect the fall of yet another objective
civilisation.
The Old Beggar who speaks to Decima of the eternal recurrence
of all forces within the world- 'You don't know what you will be
put to when you are dead, into whose gullet you will be put to sing
or to bray' [CP/, p. 2701425]- is the Old Beggar who had 'brayed
like a donkey' at the onset of the Queen's reign [CP/, p. 2551399].
Now when he wants straw so that he might 'lie down and roll' [CP/,
p. 2691424], uttering the change of dispensations in his trance,
people make 'the sign of the cross, as if it were a devil that puts me
rolling'. Before, when braying like the beast that 'carried Christ into
Jerusalem' [CP/, p. 2551399], he had promulgated the Christian era;
now he is the mouthpiece of the Anti-Christ. When he brays in that
comical way again, the Prime Minister declares, 'that there has been
a miracle, that God or the Fiend has spoken' [CP/, p. 2721429].
Though the populace at large do not realise that the crown has in
fact changed heads, a new Queen sits on the throne, a Queen who
sings of how 'a passion for a swan I Made Queen l..eda stretch and
yawn' [CP/, p. 264 I 416]. The antithetical epitome of Phase 13 has
succeeded the primary one of Phase 27.
While The Player Queen treats of the antithetical overthrowing
the primary, Calvary depicts the opposite process. Here the gods of
Roman antiquity find their last victory in Christ's death, but, as they
drain away his physical life, so he drowns their spirit of subjectivity.
'God has not died for the white heron' but for those 'That live but in
His love' and 'are gathered round Him' [CP/, pp. 288, 2911450,
453]. The Resurrection, Yeats's introduction to which cites it as an
illustration of the cyclical nature of history, stresses Christianity's
emergence as the recurrence of an earlier impulse by making Christ
analogous to Dionysus; in The Will to Power[067) p. 101] Nietzsche
speaks of Paul as emphasising 'the unio mystica with the
"sacrifice" 'and as seeking to bring the afterlife 'as resurrection into
a causal relationship with that sacrifice (after the type of Dionysus,
Mithras, Osiris)'. The songs of the play tell of' a staring virgin' who
bears away the 'beating heart' of 'holy Dionysus', at which 'did all
the Muses sing I Of Magnus Annus at the spring' [CP/,
p. 3641579-80]. Now the objective qualities of the Dionysus rent by
the Titans and gathered up by Pallas Athene or by his mortal mother
Semele, whom Zeus had visited, are about to return with Christ, also
born of a virgin mother and divine father. And with the birth of
Christ comes yet another great year of like impulse.
A Vision points out that the date of this great year's
commencement is uncertain, though Syncellus was of the opinion
that a new epoch began when the constellation Aries returned to its
original position [cf. V, p. 253]. Whatever the precise date, its fixing
would depend on the day selected for the equinox (at Rome, 25
March), and on what star seemed to mark the end of Aries and the
start of Pisces. In any event, 'It was certainly near enough ... to the
Crucifixion to confer upon the early Church, had it not been
committed to its war with Grecian fatalism, the greatest of its
miracles' [V, p. 254]. And the spring equinox was long given to
commemoration of Dionysus and Attis before becoming a period
hallowed to Christendom.
So it is that 'Another Troy', another objective cycle, 'must rise'-
but also 'set', the fate of Christianity as much as of any other cycle.
The 'Roman Empire stood appalled I . . . When that fierce virgin
and her Star I Out of the fabulous darkness called', reintroducing
the tendency to surrender the multi-faceted self to the oblivion of the
Whole. With the birth of Christ, 'Wandering women call' on the
virgin Mary as once they hailed the 'virgin Astrea' [CP/,
p. 3691 587]. Christ, 'In pity for man's darkening thought' as he
coveted the mask of oblivion characteristic of man in Phase 28, had
issued in 'Galilean turbulence' [CP/, p. 3731594]- a return of that
ancient 'Babylonian starlight' which 'brought I A fabulous,
formless darkness in', a return of those 'Asiatic vague immensities'
of 'The Statues'. The irrational has returned, making 'all Platonic
tolerance vain I And vain all Doric discipline'.
As we saw earlier when looking at The Resurrection as an
exploration of the rational against the irrational, the 'followers of
Dionysus' are described in Yeats's terminology for objective men as
'a pack of wolves' [CP/, p. 3651581]. They are 'the most ignorant
and excitable class of Asiatic Greeks' who 'seek forgetfulness in
monstrous ceremonies' [CPI, p. 3681586]. The Greek, arguing the
case for subjective polytheism, 'cannot think that all that self-
surrender and self-abasement is Greek, despite the Greek name of its
god. When the goddess came to Achilles in the battle she did not
interfere with his soul, she took him by his yellow hair' [CP/,
p. 3691587]. In worshipping the gods of Greece man retains his
individuality, 'does not surrender his soul. He keeps his privacy'. He
is sovereign, his
soul recovers radical innocence

And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will ....
['A Prayer for My Daughter', CP, pp. 213-14]
Christ, like Dionysus, rises from the dead, and His followers will
soon echo the 'worshippers of Dionysus' in 'their lunatic cry, "God
has arisen! God has arisen!"' [CPl, p. 371 /592]. It is a cry that
confirms the fear inherent in the Syrian's frightening question,
'What if the irrational return? What if the circle begin again?' [CPl,
p. 371/ 591]. 'The unique' is indeed about to intervene [V, p. 263],
just as at the end of a Christian sub-cycle 'A shape with lion body
and the head of a man' intervenes [CP, p. 21 0]. The Syrian perceives
that a new cycle is at hand: '0 Athens, Alexandria, Rome,
something has come to destroy you' [CPl, p. 372/594]. The types of
subjectivity - and in this case the rational - have been engulfed by
the mystic type of objectivity. Previously, 'every man's sins' were
'his property' [CPl, p. 367 /584]; now 'The Messiah is able to
exhaust human suffering as though it were all gathered together in
the spot of a burning-glass.' He would have man 'sacrifice
everything'. This reminds us of the statement in A Vision [pp. 262-3]
that
Before the birth of Christ religion and vitality were polytheistic,

antithetical, and to this the philosophers opposed their primary,
secular thought. Plato thinks all things into Unity and is the 'First
Christian'. At the birth of Christ religious life becomes primary,
secular life antithetical . ...
The change of cycles is seen again in The Herne's Egg, where the
new Messiah will be the offspring of Attracta and the terrible Great
Herne, and in Purgatory we slide down through three generations
from a condition of greatness, from a house where 'Great people
lived and died', to an age 'stripped bare' of any noble heroism [CPl,
pp. 431, 430/683, 681]. Now there is 'The shadow of a cloud upon
the house', 'Its threshold gone to patch a pig-sty.'
The Old Man of Purgatory is obsessed with thoughts of
anniversaries and repetitions, and his son is now of exactly the same
age the Old Man was when he stabbed his father to death as the great
house burned. It is an intersection of times with terrible portent. The

boy at once has a sense of this cyclic presence of the past in the
present, a sentiment akin to that experienced by Nietzsche in the
year he formulated his intuitions on eternal recurrence. His letters to
Peter Gast during that cardinal year of 1881 illustrate his fear that
this would be a fateful year for him, as he had reached the age at
which his father had died - a belief in recurrence taken to
uncharacteristically superstitious lengths.
'What if I killed you?', the boy in Purgatory asks his father.
You killed my grand-dad,

Because you were young and he was old.
Now I am young and you are old.
[CP/, p. 4341687]
But in the atmosphere of violence that accompanies every reversal of

an age, it is the Old Man who stabs his son in a fatal repetition of his
earlier crime: 'My father and my son on the same jack-knife!' [CP/,
p. 4351688]. Yet even this does not purge him of his Oedipal
nightmare, and the vision of his father's return to abuse his mother
drums in on him remorselessly: 'Hoof-beats! Dear God, I How
quickly it returns' [CP/, p. 4361689]. Until he has learned
Nietzschean exultation in the moment and a longing for its return,
the Old Man is condemned to experience life as a purgatorial
nightmare, meaningless repetition.
The Death of Cuchulain offers a contrast similar to that in
Purgatory, as 'this vile age' is compared to a noble one of old [CP/,
p. 4381693]. We are now surrounded by 'pickpockets and
opinionated bitches', far removed from the heroic Cuchulain of days
past - and future. To current moral standards, Cuchulain is
'monstrous' -like the Ubermensch- and the harlot despicable [CP/,
p. 441 1697]. But just as the harlot is reviled in our era, cast out to the
fringes of society, so will she be central to the coming age [cf.
'Introduction to The Resurrection' (i), Expl, p. 393]. It will be an age
full of men like 'Conall, Cuchulain, Usna's boys, I All that most
ancient race' [CP/, p. 445/704], even though 'centuries have
passed I Since they were living men'. Like that of the 'rough beast'
in The Second Coming', their hour will 'come round at last' [CP,
p. 211], bringing the renewal of a past cycle within one of
Nietzsche's 'tremendous years of recurrence, with an ebb and a

flood of its forms' in a world striving out of the simplest forms
toward the most complex, out of the stillest, most rigid, coldest
forms toward the hottest, most turbulent, most self-contradictory,
and then again returning home to the simple out of this
abundance, out of the play of contradictions back to the joy of
concord, still affirming itself in this uniformity of its courses and
its years, blessing itself as that which must return
eternally. . . . [WP (1 067) p. 550]
Afterword
So we come full circle from preface to epilogue, having sounded the

remarkable frequency and range of the Nietzschean echoes in Yeats
-ever-mindful that the German is not necessarily the source of those
echoes in every instance. Yeats was heir to a vast tradition of which
Nietzsche happened to be the most accessible and vigorous
proponent. And as such the philosopher provided stimulation of the
rampant attitude and tone of the maturing Yeats. He provided the
poet with the mask he sought to harshen the sweetness of his
nineties work, with the confidence to assume his own
'unfashionable' stance, and with substantiation for so many familiar
concepts he had come across more blandly phrased elsewhere.
With his intuitive affinity for Nietzsche's outlook and tone,
Yeats's interest was largely one of thrall: Nietzsche was 'that strong
enchanter' who dispensed 'curious astringent joy'. Not that his
predilection rendered him uncritical, as his annotations in Common
testify: he often reworked Nietzsche and applied him anew. But
most objections proved merely temporary, and so it is that we find a
wealth of like attitudes in their entire Weltanschauung, in their view
of life as the tragic battleground of competing wills to power, of
harsh but stimulating conflict in its smallest and greatest parts, and in
their approach to art, aesthetics, rationality, to the hero, and to
history.
It is in his incitement and confirmation of Yeats's own developing
thought that Nietzsche's 'influence' on the poet is most powerful,
acting as the final nutrient in the germination of seeds long sown,
sometimes even as their sower - as with the advocacy of tragic
ecstasy in the face of eternal recurrence. In all this Nietzsche
emerges as a towering figure in Yeats's poetic life.
Notes
NOTES TO THE PREFACE
I. L, p. 379. Editor Wade questioningly dates the letter 26 Sep 1902, a dating
considered again on p. I.
2. Arthur Symons, William Blake (London, 1907) p. I.
3. Among the studies that have provided useful points of departure for this
present undertaking are Denis Donoghue's William Butler Yeats (New York:
Viking Press, Modern Masters Series, 1971); Richard EHmann's The Identity of
Yeats, 2nd edn (London: Faber and Faber, 1964); Edward Engelberg's The
Vast Design (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965); and F. A. C.
Wilson's Yeats's Iconography (London: Gollancz, 1960). George Allen
Morgan Jr, What Nietzsche Means (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1943) remains a particularly fine encapsulation of Nietzsche's major
ideas.
4. D. H. Lawrence, 'Morality and the Novel', in Twentieth Century Literary
Criticism, ed. David Lodge (London: Longman, 1972) p. 128.
5. F. D. Luke, 'Nietzsche and the Imagery of Height', Publications of the English
Goethe Society, xxvm (1959).
NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE: ENCOUNTER AND KINSHIP
I. B. L. Reid, The Man from New York:John Quinn and His Friends (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1968) p. 10.
2. DavidS. Thatcher, Nietzsche in England 189D-1914 (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1970) p. 139 n. Probable date: 27 Dec 1902-3 Jan 1903.
3. As quoted ibid., p. 140 n. The letter is in the Berg Collection of the New York
Public library.
4. I am grateful to the curator of the Special Collections Department of the
Northwestern University library, R. Russell Maylone, for having made a
microfilm copy of Yeats's Common available to me. All references to Yeats's
annotations are to this original source.
5. Reid, The Man from New York, p. I 0 n.9, quoting a letter from Quinn to Yeats
of 27 Sep 1902. It was to Quinn that T. S. Eliot made a gift of the manuscript of
The Waste Land.
6. A. Norman Jeffares, W. B. Yeats: Man and Poet (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1949; repr. 1966) pp. 294, 337 n.66.
192 Notes
7. Thatcher, Nietzsche in England, p. 143.

8. Cf. also 'Estrangement' (xxvi), Auto, p. 288/474-5.
9. Cf. also his letter to Lady Gregory of 21 Jan 1907, in David H. Greene and
Edward M. Stephens, J. M. Synge: 1871-1909 (New York: Collier Books,
1959) p. 232.
10. 'A Canonical Book', Bookman, xx1v (May 1903) 68.
II . This is true according to the now current laws of physics, where entropy
continuously increases until everything is at the same temperature and no
further work can be done. Nietzsche later defies this postulate with his doctrine
of ewige Wiederkehr, the eternal recurrence of all existence, discussed in
Chapter 6.
12. Such as Quinn (cf. Reid, The Man from New York, p. 10); Lady Gregory (cf.
Thatcher, Nietzsche in England, p. 140 n.); and Sir Herbert Grierson (cf.
Preface to V. K. Narayana Menon, The Development of William Butler Yeats
[Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd, 1942) p. x).
13. In Francis MacManus (ed.), The Yeats We Knew, Thomas Davis Lectures
(Cork: The Mercier Press, 1965) p. 86.
14. Joseph Hone, W. B. Yeats (1865-1939), 2nd edn (London: Macmillan, 1962)
p. 400.
15. Cf. Thatcher, Nietzsche in England, p. 160.
16. A division often pointed out, as, for example, in Crane Brinton, Nietzsche
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1941); Eric Bentley, The Cult of
the Superman (London: Robert Hale, 194 7); Co nor Cruise O'Brien, The
Suspecting Glance (London: Faber and Faber, 1975); and the introductions to
the newer translations.
17. Cf. Michael Hamburger, 'A Craving for Hell', Encounter, Oct 1962, p. 33.
18. As recorded ibid.
19. As in Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1950), and the introductions to his Vintage and Random
House translations.
20. Bentley, Cult, passim.
21. Dated 30 Oct 1889, as quoted by Hamburger in Encounter, Oct 1962, p. 34.
22. TSZ (62) p. 268:
'My last sin which hath been reserved for me, - knowest thou what it is
called?'
-'Pity!' answered the soothsayer from an overflowing heart....
23. Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche, ed. and trs. Christopher Middleton
(Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1969) p. 216.
24. Ibid., p. 199. Postmarked Rapallo, 25 Dec 1882.
25. 'Mixed Maxims and Opinions' (346), in Appendix to GM, p. 178.
26. As quoted by Hamburger, in Encounter, Oct 1962, p. 33.
27. Wilson, Yeats's Iconography, p. 180 n.
28. GOA, vol. XI, p. 363 f; trs. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 125.
29. Cf. Helen Hennessy Vendler, Yeats's 'Vision' and the Later Plays (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963) pp. 20Q-2.
30. Cf. Erich Heller: 'Yeats and Nietzsche', Encounter, Dec 1969.
31. O'Brien, The Suspecting Glance, p. 52. Dr O'Brien stresses Nietzsche's fierce
Notes 193
side rather than his gentle, and sees Yeats developing into a brutal Nietzschean.
32. Cf. Donoghue, Yeats, p. 54.
33. Symons, Blake, passim.
34. F. A. Lea, The Tragic Philosopher (London: Methuen, 1957) pp. ISQ-1.
35. Bernard Blackstone, English Blake (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1966)
p. 101.
36. GOA, vol. XII, p. 68 f.; trs. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 286.
37. Alex Zwerdling, Yeats and the Heroic ldea/(New York: New York University
Press, 1965) p. 21.
38. As quoted from H. W. Hausermann, W. B. Yeats's Criticism of Ezra Pound, by
T. R. Henn, 'The Green Helmet and Responsibilities', in Denis Donoghue and
J. R. Mulryne (eds), An Honoured Guest, New Essays on W. B. Yeats (London:
Edward Arnold, 1965) p. 39.
39. Cf. Yeats's 'Preface to the First Edition of John M. Synge's Poems and
Translations' (iii), E&l, p. 308.
40. Donoghue, Yeats, p. 44.
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO: CONFUCT, WilL, POWER
I. Thomas Taylor, The Works of Plato (London, 1804) vol. 11, pp. 622-3, as
quoted in Thomas R. Whitaker, Swan and Shadow, Yeats's Dialogue with
History (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1964) p. 308 n.
2. A possible debt of Nietzsche's first brought to my attention in Theodore
Redpath's English Tripos lectures at Cambridge.
3. Margery M. Morgan, 'Shaw, Yeats, Nietzsche and the Religion of Art', Komos,
I (1967) 26.
4. Cf. Gilbert Murray, A History of Ancient Greek Literature (London, 1897)
p. 156.
5. Bentley, Cult, p. 71.
6. Ibid., p. 70.
7. As reproduced in Robert O'Driscoll and Lorna Reynolds (eds), Yeats and the
Theatre (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1975) p. 62.
8. Wilson, Yeats's Iconography, p. 59.
9. Peter Ure, Yeats the Playwright (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963;
repr. 1969) p. 71.
10. Chapter 4 considers 'Unity of Being' in more detail.
II. 'Per Arnica Silentia Lunae', Myth, p. 336. In BT (14) p. 88, Nietzsche speaks
also of the 'daimonion of Socrates'. The idea of the mask, self and anti-self is
considered further in Chapter 5.
12. Cf. Vendler, Yeats's 'Vision', p. 210.
13. Memoirs of William Butler Yeats, ed. Denis Donoghue (London: Macmillan,
1972) p. 124.
14. Harold Bloom, Blake's Apocalypse (London: Gollancz, 1963) p. 77.
15. Cf. John Beer, Blake's Visionary Universe (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1969) pp. 47-8.
16. Cf. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 37.
17. Richard Wagner, Art and Revolution, as quoted by Margery Morgan in Komos,
I, 29, 33 n.
194 Notes
18. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 349.

19. GOA, vol. XIV, p. 354; trs. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 22.
20. Letters on Poetry from William Butler Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley (London:
Oxford University Press, 1940) pp. 94-5.
21. Bentley, Cult, pp. 79-80.
22. Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale
University Press, 1952) p. 29.Cf. TSZ (34) p. 125.
23. R. J. Hollingdale, p. 211 n. of his translation of BGE.
24. Dated 21 Jan 1907, as quoted in Greene and Stephens, Synge, p. 232.
25. Human, All-too-Human (57), pt 1, trs. Helen Zimmern, vol. VI of The Complete
Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, ed. Oscar Levy, 18 vols (New York: Macmillan,
1909-11 ; reissued Russell and Russell, 1964, p. 75).
26. WP (668) p. 353. Cf. also WP (480) p. 266: 'There exists neither "spirit", nor
reason, nor thinking, nor consciousness, nor soul, nor will, nor truth ... ';
(488) p. 270: 'there is no such thing as will'; (490) p. 271: 'The only force that
exists is of the same kind as that of the will: a commanding of other subjects,
which thereupon change'; (685) p. 347: 'There is absolutely no other kind of
causality than that of will upon will' ; (6 71) p. 354: 'There is no such thing as
"will" .... '
27. L, pp. 434-5. Wade questioningly dates the letter Apr 1904.
28. T. R. Henn, The Lonely Tower, 2nd edn (London: Methuen, 1965) p. 37.
NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE: THE TRAGIC DISPOSITION
I. Translator Kaufmann suggests (p. 47 n) that Sophocles's Antigone is an

Apollinian figure, Aeschylus's Cassandra a Dionysian.
2. Further Dionysian elements in the play are pointed to later in this chapter.
3. Robert O'Driscoll, 'Yeats on Personality: Three Unpublished Lectures', in
O'Driscoll and Reynolds, Yeats and the Theatre, p. 5 n.5.
4. Ibid., pp. 4-5. The ensuing paragraph draws on O'Driscoll.
5. As quoted ibid., p. 38.
6. As quoted ibid., p. 47.
7. Engelberg, The Vast Design, p. 153.
8. As quoted by O'Driscoll, in O'Driscoll and Reynolds, Yeats and the Theatre,
p. 21.
9. Cf. Leonard Nathan, The Tragic Drama of William Butler Yeats (New York
and London: Columbia University Press, 1965) pp. 158-9.
10. Ibid., p. 92.
II. Cf. Sophocles, Oedipus at Co/onus, I. 1224 ff.
12. Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1947) p. 72.
13. Cf. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 232.
14. CP, p. 339. Cf. B. L. Reid, William Butler Yeats: The Lyric of Tragedy
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961) pp. 248-9.
15. Yeats, Letters on Poetry, p. 126.
16. From an unpublished letter in the Berg Collection of the New York Public
library, as quoted in Thatcher, Nietzsche in England, p. 140 n.
17. Chapters 5 and 6 discuss further the similarity of Christianity to Dionysus-
Notes 195
worship (and Buddhism) as varieties of 'objective' impulses.

18. WTIN, p. 147. Cf. Giorgio Melchiori, The Whole Mystery of Art (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960), for Yeats's use of the unicorn as a symbol.
NOTES TO CHAPTER R>UR: REASON, AESTHETICS, ART
I. Cf. E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1951). It is in this anti-rational tradition that
Blake and Nietzsche could be seen to have 'the same roots'. Cf. also Nikos
Kazantzakes, Zorba the Greek, trs. Carl Wildman (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1952).
2. GOA, vol. x, p. 191; trs. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 99.
3. As quoted in Jeffares, Yeats: Man and Poet, p. 161.
4. GOA, vol. XI, p. 48; vol. xm, p. 245; vol. XI, p. 278. Trs. G. A. Morgan, What
Nietzsche Means, pp. 109-10.
5. Cf. Louis MacNeice, The Poetry of W. B. Yeats (London: Faber and Faber,
1967) p. 129.
6. The Dawn of Day, trs. J. M. Kennedy, vol. IX of Complete Works of Friedrich
Nietzsche, (240) pp. 237-9.
7. GOA, vol. XI, p. 330; trs. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 227.
8. GOA, vol. XI, p. 329, trs. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 228.
9. Percy Bysshe Shelley, 'A Defence of Poetry', in English Critical Texts, ed. D. J.
Enright and Ernst de Chickera (London: Oxford University Press, 1962)
pp. 225 (11. 21-2), 231 (11. 242-3), 234 (11. 354, 344), 233 (11. 341-2).
10. The Case of Wagner, trs. Walter Kaufmann(New York: Vintage Books, 1967),
(I 0) p. 178.
II. CPI, p. 204/312; trs. in A. N. Jeffares and A. S. Knowland, A Commentary on
the Collected Plays ofW. B. Yeats (London: Macmillan, 1975) p. 129, as 'Now
prove by arguments; for he who is a companion of reason demands
arguments.'
12. John Rees Moore, Masks of Love and Death: Yeats as Dramatist (Ithaca, NY,
and London: Cornell University Press, 1971) pp. 84-6.
13. As recorded by, inter alia, Reg Skene, in his The Cuchulain Plays of W. B.
Yeats: A Study (London: Macmillan, 1974) p. 129.
14. G. Wilson Knight, Christ and Nietzsche(London and New York: Staples Press,
1948) p. 185.
15. Moore, Masks, pp. 269-70.
16. Cf. Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough (London: Macmillan, 1922) esp.
pp. 388-9. Thomas Parkinson points to the many hints in The Resurrection of
Frazer, Cornford, Jane Harrison, and Gilbert Murray; cf. 'The Later Plays of
W. B. Yeats' in T. Bogard and W. I. Oliver (eds), Modern Drama, Essays in
Criticism (New York: Galaxy, 1965) pp. 385-93.
NOTES TO CHAPTER AVE: THE HERO
I. Ellmann, The Identity of Yeats, p. 96.

2. Bentley, Cult, pp. 91-2.
196 Notes
3. Kaufmann, Nietzsche, p. 307.

4. GOA, vol. XIV, p. 147; trs. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, pp. 138-9.
5. 'Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions' (152), Human, All-too-Human, pt 11,
trs. Paul V. Cohn, vol. VII of The Complete Works ofFriedrich Nietzsche, p. 78.
6. As quoted in Hone, Yeats, p. 365.
7. C, p. 132. Common's omissive translation is rendered by Hollingdale as
At a certain point in the evolution of a people its most enlightened, that is to

say most reflective and far-sighted, class declares the experience in
accordance with which the people is to live - that is, can live - to be fixed
and settled. Their objective is to bring home the richest and completest
harvest from the ages of experimentation and bad experience.
[AC (57) p. 176]
10. Preface to Menon, Development of Yeats, p. x.
II. GOA, vol. xv, p. 95 f.; trs. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 302.
12. Hamburger, in Encounter, Oct 1962, p. 36.
13. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 203.
15. Northrop Frye, in Donoghue and Mulryne, An Honoured Guest, p. 15.
16. Cf. Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche: An Introduction to the Understanding of His
Philosophical Activity, trs. Charles F. Wallraff and Frederick J. Schmitz
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1965) p. 17 5.
17. Trs. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 19.
18. Ibid., p. 20.
19. Ellmann, The Identity of Yeats, p. 93.
20. As reproduced in O'Driscoll and Reynolds, Yeats and the Theatre, p. 39.
21. As quoted in Jeffares, Yeats: Man and Poet, p. 161.
22. GOA, vol. XII, p. 47; trs. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 205.
23. GOA, vol. XI, p. 244, trs. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 205.
24. Moore, Masks, p. 29.
26. CPl, p. 168/257. Cf. Nietzsche's quotation ofGaliani in WP(989) p. 516: 'Les
aigles ne volent point en compagnie. II faut laisser cela aux perdrix, aux
etoumeaux .... Planer au-dessus et avoir des griffes, voila le lot des grands
genies.'
27. As quoted in David H. Greene, An Anthology of Irish Literature (New York:
New York University Press, 1971; repr. 1974) p. 60.
28. MacNeice, The Poetry of Yeats, p. 99.
29. Hone, Yeats, p. 352.
30. From Yeats's epitaph. In a letter to Dorothy Wellesley from Riversdale of 15
Aug 1938, Yeats writes of how an essay 'on Rilke's ideas about death annoyed
me. I wrote on the margin :
Draw rein ; draw breath.
Cast a cold eye
On life, on death
Horseman pass by.'
Notes 197

32. Jeffares, Yeats: Man and Poet, pp. 294-5.
33. Cf. Birgit Bjersby, The Interpretation of the Cuchulain Legend in the Works of
W. B. Yeats (Uppsala, 1950) pp. 87-93.
34. Donoghue, Yeats, p. 116.
35. Cuchulain's role as tragic hero is by no means confined to the plays: cf.
'Cuchulain Comforted', 'The Statues', 'Crazy Jane on the Mountain', and 'The
Circus Animals' Desertion'.
NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX: CYCUCAL HISTORY
I. Richard Lowell Howey, Heidegger and Jaspers on Nietzsche (The Hague:

Nijhoff, 1973) p. 152.
2. 'J. M. Synge and the Ireland of His Time' (vi)[&/, p. 322]. It is this affirming
amor fati which is so central to Yeats and Nietzsche's view of tragedy.
3. Cf. Thoughts out of Season, pt. 11, trs. Adrian Collins, vol. v of The Complete
Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, pp. 13-14.
4. GOA, vol. XII, p. 68 f; trs. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 286.
5. GOA, vol. XIV, p. 295; trs. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means., p. 254.
6. cr. Thoughts out of Season, pt. II, pp. 19-20.
7. GOA, vol. XIV, p. 260; trs. G. A. Morgan, What Nietsche Means, p. 363.
8. GOA, vol. XII, p. 61; trs. G. A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 289.
9. Bentley, Cult, p. 83.
10. A. H. J. Knight, Some Aspects of the Life and Work of Nietzsche, and
Particularly of His Connection with Greek Literature and Thought (New York:
Russell and Russell, 1933; reissued 1967); cf. esp. pp. IOo-11.
II. In a letter of c. I 0 Mar 1884; trs. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, p. 285.
12. Knight, Aspects of Nietzsche, p. 94.
13. In W. B. Yeats and Tradition (London: Gollancz, 1958) p. 149 n., F. A. C.
Wilson points to this as a major concern of an investigation by Jungian
psychologist Joseph Campbell into 'the persistent tendency of the human
psyche to evolve, in all periods, cyclic theories of history ... vide The Hero
With a Thousand Faces, pp. 255-378'.
15. P. D. Ouspensky, A New Model of the Universe, trs. R. R. Merton (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 19 31) p. 12 7 n.l.
16. Cf. Frye, in Donoghue and Mulryne, An Honoured Guest, p. 24.
17. Cf., inter alia, Frank Tuohy, Yeats (New York: Macmillan, 1976) ch. 3.
18. /sis Unveiled, 1. 5, as quoted in Wilson, Yeats and Tradition, p. 148.
19. As Yeats acknowledges in his 1934 preface to the Collected Plays.
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Ure, Peter, Towards a Mythology (Liverpool: University Press of Liverpool; and
London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1946).
- - , Yeats (Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd, 1963; repr. 1965).
- - , Yeats the Playwright (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969).
Vendler, Helen Hennessy, Yeats's 'Vision' and the Later Plays (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1963).
Whitaker, Thomas R., Swan and Shadow: Yeats's Dialogue with History (Chapel
Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1964).
Wilson, F. A. C., W. B. Yeats and Tradition (London: Gollancz, 1958).
- - , Yeats's Iconography (London: Gollancz, 1960).
Zwerdling, Alex, Yeats and the Heroic Ideal (New York: New York University
Press, 1965).
Index
Abbey Theatre, 4 7 Algie, Mr, 61
Absurd, xi, 33 Altar, 181
Theatre of the, xi 'Among School Children' (Yeats), 57,
abyss,9,45,97, 117,120,127,140, 86
167 amorfati, 139, 158, 197 n.2
Achilles, 6, 104, 141, 186 anarchy, 143
'Acre of Grass, An' (Yeats), 79, 148 Anaxagoras, 133
acting, 132--4 angels, 27, 57, 61, 113
action,4, 10, 15,28,34,36,48,50, anima hominis and 'Anima Hominis'
51-2,71,73-7,88, 103, 109, 114, (Yeats), 25, 38, 44, 62, 134,
115, 128, 129, 137, 139, 143, 146, 138
159 anima mundi and 'Anima Mundi'
actor, I 33--4 (Yeats), 44, 90, 96, 158
Adam, 182 annotations, Yeats's in Common's
New, 183, 184 Nietzsche, see marginalia
Adonis, 101, 184 Anthology of Irish Literature, An (ed.
'Adoration of the Magi, The' (Yeats), Greene), 145 n.27, 196 n.27
171 Anti-Christ, The(Nietzsche), 2, 72-3,
AE (Russell, George William), II, 16, 115,117,139-40,143, 196n.7
20,38,80 Antigone, 44
Aeschylus, 15, 48, 162, 169, 194 n.l Sophocles's, 194 n.l
aesthetics, xii, 3, 4, II, 12, 21,91-8, anti-self, 5, 25, 38, 123, 125, 13(}-9,
106, 127, 156, 164, 180, 190 146, 150, 151, 152, 153, 177, 184
affirmation, 2, 26, 28, 63, 86, 97, 119, anti-Semites, 143
122, 123, 131, 139, 155, 157, 158, antitheses, 5, 20, 22,24,25, 26,43, 50,
162,166,173,189,197 n.2 58,62,80,81,82,96,99, 106,
in art, 92, 97, 98 118, 121, 122, 133, 136, 137, 139,
of life, 28, 54, 58, 89, 92, 106, 140 146,152,170,173,177, 184(see
ofself, 82, 84, 85, 90, 120, 127, 130, also Gegensiitze)
139, 140 antithetical, 26, 61, 75, 125, 132, 135,
tragic, 53, 62 136, 137, 138, 152, 154, 163, 170,
Africa, 181 171,172,174,178,179,180,181,
'After Long Silence' (Yeats), 8 5 184, 185, 187
Agamemnon, 180 tincture, 127, 183
Agape, 127 apoaUypse,3, II, 12,39,57-8,61, 70,
&ywv, 34 141,174,178,181
Alcibiades, 134 Apollinian, 3, 20, 21, 4(}-7, 50, 51, 52,
Alexandria, 104, 106, 164, 187 53, 57, 62, 79, 80, 82, 85, 100,
204 Index
104, 126, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, Babylon, 78, I 03, 171, 180, 186
145, 146, 151, 153, 155, 162, Bacchus,44, 104,171
194 n.l Balzac, Honore de, 120
Apollo, 20, 21, 30, 34, 4G-7, 52, 62, 79, barbarian, 105, 112, 162, 163, 174
80, 97, 98, 100, 126, 133, 141, Baste, 58
167, 184 battle, see warfare
Aquinas, StThomas, 17 6 Baudelaire, Charles Pierre, II
Aries, 169, 181, 186 Bayreuth, 5, 40
aristocracies, 6, 8, 125, 162 beast, 31, 32, 52, 61, 87, 90, 106, 108,
aristocrat(ic), 9, 10, 12, 17, 38, 49, 113, 135, 141, 144, 184
117,146,171,172 blonde, 112, 162
Aristotle, 54 ofprey, 13,21
arroganoe,4, 10, 12, 17,143 rough,61, 154,171,178-9,184,18 8
art(istXic), xii, xiii, 3, 20, 22, 27, 30, 32, savage, 5
33,34,40,41,42,43,44 ,45,46, beauty, 3, 5, II, 12, 13, 16, 20, 21, 32,
47,48,50,54,56,57,66 ,91-8, 33, 34,41,44,47,52,57,61 ,62,
107-8, 116, 121, 127, 137-8, 164, 69, 70, 77,80,87,92-3,94,96,
190 97, 100, 106, 107, 112, 115, 123,
and life, 91-4, 96, 97-8, 107 127, 138, 139, ISQ--2, 184
and morality, 93-5 becoming, 24, 54, 68, 87-8, 161, 162,
and realism, 94, 96-8 166
Art and Revolution (Wagner), 30 n. I 7, being, 25, 46, 48, 68, 71, 87-8, 135,
193 n.17 161, 178
Artaud, Antonin, xi higher, 65
asceticism, 15, 30, 55, 66, 118, 119, infinite, 15 9
140, 170 Mothers of, 52
Asia(ticXism), 20, 34, 79, 80, I 00, 181, unity of, 24, 30, 82,86-7,89-91,99,
186 I 08, 128, 162, 180, 183
Greeks of, 104,186 Bedouin, I 37
Minor, 171 Beer, John, 193 n.15
Astrea, 186 Bentley, Eric, 5 n.20, 22 n.5 and 6,
'At Stratford-on-Avon' (Yeats), 74, 96 35 n.21, 113 n.2, 164 n.9,
Atthe Hawk's Weii(Yeats), xii, I 0, 24, 192 n.16 and 20, 193 n.5 and 6,
25, so-t, ss, 99-too, t49 194 n.21, 195 n.2, 197 n.9
Athene, 141 Bethlehem, 179, 185
Athens, 106, 187 Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche), 2,
Attic, 40, 43 13, 21,36-7,52, 55, 71, 81, 84,
New Attic Comedy, 49 112, 115, 119, 121, 124, 125, 130,
Attis, 186 131' 140
Attracta, 108-9, 187 Berkeley, Bishop, 64, 65
Autobiography ofW. B. Yeats, The, and birds (in Yeats), 102, 108, 143-4, 149,
Autobiographies, 3, 8, II, 12, 14, 153, 154, 155
17, 37,40,47,48,49-50,57 ,90, Birth ofTragedy, The(Nietzsche), xiii,
96, 115-16, 119, 121, 131, 133-4, II, 12, 17, 20, 21, 25, 26, 30, 31,
138, 152, 192 n.8 33,34,4Q-7,48,49,50 ,51,52-4,
automatic writing (of Mrs Yeats), 30, 60,61,64,69,77,85,92 , 100,
168 132-3, 153, 164, 193 n.ll
'Autumn of the Flesh' (Yeats), 7 3 'Bishop Berkeley' (Yeats), 65
Axel (Villiers), 12 Bismarck, Otto von, 35
Index 205
bitter, 17, 24, 32, 57, 99, 150, 151, 153, 'Canonical Book, A' (Yeats), 3 n.l 0,
164 192 n.IO
Bjersby, Birgit, 149 n.33, 197 n.33 Capri, 157
Blackstone, Bernard, 16 n.35, 193 n.35 Case of Wagner, The (Nietzsche), I,
Blake, William,xi,xiv,3,15,16,19, 96 n.IO, 195 n.IO
22,23-4,25,27-9,31,33,50,57, Cassandra,44
6Q-1,63,64,66, 72, 74, 77,80, Aeschylus's, 194 n.l
82,85,86,90,94-6,99, 113, caste(s), 115-16, 125
117-18,119,127,152,167,172, Castiglione, Baldassare, xiv, 56, 112
174,175,177,182,195 n.l Cat and the Moon, The(Yeats), xii, 183
Blake's Apocalypse (Bloom), 27 n.l4, 'Cat and the Moon, The' (Yeats), 134-5
193 n.l4 catharsis, 54
Blake's Visionary Universe (Beer), Catherine de Medici (Balzac), 120
193 n.l5 causality, 68, 71, 194 n.26
Blavatsky, Madame (Helen Petrovna), Cavern, 181
174 n.l8,177 'Certain Noble Plays of Japan' (Yeats),
'Blessed, The' (Yeats), 45-6 49,50, 73,100
BlindMan,56,146,152,183 change,23,24-5,30,31,54,66,67, 69,
blood, 58, 83, 84, 93, 100, 104, 105, 71, 76, 87, 93, 97, 159, 160, 161,
146, 149, 155, 181 165, 174, 185, 187, 194 n.26
'Blood and the Moon' (Yeats), 10, 83 chaos, xii, 19, 25, 31, 50, 76, 81, 84, 94,
Bloom, Harold, 27 n.l4, 193 n.l4 103, 104, 133, 151, 160,164, 172
Blueshirts(Dublin), II character,43,47-50,62, 74, 75,79
body,21,28,30,58,60,63-6, 71, 72, chastity, 33, 85, 106-7, 109, 183
73, 75, 77-80,82,83,85,87, Chavannes, Puvis de, II
88-9,90,91, 100, 101-10, 118, child, 119, 181, 183
119, 128, 135, 136, 147-8 Chinese, 27, 163,181
Celestial, 129 'Choice, The' (Yeats), 83
of fate, see under fate chorus,42,43,44,54
Passionate, 129 Christ, 3, 46, 47, 84, 90, 100, 113, 117,
Boehme, Jacob, 73,174,175,177 126, 137, 140, 153, 154, 155, 168,
Book ofLos, The (Blake), 15 169, 170, 171, 177, 179, 181, 183,
Book of Urizen, The (Blake), 60 185, 186, 187
Bookman, 3 n.l 0, 192 n.l 0 Anti-Christ, 44, 170, 178, 185 see
Borgia, Cesare, 13, 134 also Jesus
Bottom (in A Midsummer-Night's Christ and Nietzsche (Knight), I 00 n.l4,
Dream), 77 195 n.l4
Brancusi, Constantin, 176 Christian(ity), 2, 21, 25,29-30,32,45,
Brinton, Crane, I 9 2 n.l6 60, 69, 86, 88, 102-5, 117, 118,
Buddh~m.34, 163,167,182 119,126,137,143,154,170,171,
Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 6, 114 172,177,178,181,183,184,185,
Byzantium, 57, 171, 172, 180, 183 186
'Byzantium' (Yeats), 83, 89 anti-Christian, 44
Church, 23, 61, 144, 163, 183, 186
Cabala, 174-5 Cicero, 168
Caesar, 140, 168, 179 Circe, 69
Calvary (Yeats), xii, 127, 144, 153-4, 'Circus Animals' Desertion, The'
167, 177, 185 (Yeats), 197 n.35
Campbell, Joseph, 197 n.l3 civilisation, 13, 32, 54, 60, 69, 70, 71,
206 Index
126,156,167,169,170, 171,173, conscience, 17, 25, 69

174, 180, 181, 185 bad, 15, 23, 24, 124
Clarke, Austin, 3 n.l3 conscious(ness), 20, 22, 30, 31, 37, 46,
Claude Lorraine, 182 48,65,67,68, 70,71-3,75-6,
Qeopatra, 56 117, 131, 132, 170, 194 n.26
'Coat, A' (Yeats), 17 constraint, 7, 15, 23-4, 33, 41, 62, 7 3,
Cockfight, Paddy, 61 74, 140
Cohn, Paul V., 196 n.5 contemplatio, 46, 143, 144, !53
Collected Plays ofW. B. Yeats. The, 10, contemplation, 46, 49, 62, 90, 93, I 03,
19,24,25,26,32,45,50 ,52,55, 143, 172
56,98-110,139,141-55 ,183-8, contraries, see antitheses
195 n.ll, 196 n.26, 197 n.l9 Con vito (Dante), 90
Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. The, 'Coole Park, 1929' (Yeats), 6
xii, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13,17, 24, 26, 32, 'Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931' (Yeats),
33,46,55,57,58,59,63 ,64, 83
7G-I, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79,80,82, cortegiano, 112
83,84,85,86,87,88,89 ,91,96, Countess Cathleen, The (Yeats), 121
97,127,128,134,135,1 36-8, courage, 9, 112, 117, 120, 121, 123,
141, 145, 166, 167, 177-82, 187, 140, 149, 158
188 Courage to Be, The<Tillich), 36 n.22,
collective unconscious, 90 194 n.22
Collins, Adrian, 197 n.3 Courtier. The (Castiglione), 112
comedy,33,47,48,49, 171 Cowell, Raymond, 97
New Attic, 49 crane, 143
command, 21, 37, 120, 131, 194 n.26 'Craving for Hell, A' (Hamburger),
Commedia dell'Arte, 129 4 n.l7 and 18, 5 n.21, 6 n.26,
Commentary on the Collected Plays of 123 n.l2, 192 nn.l7, 18,21 and
W. B. Yeats, A (Jeffares and 26, 196 n.l2
Knowland), 195 n.ll Crazy Jane, 78,81-2,83,100
Common, Thomas, I, 2, 3, 7, 12, 15, 'Crazy Jane Grown Old Looks at the
20, 118, 196 n. 7; see also, Dancers' (Yeats), 26
Nietzsche as Critic, Philosopher. 'Crazy Jane on the Mountain' (Yeats),
Poet and Prophet 197 n.35
compassion, 14, 114, 117 creation, 12, 13, 26, 33, 36, 44, 57, 93,
Complete Works ofFriedrich Nietzsche, 113, 115, 120, 125, 127. 134, 135,
The(ed. Levy), 194 n.25, 195 n.6, 136, 139, 140, 143, 155, 161
196 n.5, 197 n.3 Creative Mind, 129, 134, !50, 183
composite man, 8Q-2, 114, 119, 124, Divine Creator, 15 9-60
129 joy in, 57
Conchubhar (Concobhar), 66, 145-8, cruelty, 3, I 0, 23, 26, 30, 31, 32, 34, 51,
!53 52, 54, 55, 57, 62, 106, 107
Conder, Charles, II to self, 55
conflict, xii, xiii, 3, 5, 12, 13, 15, 19-35, Theatre of, xi
38-9,40,43,44,50,69, 80,82, Cuchulain, I 0, 24, 26, 56, I 00, 117,
87, 89, 98, 100, 102, 123-6, 128, 125, 140, 145-53, 183, 188,
134, 135, 136, 137. 145, !52, 156, 197n.35
162, 163, 164, 190 'Cuchulain Comforted' (Yeats),
Congw,55, 107-8,109 197 n.35
'Conjunctions' (Yeats), 180 Cuchulain Plays of W. B. Yeats: A
Index 207
Study, The (Skene), 99 n.l3, joy in, 54, 57, 58, 61, 141-2
195 n.l3 Development of William Butler Yeats,
Cult of the Superman, The(Bentley), The (Menon), 120 n.l 0, 192 n.l2,
5 n.20, 22 nn.5 and 6, 35 n.21, 196 n.IO
113 n.2, 164 n.9, 192 nn.l6 and devil(s), 27, 66, 74, 101, 102, 113, 118,
20, 193 nn.5 and 6, 194 n.21, 185
195 n.2, 197 n.9 Devil 's Disciple, The (Shaw), 27
'Dialogue of Self and Soul, A' (Yeats),
Daimon, 25, 38, 90, 125, 129, 136, 83, 158-9
193 n.ll Dionysian, xi, 3, 20, 21, 29, 32, 4D-7,
Damocles, 21 48,50,51,52,53,56,57,59-62,
dance,21,25,32,33,41,43,49,64,80, 77, 79, 82, 86, 97, 98, 100, 101,
87, 96, 113, 121, 124, 144, 145, 102, 104, 106, 139, 140, 142, 143,
146, 155, 171, 180, 183, 184 144, 145, 146, 147, 155, 162, 165,
dancers, 99-1 00 166, 171, 183, 184, 194 n.l
Daniel, 176 Dionysus,20,21,34,4D-7,51,52,60,
Dante Alighieri, 90, 137 79, 80, 98, 100, 101-2, 122, 126,
Darwin, Charles, 73, 116, 120 132-3, 139, 141, 148, 167, 185,
Daughters of Beulah, 118 186
Davis, Thomas, 3 'Discoveries'(Yeats), 12, 45, 64, 66, 81,
'Dawn, The' (Yeats), 78 91-2,94, 124
Dawn of Day, The(Nietzsche), 2, 93 n.6, distance, 106, 125, 132, 143, 153
121, 148, 195 n.6 divine, 28, 41, 46, 50, 69, 81, 95, 101,
day, 2, 46, 58, 83, 84, 88, 130, 169 104,108, 114,117, 157, 164,185
death, 19, 55-6, 58, 62, 75, 83, 85, 93, Creator, 159-60
94, 107, 139, 141, 142, 147, 148, 'Divine Image, The' (Blake), 15, 95
152, 154, 158, 165 Dodds, E. R., 64 n.l, 195 n.l
Death ofCuchulain, The (Yeats), xii, I 0, dog, 143
19, 109-10, 152-3, 188 'Dolls, The' (Yeats), 75, 177
'Death of Synge, The' (Yeats), 37, 115 Donoghue, Denis, 13 n.32, 18 n.40,
Decima, 45, 101-2, 184 152 n.34, 191 n.l, 193 nn.32, 38
Decline of the West, The (Spengler), I 7 5 and 40, 196 n.l5, 197 nn.34 and
'Defence of Poetry, A' (Shelley), 16
94-5 n.9, 195 n.9 Doric, 79, 103, 186
defiance, 10, 149 Dove, 171
Degas, Edgar, 153 dragon, 77, 78
Deidre (Synge's), 46 'Dramatis Personae, 1896-1902'
Deidre(Yeats's), 52,56 (Yeats), 8, 121
Deidre of the Sorrows (Synge), 57 dream(s), 41, 43, 45, 46, 47, 52, 62, 88,
delight, 15, 23, 28, 55, 93, 94, 96, 107, 91, 119, 132, 135, 146, 152, 153
145, 151, 184, 187 drunk(enness), 41, 43, 44, 45-6, 4 7, 48,
democracy, 115-16, 118, 119-20 6D-1,62, 101-2,105,133,134,
denial, 2, 116, 118, 127, 131 147-8
Descartes, Rene, 68 Dublin, II, I 7
Descriptive Catalogue (Blake), 117 Duhem, Pierre, 168
destruction, 12, 26, 33, 42, 44, 45, 52, duty, 8, 145
53, 57, 87, 92, 113, 114, 120, 122,
I 31, I 39, 140, 14 2, 14 3, I 52, 16 3, eagle, 8, 9, 24, 79, 120, 144, 155
167,179,183,184 earth, 61, 84, 90
208 Index
East, 84-5, 169, 171 193 n.39, 197 n.2

Far, 89 'Estrangement' (Yeats), 14, 47, 48,
meditations of the, 84 49-50,57,96, 115-16, 119, 131,
Near (Middle), 34 133-4, 192 n.8
philosophy of the, 164, I 77 eternal recurrence, 22, 98, 156-66, 172,
Ecce Homo (Nietzsche), 5, 6, 27, 48, 53, 174, 177, 185, 188, 190, 192 n.ll
117,136,156-7,165 see also ewige Wiederkehr and
ecstasy,43,44,46,53,56,58,60,86 , history, cyclical
108,140,158,179,190 eternity, 15, 39, 45, 51, 53, 54, 57,
tragic, 53, 57, 86 6Q-1,85,87,88,95,97,99, 106,
ego(tism), 37, 41, 42, 46, 56, 104, 105, 108, 129, 140, 158, 160, 161, 165
126, 129, 130, 139, 149, 153 Etruscans, 168
'Ego Dominus Tuus', 136-8 Euripides, 49, 64, 77, 133
Egyptian, 50, 182 Europe(an), 29, 34, 79, 162, 163, 175
eKrrvpwov;, 164, 167 evil, 15, 19,26-9,30,36,42, 50,57,
Eliot, George, 7 3 60, 74, 8Q-I, 93, 118, 119, 120,
Eliot, T. S., 13,191 n.5 124, 127, 140, 162, 163
Ellis, Havelock, I, 59,73 moral, 27-9
EHmann, Richard, 2, 3, 8, 112 n.l, ewige Wiederkehr, xii, 43, 156-66,
133 n.l9, 191 n.3, 195 n.l, 192 n.ll
196 n.l9 see also eternal recurrence and
Emer, 150, 152 history, cyclical
Empedocles, 167,172,177,181 excess, xiii, 15, 61, 84, 86, I 04, 112,
Emperor and Galilean (Ibsen), 21 122, 139, 144, 145
Encounter, 4 nn.l7 and 18,5 n.21, existentialist, xi
6 n.26, II n.30, 123 n.l2, Explorations(Yeats), 3, 17, 74, 82, 88,
192 nn.17, 18, 26 and 30, 89, 9Q-I, 93-4,96, 117, 120, 121,
196 n.l2 145, 169, 179
enemy, 12, 13, 54, 75, 119, 121, 136, Ezekiel, 141
151
energy,24,28,33,34,48,50,56,57 , falcon, 178
69, 77, 91, 93, 96, 113, 116, 134, Fand, 100, 15Q-2
156, 158, 161, 162 fantasy, 41,45
Blake's, 80, 113 Farr, Florence,84
Engelberg, Edward, 48 n.7, 191 n.3, fate, 23, 55, 56, 118, 134, 148, 149,
194 n.7 152, 153, 158, 186
England, 65 body of, 24, 38, 39, 129, 138, 152
EnglishBlake(Blackstone), 16 n.35, Faust, 6
193 n.35 Fay,Frank,66
entropy, 160,192 n.ll Fearful Symmetry (Frye), 57 n.12,
envy, 12, 15, 118 194 n.l2
Ephesus, !55 femininity, 5, 16, 164, 179
Ercole, Duke, 9, 112 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 75
Eros, 127 Fighting the Waves (Yeats), 13 8-9
Essays and Introductions (Yeats), xii, 'Fisherman, The'(Yeats), 78
xiv, 3, 12, 17-18 n.39, 23, 42, 45, Flaubert, Gustave, II, 176
46,47,48,50,52,56,57,65,66, flock, see herd
72, 73, 74,81,91-2,94,96,98, Flora, Joachim de, 174, 177
100, 124, 153, 158 n.2, 167, Florence, I 3
Index 209
flux, see change goal, 79, 164
folly, 99, 107, 122, 127, 141 Goatherd, 57, 78
fool, 56, 57, 84,98-9, 146, 152, 170, ~.xi, 19,22,29,30,31,33,60,61,
172,183 63,64,82,83,86,89,97, 101,
'For Anne Gregory' (Yeats), 83 102,105-6,108,109,113,116,
For Lance/ot Andrewes (Eliot), 13 117, 118, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131,
forerunner, 15, 90, 131, 136, 165 132, 142, 143, 144, 154, 155, 167,
forgiveness, 29, 118 170, 182, 183, 185, 187, 188
Forster-Nietzsche, Elisabeth, 6, 22, 35, godless, 119
116 'Gods and Fighting Men' (Yeats), 88,
'FourYears: 1887-1891'(Yeats),90 121
France, 162, 163 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, xiv, 6,
Frazer, Sir James, I 07 n.l6, 195 n.l6 17, 81
Free Spirit, 9, 59, 131 Gogarty, Oliver, 99
French Revolution, 129, 163 Golden Bough, The(Frazer), 107,
frenzy,64, 79,99, 108,135,148,150 195 n.l6
artistic, 94, 96, 148 Goncourt (Edmond and Jules), 92
<see also Rausch) Gonne, Maud, 16
Freud, Sigmund, 13-14,31,32,52 good, 15,26-9,69, 74, so-1, 95, 113,
friend(ship), 12, 13, 119, 121, 130, 137, 115, 119, 120, 121, 124, 127, 130,
148 140, 163
friendliness, 8, 26, 140 man,8
'Friends of My Youth'(Yeats), 22-3,48 moral,24,27-9,95, 117
From 'A Full Moon in March' (Yeats), gradation of rank, see Rangordnung
79 Greek(s), 17, 20, 30, 32, 34, 40, 43, 44,
Frye, Northrop, 57 n.l2, 126 n.l5, 46,48-9,51,52,62,64, 77, 79,
174 n.l6, 194 n.l2, 196 n.l5, 87,131,132,164,171,174,177,
197 n.l6 180, 186
Full Moon in March, A (Yeats), xii, 38, of Asia, I 04, 186
106-7 composite man of, 81
furor poeticus, 148 Dionysian, 79
mask, 100
Gast, Peter(K6selitz), 58, 92, 188 modern, 64
Gay Science, The (Nietzsche), 2, 19, 21, in The Resurrection, I 03-6, 186
66-7,69,71, 73,87 n.5, 112, 157, see also Hellene
163, 195 n.5 Greeks and the Irrational, The (Dodds),
Gegensiitze, 5, 20 195 n.l
see also antitheses Green Helmet, The (Yeats), 149-50
Genealogy ofMorals <A/Towards the), 'The Green Helmet and Responsibilities'
see On the Genealogy ofMorals (Henn), 17 n.38, 193 n.38
'General Introduction for My Work, A' Greene, David H., 37 n.24, 145 n.27,
(Yeats), 56, 57 192 n.9, 194 n.24, 196 n.27
generosity, 117, 121 Gregg, Frederick, 64, 73
Gentile, Giovanni, 176 Gregory, Augusta, Lady, xi, I, 2, 3, 8,
gentle Nietzscheans, 4, 5, 9, 12 37, 56, 59, 183, 192 n.9
gentleness, 10,32,51 Gregory, Major Robert, 55, 145, 147
George, Stefan, xiii 'Grey Rock, The' (Yeats), 85, 88
Germans, 10 Grierson, Sir Herbert, 120 n.l 0,
'Gitanjali' (Yeats), 3 192 n.l2, 196 n.IO
210 Index
Grossoktavausgabe (Nietzsche), Heller, Erich, II n.30, 192 n.30

10 n.28, 16 n.36, 31 n.19, 70 n.2, Henn, T. R., 17 n.38, 38-9 n.28,
76 n.4, 94 nn.7 and 8, 114 n.4, 193 n.38, 194 n.28
117 n.8, 118 n.9, 122 n.ll, 'Her Triumph' (Yeats), 77
139 nn.22 and 23, !59 nn.4 and 5, Heracles, 133
164 nn. 7 and 8, 192 nn.l and 28, Heraclitus, 22, 106, 165, 167
193 n.36, 194 n.l9, 195 nn.2, 4, 7 herd, 17, 25, 27, 29, 144, 155, 163, 186
and 8, 196 nn.4, 8, 9, II, 22 and human, 67, 76,93
23, 197 nn.4 5, 7 and 8 ideals, 117
gyres, 126, 152, 164, 172, 174, 176, instinct, 126
177,178,179,181,182,184 Herne's Egg, The (Yeats), xii, 55,
'Gyres, The'(Yeats), 58, 167, 181 107-9, 187
hero(ic), xii, xiii, 3, 5, 7, I 0, 14, 23, 24,
27,49,51,54,55,56,57,58, 74,
Hamburger, Michael, 4 nn.l7 and 18, 80, 87, 90, 93, 100, 103, Ill,
5 n.21, 123 n.l2, 192 nn.17, 18, 113-25, 132-3, 136, 139--55, 170,
21 and 26, 196 n.12 171,172,184,187,188,190,
Hamlet, 34, 49,51-2,57,74 197 n.35
hammer, 81 mask, 130, 132
happiness, 54, 58, 69, 93, I 08, 117, Hero with a Thousand Faces, The
124, 134, 135, 137, 139, 158 (Campbell), 197 n.l3
inman, 25 heron, 144, 153, 154, 155, 185
hard(ness), 14, 17, 81, 88, 139, 140, 183 hierarchies, 22, 65, 75, 115, 179
harlot, I 09--10, 171, 184, 188 see also Rangordnung and rank
harmony,30,50,8D-1,86-7,96, 124 higher men, 2, 58, 81, 115, 117, 118,
Harper's Weekly, 48 12D-2, 131, 139, 150
Harrison, Jane, 195 n.l6 attributes of, II 7, 12D-l
harsh Nietzscheans, 4, 6, I 0, 17, 18 Hindu, 167
hate, II, 25, 26, 56, 61, 80, 97, 100, Hipparchus, 169
139 history, 120, 129, 178, 180, 190
Hiiusermann, H. W., 17 n.38, 193 n.38 cyclical, xii, 3, 26, 36, 38, 84, I 03,
hawk, 55, 71, 99, 144, 145, 148, 149 154, 156-89 (see also eternal
Hearne,Martin,39, 109,183 recurrence and ewige Wiederkehr)
heart, 8, 14, 61, 64, 75, 98, 105-6, 141, greatyearof, 162,165-9,173,177,
144, 148, 149, 150, 151, 155 180, 185-6, 188-9
heaven,22,28,30,39,60,80,83,84 , human, 30, 162, 165, 167
87, 108, 158, 184, 187 of nations, 54
Hebrew, 103-5 supra-historical (man), 158, 162
Hector, 58, 141, 181 wheel of, 128, 154, 162, 166-70,
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 26, 7 3 173,177,181
Heidegger and Jaspers on Nietzsche world, 34
(Howey), 158 n.l, 197 n.l History ofAncient Greek Literature, A
Heisenberg, Werner Karl (Murray), 22 n.4, 193 n.4
uncertainty principle of, 160 Hitler, Adolf, 4
hell,22,28, 113 'Hodos Chameliontos' (Yeats), 138
He/las (Shelley), 166 Hollingdale, R. J., 36 n.23, 194 n.23,
Hellene, 5, 20, 34, 45, 61, 80, I 04, 140, 196 n.7
165 (see also Greek) holy, 72, 83, 98,107,119,121,142,
Hellenism, 162 185
Index 211
'Homage to Louis IX' (MacGreevy), India(n), 17,115,152,163,167,174

146 individual(ity), 5, 10, 24, 25, 33, 34-5,
Homer, 2, 84, 85, 127, 130 41,42,48,49,50,51,5t56,57,
pre-Homeric, 162 60, 62, 85, 89, 91, 102, 116, 126,
Hone, J. M., 3, 4 n.l4, 72, 116 n.6, 128, 131, 132, 133, 139, 140, 141,
146 n.29, 192 n.l4, 196 nn.6 and 145, 154, 155, 162, 169, 170, 171,
29 177, 186
honesty, 118, 12o--1 individuationis, principium, 41, 52
in art, 94 influence, of Nietzsche on Yeats, xi, xii,
Honoured Guest, An (eds Donoghue and 2,3,4-18,190
Mulryne), 17 n.38, 126 n.l5, Innisfree, 64, 136
174 n.l6, 193 n.38, 196 n.l5, instinct(s), 2, 3, 23, 31, 42, 44, 48, 61,
197 n.l6 63-5,69, 7G-8, 100,106,124,
hope,54,90, 137,139 127, 140, 179
Horton, W. T., 73 wisdom of, 128
hostility, 21, 24, 26, 34,41-2 instructors, 30, 112, 136, 165, 168, 172,
Hour-Glass, The(Yeats), 98-9, 183 174, 175
Howey, Richard Lowell, 158 n.l, Interpretation of the Cuchulain Legend
197 n.l in the WorksofW. B. Yeats, The
Human, All-too-Human (Nietzsche), (Bjersby), 197 n.33
37 n.25, 54, 87 n.5, 115 n.5, 121, intoxication, see drunk(enness)
166 n.l2, 194 n.25, 196 n.5 'Introduction to The Cat and the Moon'
Human Image, The' (Blake), 15 (Yeats), 135
humility, 117, 118, 120 'Introduction to The Resurrection'
hunchback, 136, 183 (Yeats), 117,169,171,179,188
husk, 129 Ireland, 91
hyperanthropos, 114 Irish,l7,182
'Irish Airman Foresees His Death, An'
Ibsen, Henrik, 21, 168 (Yeats), 55
Ideas ofGood and Evii(Yeats), xi, 3, 15, irrational, xiii, 28, 64, 66, 75, 101,
56 102-7,109,160,164,172,177,
Identity of Yeats, The (EHmann), 178,181,186,187
112 n.l, 133 n.l9, 191 n.3, Greeks and the, 64
195 n.l, 196 n.l9 Isis Unveiled (Biavatsky), 17 4 n.l8,
'If! Were Four-and-Twenty' (Yeats), 197 n.l8
17,89,120 Isolde, 93
illusion, 9, 20, 34, 41, 51, 52, 62, 69, Italy, 4, 162
70, 71, 85, 97, 127
image, 25, 44, 46, 49, 91, 100, 101, J. B. Yeats: Letters to His Son W. B.
108,109,136,137,138,139,149, Yeats and Others (ed. Hone), 6,
150, 152, 153, 184 38, 48, Ill, 121, 148
chosen, 24, 38, 129, 134, 150, 153 J. M. Synge (Greene and Stephens),
dream,43,64, 100 37 n.24, 192 n.9, 194 n.24
Fated, 24 'J. M. Synge and the Ireland of His
tragic, 49 Time'(Yeats), 23, 52,158 n.2,
Image from a Past Life, An' (Yeats), 197 n.2
178 Jainist, 16 7
imagination, 22, 28, 49, 50, 66, 77, 81, Japan,49, 121
94, 98,126,137,144,168,176 Ja-sagender, 139, 159
212 Index
Jaspers, Karl, 127 n.l6, 196n.l6 scientific, 45

Jeffares, A. Norman, 3 n.6, 75 n.3, as virtue, 7 6
134 n.21, 148 n.32, 191 n.6, Komos, 21 n.3, 193 nn.3 and 17
195 n.3, 196 n.21, 197 n.32 Kubla Khan, 184
Jehovah, 15
Jerusalem, 3 3, 118 labyrinth(ine), 16, 29, 135, 139
Jerusalem (Blake), 27, 82 Land ofHeart's Desire, The (Yeats), 16
Jesus, 30, 74,103,117-18 'Lapis Lazuli' (Yeats), 57, 166
see also Christ Last Judgement, 28
Jews, 2, 118-19, 163 last man, II 8
Job,92 Last Poems (Yeats), 58, 79, 85, 180
Johnson, Lionel, 22-3, 25 'Later Plays of W. B. Yeats, The'
Jones, Ernest, 14 (Parkinson), 19 5 n.l6
joy(ful)(ness), vi, xi, 7, 13, 14, 15,16, 20, laughter, 43, 58, 59, 61, I 05, 113, 121,
21,29,33,39,41,42,44,53-9, 124, 139, 141, 142, 145, 147, 150,
62, 82, 93, 103, 108, 109, 113, 158, 159, 178, 179, 181
120, 124, 128, 140, 141, 142, 152, Lavater, Johann Kaspar, 72, so-t
153,158,166,174,177,189,190 law, 94,109,176,183
in destruction, 54, 58, 61, 62, 141-2 Lawrence, D. H., xiii, 191 n.4
spontaneous, 7 5 Lazarus, 153, 154, 155
tragic, 53-9, 181 Lea, F. A., 15 n.34, 193 n.34
Judas, 153, 154-5 Lear, 57
Judea, 163, 167 Leda, 87,171,180,185
Juliet, 47 'Leda and the Swan' (Yeats), xii, 87
Jung,CarlGustav, 90,197 n.l3 Leipzig, 159
Juno, 172 Letters of W. B. Yeats, The (ed. Wade),
Jupiter, 180 vi, xi n.l, xiv, I, 2, 3-4, II, 16,
Justinian, 180, 183 19, 20, 22, 25, 32,38 n.27, 47, 56,
57,58,64,66, 72,73-4,80,84-5,
Kant, Immanuel, 75 98, 146, 191 n.1, 194 n.27
Kataplous (Lucian), 114 Letters on Poetry from William Butler
Kaufmann, Walter, 5 n.l9, 20, 114 n.3, Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley
192 n.l9, 194 n.l, 195 n.3 31-2 n.20, 59 n.l5, 194 nn.20
Kazantzakes, Nikos, 64 n.l, 195 n.l and 15
Keats, John, 137-8 Levy, Oscar, I, 194 n.25
Kennedy, J. M., 195 n.6 Lewis, Wyndham, 176
Keynes, Geoffrey, see Poetry and Prose liberty, 95, 119, 121, 149, 155
of William Blake life, 19, 23, 24, 26, 28, 30, 34, 35, 36,
King's Threshold, The (Yeats), xii, 141 39,44,51,53,54,57,58,60,61,
Knight, A. H. J., 164 n.l 0, 166 n.l2, 62,66,67,69, 70, 72, 75, 77,80,
197 nn.IOand 12 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 89, 91, 92, 93,
Knight, G. Wilson, 100 n.l4, 195 n.l4 94, 99, 105, 106, 115, 116, 118,
Knowland, A. S., 195 n.ll 119, 120, 123, 127, 128, 130, 133,
knowledge, xii, 14, 30, 34, 39, 44, 134, 137, 138, 139, 143, 144, 147,
51-2,65,66,67,68, 76, 78,84, 148, 152, 157-8, 164, 165, 180,
88, I 00, I 03, I 04-5, I 06, I 08, 183, 187, 188
109 and art, 91-4,96-8
absolute, 65 heart of, 94
human, I 04-5 law of, 122
Index 213
life-force, 35, 72 Mary, 186

secret of, 36, 101 masculinity, 5, 16,148,164,179
lion, 26, 119, 178, 187 mask, 2, 5, 24, 38,43,46,49-50, 84,
logic,66-8, 71,76,96,107,109,175 85, 96, 100, 102, 106, 129, 13Q-8,
lonely, 143, 144, 145, 149, 151, 153, 152, 153, 184, 186, 190
154 God's, 102, 131, 132
Lonely Tower. The(Henn), 38 n.28, 'Mask, The' (Yeats), 134
194 n.28 Masks of Love and Death: Yeats as
love, 15, 25, 26, 33, 56, 77, 82, 85, 87, Dramatist (Moore), 98-9 n.l2,
102, 106, 107, 108, Ill, 119, 120, 107 n.l5, 141 n.24, 148 n.31,
124, 138, 139, 144, 148, 149, 150, 153 n.36, 195 nn.l2 and 15,
152, 158, 185 196 n.24, 197 nn.31 and 36
ofChrist, 154, 155 master(s), 21, 68
of God, 61 oftheearth, 6, 81, 142
LOwith, Karl, 4 mathematics, 65, 66, I 09, 176, 180
Lucian, 114 maya, 41
Lucretius, 41 measure, xiii, 41, 44, 57, 79, 80, 97,
Luke, F. D., xiv, 191 n.5 139, 140, 144
lust, 15, 21,32-3,36, 48, 137 JLTI8Ev & yav, xiii
'Meditations in Time of Civil War'
Macbeth, 74, 93 (Yeats), 32
MacBride, Major John, 16 p.Eya<; ivtatn'o<;, 164
MacGreevy, T., 146 Melchiori, Giorgio, 195 n.l8
Machiavelli, Niccolo, II, 13, 14, 36 Memnon, Column of, 45
Machiavellianism, II Memoirs of William Butler Yeats (ed.
MacManus, Francis, 3 n.l3, 192 n.l3 Donoghue), 26 n.l3, 193 n.l3
MacNeice, Louis, 87 n.5, 146 n.28, Menon, V. K. Narayana, 120, 192 n.l2,
195 n.5, 196 n.28 196 n.IO
Macrobius, 176 'Mental Traveller, The' (Blake), 174
'Magi, The'(Yeats), 126-7, 177 mercy, 15, 114
magnusannus, 162, 167, 185 'Meru'(Yeats), 70
Mallarme, Stephane, II Messiah, I 04, 187
ManfromNew York:JohnQuinnand Meysenbug, Malwida von, 5
his Friends, The(Reid), 2 n.5, Michael Robartes and the Dancer
191 n.5, 192 n.IO (Yeats), 77, 78, 89
'Mandukya Upanishad, The' (Yeats), 91 'Michael Robartes and the Dancer'
Mannin, Ethel, xiv, 19 (Yeats), 77, 78, 91
Manu Law-Book, 116 Michelangelo Buonarroti, 78, 79, 91,
Manvantra, 169 114, 182
many, I, 19, 181 Midas, 51
gods, 84, 127, 130, 167, 186, 187 Middle Ages, 44, 60, 171, 182
marginalia, Yeats's in Middleton, Christopher, 5 nn.23 and
Common's Nietzsche, xi-xii, 2, 3, 24, 192 nn.23 and 24
7-8,12-13,29-30,32,36,73,84, Milton, 113
85,86,88,90, 115,116,119,127, Milton (Blake), 113
130, 173, 190, 191 n.4 'Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions'
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, The (Nietzsche), 116 n.5, 196 n.5
(Blake), 22, 28, 66, 73, 113, 118 Mithras, 185
Mars, 180 'Mixed Maxims and Opinions'
214 Index
(Nietzsche), 6 n.25, 192 n.25 Morgan, Margery, 21 n.3, 193 nn.3 and
'Modern Poetry'(Yeats), 167 17
modesty, 145 Morris, William, vi xi, 59
false, 117 Mulryne, J. R., 193 n.38, 196 n.l5,
moon, 29, 32, 73, 84, 107, 127, 128, 197 n.l6
134-5, 143, 146, 151, 154, 166, multiplicity, 24, 31, 56, 58, 68, 81, 84,
172,179,184 115,155,179,183,186
Moore, John Rees, 98-9 n.l2, Murray, Gilbert, 22 n.4, 193 n.4,
107 n.l5, 141 n.24, 148 n.31, 195 n.l6
153 n.36, 195 nn.l2 and 15, music, 20, 21, 39, 40, 43, 44, 49, 59, 61,
196 n.24, 197 nn.31 and 36 62, 70, 87. 88, 98, 144
moral, 37, 62, 69, 75, 119, 125, 127, 'My Spectre Around Me' (Blake), 174
163, 178, 179 myth, 20,21, 38,39,44,45,49,51,53,
codes, 15, 28, 29 62,133,167, 171,176,180
evil, 27-9 Mythologies (Yeats), 25 n.ll, 38, 39,
extra-moral era, 74 131,134,138,158,193 n.ll
good,24,27-9,95, 117
judgements, 93-4 Napoleon Bonaparte, 129, 163, 170
moralist, 136 Nathan, Leonard, 50 nn.9 and 10,
pre-moral era, 74 194 nn.9 and 10
standards, 31, 93, 188 Nat ural Law, 3 I
supramoral, 184 nature, 41, 42, 45, 51, 60, 62, 69, 88,
morality, 2, 13, 14, 15, 24, 26, 27-8, 94, 96, 98, 127, 140
33,57,69, 74,93,113,117,125, nausea, xi, 33, 97
184 Nazis, 4
absolute, 163 Nero, 29
and art, 93-5 New Model of the Universe, A
classical, 116 (Ouspensky), 173 n.l5, 197 n.l5
of hero, 3 'News for the Delphic Oracle' (Yeats),
master, 21, 38, 75, 84, 86, 115, 116, 80
127, 156, 163 Newton, Isaac, 60, 65, 95
slave, 21, 38, 75, 84, 86, 118, 127, Nietzsche (Brinton), 192 n.l6
156, 163 Nietzsche: An Introduction to the
of utility, 8 Understanding of His
'Morality and the Novel' (Lawrence), Philosophical Activity (Jaspers),
xiii n.4, 191 n.4 127 n.l6, 196 n.l6
Moreau, Gustave, II 'Nietzsche and the Imagery of Height
Morgan, George Allen, I 0 n.28, (Luke), xiv n.5, 191 n.5
16 n.36, 20, 29,30 n.l8, 31 n.l9, Nietzsche as Critic, Philosopher. Poet
57 n.l3, 70 n.2, 76 n.4, 94 nn. 7 and Prophet (ed. Common), I, 2,
and 8,114 n.4, 117 n.8, 118 n.9, 7, 12-13, 14, 16, 32, 38, 74, 84,
122 n.ll, 123-4 n.l3,131 n.l7, 85,88,90,116,119,173,191 n.4
132 n.l8, 139 nn.22 and 23, Nietzsche, Elizabeth, see Forster-
!59 nn.4 and 5, 164 nn. 7 and 8, Nietzsche
165 n.ll, 191 n.3, 192 n.28, Nietzsche in England /890-1914
193 nn.36,16and 18,194 nn.l9 (Thatcher), I n.2, 3 n.7, 191 n.2,
and 13, 195 nn.2, 4, 7 and 8, 192 n.7, 194 n.l6
196nn.4,8,9,11,13,17,22and Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist,
23, 197 nn.4, 5, 7, 8 and II Antichrist (Kaufmann), 114,
Index 215
192 n.l9, 195 n.l9 oneness, see unity

nigh~2.26,29,32,46,58,83,84,88, Only Jealousy ofEmer, The (Yeats), xii,
107, 109, 169 24, 100, 128, 15(}-2
'Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen' Oothoon, 33
(Yeats), 57, 179 opposites, see antitheses
Niphates, Mount, 27 Opticks (Newton), 95
nobility, 117, 119, 140, 148, 149 optimism, 66
noble, 100, 102, 118, 127, 132, 140, Order of the Golden Dawn, The, 38
148, 158, 163, 181, 184, 187, 188 Orientalism, 162
aristocracy, 8 Orphic, 100
art, 23, 56 Osiris, 185
caste, 112 Ouspensky, P. D., 173 n.l5, 197 n.l5
man, 7, 8, 12, 14, 115, 142 Overbeck,Franz,5, 131,165
morality, I 2 overcoming, 13
virtues, 2 self-, 26, 36, 38
Noh drama, 49 see also victory
Nurse (in Romeo and Juliet), 47
'Pages from a Diary Written in 1930'
obedience, 21, 37, 96, 119, 120, 144, (Yeats), 82, 89
146 pain, 57, 92, 97, 98, I 02, 119, 123, 138,
objectivity, 3, 29-30,65,92-3,98, 102, 140
104, 125-9, 131, 132, 144, 145, Pallas Athene, 185
150, 151, 153, 154, 155, 167, 169, Pan,80
171,173,179,183,185,186,187 7Tavt'a ,Jei , 25
obligation,2, 7,8, 12,14 Parkinson, Thomas, 195 n.l6
O'Brien, Conor Cruise, 12 n.31, Parmenides (Plato), 19
192nn.16and31 Parnell, Charles Stewart, 170
O'Driscoll, Robert, 47 nn.3 and 4, passion(s), S-6, 12, 14, 17, 23, 25, 26,
193 n.7, 194 nn.3, 4, 5, 6 and 8, 28,32,33,46,47,48,49,52, 70,
196 n.20 71, 72,75-6,78-80,93,94,
Oedipus, 45, 132, 171, 188 99-102, 106-9, 133, 135, 138,
Oedipus at Co/onus (Sophocles), 139, 140, 144, 145, 148, ISO, 152,
194 n.ll 158, 185
oi1,26 Passionate Body, 129
'Oil and Blood' (Yeats), 83 Pater, Walter, 92, 131
Old Man, 50, 55, 99, 149, 187-8 Patmore, Coventry, I 72
O'Leary, John, 16 Paul (St), 185
'On a Picture of a Black Centaur by peace, 15, 25, 70, 179
Edmund Dulac' (Yeats), 180 'People's Theatre, A' (Yeats), 3, 14 5
On Baile's Strand(Yeats), xii, 24, 26, 'Per Amica Silentia Lunae'(Yeats), 25,
56,66,145-9,182-3 39 n.ll, 19 3 n.ll
On the Boiler(Yeats), xi, 6, 26, 74, 79, Persia(ns), 79, 105, 172
115,167,174 personality, 38, 47-51, 56, 81, 96, 130,
On the Genealogy ofMorals (Niet7sche), 140, 178
I, 2, 5, 6, 21, 23, 31, 65, 84, 113, pessimists, 6
121, 122, 123, 125, 129, 143, pessimism, 51
162-3 Petrie, Flinders, I 75
on~2. 19,42,53,62,90, 126,181 phantom, 47
God, 29, 84, 127, 167 'Phases of the Moon, The' (Yeats), 24,
216 Index
63, 89, 135, 141, 177 Principe, II (Machiavelli), 13

Phidias, 172, 181, 182 Proclus, 168
philosophy, xiii, xiv, 2, II, 23, 32, 36, Prometheus, 112, 132
47, 65, 72, 75, 140, !56, 164, 165, 'Prometheus Unbound' (Yeats), xii
167, 168, 174, 175 prudence,28,60, 77,145,148-9
'Philosophy of Shelley's Poetry, The' Ptolemy, 169
(Yeats), 56 Purgatory (Yeats), xii, II, 187-8
Phoenicians, 55 Pythagoras, 79, 80,107,162,167,176
Picasso, Pablo, II Nco-Pythagorean, 102
Pisces, 186
pity, 2, 5, 14, 15, 54, 62, 70, 178, 186, quarrelsomeness, 12
192 n.22 Quattrocento, 162, 172, 182
Plato, 19, 29, 54, 69, 84, 88, 90, 94, 96, Queen, 101-2, 106-7
103, 107, 133, 161, 162, 166, 167, Quinn, John, I, 2 n.5, 6, 59, 80, 98,
168-9, 180, 186, 187 191 n.5, 192 n.l2
Player Queen, The (Yeats), xii, 32, 45,
IOQ--2, 177, 183-5 Racine, Jean, 49
Plays and Controversies (Yeats), 127, rage, II, 15, 32, 33, 57, 70, 143, 145
144, 153-4 Rangordnung,2,36,43,65,96, 120,
pleasure, 54, 55, 57, 62, 77, 92, 95, 96, 156, (see also hierarchies and
97,98, 102,107,109,138 rank)
Plotinus, 80, 90 rank, 7, 72
Plutarch, 134 see also Rangordnung
Poetry and Prose of William Blake (ed. Rapallo, 3
Keynes), 15, 24, 27, 28, 29, 33, Raphael, 91
57,60,61,66, 72, 74, 77,8Q-1, rational(ity), 2, 30, 31, 45, 63-5, 68,
82,95,113,117-18,127 69-70,75-7,82,95,98-109,127,
'Poetry and Tradition' (Yeats), 56 146, 159, 161, 170, 175, 186, 187,
Poetry of W. B. Yeats, The (MacNeioe), 190
87 n.5, 146 n.28, 195 n.5, anti-rational, 63, 64, 75, 195 n.l
196 n.28 Rausch, 94-5, 96, 148
Pollexfen, George, 17 see also frenzy
Pound, Ezra, 17, 137 reality, 13, 65, 70, 88, 94, 95, 99, 101,
power, xii, 4, 7, 10, 12,13,14, 21, 32, 103, 104-5,108,110, 138, 140,
33, 35-8, 45, 81' 83, 86, 88, 95, 152,153,167,176
97, 102, 115, 123, 140, 150, 158, reason, xii, 13, 15, 27, 28, 63-81, 95,
162,179 98-109,116,127,144,146,147,
'Prayer for My Daughter, A' (Yeats), 152,164,176,194 n.26, 195 n.ll
187 reckl~ness), 10, 56, 58, 141, 145
'Prayer for Old Age, A' (Yeats), 63, 64, recurrence, see eternal recurrence
79 Red Branch Saga, 145
'Preface to the First Edition of John M. Redpath, Theodore, 193 n.2
Synge's Poems and Translations' Reformation, 163
(Yeats), 17-18 n.39, 193 n.39 Reid, B. L., I, 2 n.5, 58 n.l4, 191 n.5,
pride, 58, 62, 117, 118, 144, 145, 149 192 n.IO, 194 n.l4
Prigogine, llya, 161 religion(s), 28, 29, 32, 45, 66, 75, 88,
primary, 125, 127, 132, 136, 137, 171, 126, 154, 155, 159, 163, 169, 170,
174, 179, 180, 181, 184, 185, 187 179, 180, 187
tincture, 183 Renaissance, 134, 163, 172
Index 217
Republic(Piato), 168 science, 30, 31, 69, 81, 127, !59, 160
resignation, tragic, 53, 54 gay,96
Responsibilities(Yeats), 9, 17, 88, 89, men of, 127
177 sculpture, 20, 40, 41, 43, 44, 47, 62, 79,
ressentiment, 118, 129, 143, 162, 163 81, 91, 98, 100, 133, 151, 152,
restraint, 15, 23, 33, 74, 77, 80, 86, 106 181
Resurrection, The (Yeats), xii, 19, 21, Seanchan,56, 140,141-5
38, 46, 99, 100, 102--6, 126, 167, 'Second Coming, The' (Yeats), 61, I 77,
177,185-7 178-9, 184, 188
reverie,43,46,50, 100,128 Selected Letters ofFriedrich Nietzsche
Revolutions ofCivilisation (Petrie), 175 (ed. and trs. Middleton), 5 nn.23
Reynolds, Lorna, I 9 3 n. 7, I 94 nn. 3, 4, and 24, 192 nn.23 and 24
5, 6 and 8, 196 n.20 self, 2, 3, 12, 24, 31, 36, 44, 50, 55, 70,
'Richard Wagner in Bayreuth' 72, 74, 81,82-91, 103, 116, 120,
(Nietzsche), 40, 43 127, 13o-9, 150, 152, 154, 186
Rilke, Rainer Maria, 196 n.30 Apollinian, 139
ring, 164, 166 conflict within the, 123--6
Rome, 106,153,155,163,167,172, constraint, 140
177, 185, 186, 187 denial, 127, 155
'Rosa Alchemica' (Yeats), I, I 31 exaggeration, 140
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 162 fulfilment, 128, 140
Russell, George William, see AE glorification, 115, 139
Ruttledge, Paul, 45, 59--62, 70, I 09, laughter at, 121
178 love of, 122, 124
Ruysbroek, Jan van, 59, 62 overcoming,lll,ll4-15,117,
122-3, 125, 136, 149, 162, 163
Sacaea, 171 possession, I 03, 122, 124, 130, 139,
sacred books, 12, 116 141, 143, 149, 152, 153
sacrifice, 36, 37, 55 sacrifice,55,116,123,149,152
sage, 38 surrender, 82, 97, I 02, I 04, I 05,
'Sailing to Byzantium' (Yeats), 59, 97-8 126, 130, 153, 186
saint, 38, 136, 170, 181, 182, 183 transcendence, I 00
St Francis, 134 Semele, 185
StJohn,60, 171 Seneca,29
St Vitus, 60, 171 sensualicy, 31, 66, 72, 75, 77, 79, 80,
Salamis, 79 83, 89, 91, 95, 98, 104, 107-8,
Salome, Lou Andreas, 5, 159 119,127,150
'Samhain: 1904'(Yeats), 74,93-4,96 Septimus,45, 101-2,134,183-4
Satan, 27, 29, 113 serpent, 27, 92
Sato, 84 sex(ual)(icy), 24, 25, 26, 33, 42, 79, 91,
Saturn, 180 100,106, 107,108-10,148,150,
Saturnalias, 55 151, 152
sacyr,32,42,43,46,54,80, 106 Shadowy Waters, The(Yeats), 64
Savoy, The, 1,59, 73 Shakespear, Olivia, 25, 84
Schauspielerei, 132, 140 Shakespeare, William, 6, 49, 56, 74, 93
Schlegel, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von, shame, 118, 130
20 Shaw, George Bernard, 2, 27
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 5, 22, 37, 41, 'Shaw, Yeats, Nietzsche and the
53, 54, 75, 131 Religion of Art' (Morgan), 21 n.3,
218 Index
193 n.3 194 n.26

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, xii, xiv, 6, 19, spiritus mundi, 178
64, 96, 136, 174, 177, 195 n.9 sprezzatura, 56, 149
Shepherd, 57, 78 see also recklessness
Silenus,51 'Spur, The' (Yeats), 33
Silvaplana, 157, 159 'Statesman's Holiday, The' (Yeats),
sin, 5, 14, 15, 29, 60, 85, 118, 120, 178, 7o-J
183, 187, 192 n.22 statues, see sculpture
Sistine Chapel, 172, 182 'Statues, The'(Yeats), 76, 79,181,186,
Skene, Reg, 99 n.l3, 195 n.l3 197 n.35
slave, 42 Stephens, Edward, M., 37 n.24,
society, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 42, 60, 67, 192 n.9, 194 n.24
70, 99, 118, 134, 140, 145, 188 Stoic(s), 88, 89, 102, 133, 164, 165, 167
Socrates, 30, 64, 69, 84, 9Q-I, 133, 162, strife, see conflict
193 n.ll struggle, see conflict
Socratic, 76, 77, 98, 164 Sturm und Drang, 46
pre-, 22 subjectivity, 3, 41, 85, 102, 125-9, 132,
rationality, 45, 63, 64, 79, I 03 140, 144, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154,
solitary, 21, 33, 55, 143, 153, 154 155,167, 169, 173,178,186,187
solitude, 132, 153, 140, 152, 153 'Subject-Matter of Drama, The' (Yeats),
'Soloman and the Witch' (Yeats), 89 45
Some Aspects of the Life and Work of sublimation, 3, 23, 32, 33, 36, 69, 70,
Nietzsche, and Particularly of His 107-8
Connection with Greek Literature submission, 8, 28, 79, 86, Ill, 115, 120
and Thought (Knight), 164 n.l 0, suffering, 15, 30, 34, 43, 44, 46, 55, 92,
166 n. 12, 197 nn.l 0 and 12 97, 104, 187
song,32,39,43,58,59,63,64,80,9 7, suffrage universe/, 153
106, 107, 109-10, 113, 124, 137, sun, 8, 26, 84, 109, 127, 145, 146, 166,
145, 152, 159, 171, 184, 185 178, 184
Sophist (Plato), 16 7 superhero, xii, 114 (see also superman
Sophocles, 45, 48, 49, 194 n.l and Ubermensch)
pre-Sophoclean, 48 superman, 3, 93, 111-22, 136, 143 (see
soul, 2, 3, 15, 20, 23, 25, 30, 41, 46, 47, also superhero and Ubermensch)
55,59,66,68, 72,75,80,82-91, Surlei, 157
98, 100, 102-10, 114, 123, 124, Suspecting Glance. The (O'Brien),
125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 12n.31,192nn.l6and31
135, 136, 140, 152, 156, 163, 164, swan, 83, 87,144, 155,171, 180,185
167, 182, 183, 186-7, 194 n.26 Swan and Shadow (Whitaker), 193 n.l
space, 159, 160 Swedenborg, Emanuel, 119, 174, 175,
crrrapcrtp.O~' 14 9 177
Speculum Angelorum et Hominum Swift, Jonathan, 59, 64, 65
(Giraldus), 176 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 6
Spencer, Herbert, 27 Swineherd, I 06-7
Spengler, Oswald, 175, 177 'Symbolism of Poetry, The' (Yeats), xiv,
spirit(ual)(ity), 4, 24, 25, 26, 32, 36, 46, 153
68, 71, 73,82,83,84,86,94,96, 'Symbols' (Yeats), 57
100, 101, 103-9, 112, 119, 127, Symons, Arthur, xi, 15, 191 n.2,
129, 130, 132, 133, 139, 144, 146, 193 n.33
15G-2, 155, 162, 178, 183, 184, sympathy, 8, 14, 93, 153
Index 219
Syncellus, 186 197 n.2

Synge, John Millington, 3, 16-18, 23, Tragic Drama of William Butler Yeats,
37,46,47,57 The (Nathan), 50 nn. 9 and I 0,
Syrian, 103-5, 187 194 nn. 9 and I 0
Systeme du monde, Le (Duhem), 168 'Tragic Generation, The' (Yeats), II
Tragic Philosopher, The (Lea), 15 n. 34,
taedium vitae, 152 193 n.34
Tagore family, 3 'Tragic Theatre, The' (Yeats), 42, 46,
Taylor, Thomas, 20 n.l, 169,193 n.l 48,49,57
temperance, 60 tragic wisdom, 5 1-3
tension, 5-6, 29, 34, 38, 124, 163 transvaluation of values, 4, 26, 142, 174
Thatcher, DavidS., I, 3, 191 n.2, Trembling of the Veil, The' (Yeats), 90,
I 9 2 nn. 7, 12 and 15, I 94 n. 16 152
'These Are the Clouds' (Yeats), 8 Tristan, 93
Thinking of the Body, The' (Yeats), 94, Troy, 58,171,177, 180,181,184,185,
98 186
thought, 2, 32, 48, 63, 64, 65, 68, truth, 9, 10, 27, 29, 30, 52, 65,67-9,
69-70,71,73,74,75-81,90,99, 71, 82, 88, 92, 94, 97, 104, 107,
100, 128, 129, 133, 159, 182, 186 121, 127, 132, 150, 152, 153, 159,
Thoughts out ofSeason (Nietzsche), 40, 194 n.26
158 n.3, 162 n.6, 197 nn.3 and 6 absolute, 75, 92
'Three Bushes, The' (Yeats), 8 5 Tuohy, Frank, 197 n.l7
Three Songs to the Same Tune' (Yeats), Twilight of the Idols (Nietzsche), 6, 13,
13 25, 31' 34, 54-5, 66, 81' 92, 123,
Thucydides, I 3 150, 165
Thus Spake Zarathustra (Nietzsche), 'Two Kings, The' (Yeats), 85
xiii, 2, 4, 6, 14, 27, 32, 33, 36, 57, 'Two Poems Concerning Peasant
58, 59, 61, 63, 65, 113, 114-22, Visionaries' (Yeats), I
124, 13Q--I, 133,136,139,142, tyranny, 21, 35, 60, 124
150, 156, 158, 165, 166, 178, 181' of reason, 66,75
192 n.22, 194 n.22
Tillich, Paul, 36, 194 n.22 Ubermensch, xiii, 27, 38, 111-23, 131,
Timaeus (Plato), 168, 176 139,142,152,156,158,161,164,
time, 159, 160, 161 184, 188
Timon, 56 see also superhero and superman
Titania, 77 Umwertung aller Werte, see
Titans, 42, 51, 162, 185 transvaluation of values
To a Wealthy Man Who Promised a 'Under Ben Bulben'(Yeats), 91, 177,
Second Subscription to the Dublin 182
Municipal Gallery iflt Were unconscious( ness), 22, 28, 31, 35, 71,
Proved the People Wanted 74,75-6, 124, 175, 179
Pictures' (Yeats), 9 collective, 90
'Tom O'Roughley' (Yeats), 55 unicorn, 61, I 02, 183-4, 195 n.l8
tone (harshening of Yeats's), 4-18, 190 Unicorn/rom the Stars, The (Yeats), 39,
Tower, The(Yeats), 10, II, 12, 83, 138, 143, 183
180 unity, 29, 42, 43, 45, 4 7, 50, 51, 60, 98,
tragedy, xii, 3, 12, 20, 22, 30, 35, 100,101,104,106,122,128, 132,
4Q--62, 77,126, 137,149,156, 139,140, 145,161,162,170,177,
164,165,166,171,181,190, 184, 187
220 Index
unity of being, see under being 167-81, 183, 186, 187

Upanishad(s), 152 'Vision of the LastJudgment, .<\'
Mandukya, 91 (Blake), 95
'Upon a Dying Lady' (Yeats), 58 Voltaire, Frantyois-Marie Arouet de,
'Upon a House Shaken by the Land 112, 131, 162
Agitation' (Yeats), 8
Urbino, 9, 96 Wade, Allan, I, I 91
Ure, Peter, 24, 193 n.9 Wagner, Richard, 30 n.l7, 40, 96, 131,
Urizen, 15,27,95 193 n.l7
Usna, 188 Wanderings ofOisin, The(Yeats), 88
wantonness, 15
'Vacillation'(Yeats), 58, 85,86 warfare, 10, II, 12, 13, 20, 21, 22, 23,
Variorum Edition of Yeats's Plays, The 24,25,26,35,36,38,39,55,69,
(eds Alspach and Alspach), I 9, 83, 113, 119, 124-5, 133, 135,
100, 128 136,137,147-8,178,186,190
Variorum Edition of Yeats's Poems, The 'Waste Land, The'(Eiiot), 191 n.5
(eds Allt and Alspach), 75, 177, water, 26, 83, 143
178,179 Watson, Bishop, 29
Vast Design, The (Engelberg), 48 n. 7, W. B. Yeats(Cowell), 97
191 n. 3, 194 n. 7 W. B. Yeats(/865-1939)(Hone),
Vendler, Helen Hennessy, II, 25, 4 n.14, 116 n.6, 192 n.l4,
192 n.29,193 n.l2 146 n.29, 196 nn.6 and 29
Venus, 101, 180, 184 W. B. Yeats and Tradition (Wilson),
Vergil, 168 167 n.l3, 197 n.l3
Verlaine, Paul, II W. B. Yeats: Man and Poet (Jeffares),
Vesuvius, 21 3 n.6, 75 n.3, 134 n.21, 148 n.32,
vice(s), 15, 27, 33, 74,86 191 n.6, 195 n.3, 198 n.21,
Vico, Giovanni Battista, 175, 177 197 n.32
victory, 13,20,23,34,36,38,55,56, W. B. Yeats's Criticism ofEzra Pound
57, 80, 85, Ill, 115, 121, 122, (Hausermann), 17 n.38, 193 n.38
124, 185 Well,24,99
Villiers de I'Isle-Adam, 12 Wellesley, Dorothy (Lady Gerald), 29,
violence, 13, 15, 32, 37, 38, 39, 49, 61, 31, 32, 56, 57, 58, 59, 196 n.30
109, 119, 136, 140, 150, 178, 180, West, 171
188 What Nietzsche Means (Morgan),
Virgin, 171, 179, 185, 186 10 n.28, 16 nn.29 and 16,
virtue(s), 2, 15, 27, 69, 74,93-4, 117, 30 n.l8, 31 n.l9, 57 n.l3, 70 n.2,
120, 150 76 n.4, 94 nn.7 and 8, 114 n.4,
active, 133 117 n.8, 118 n.9, 122 n.ll,
four, 121 131 n.l7, 132 n.l8, 139 nn.22
moral, 27, 74, 95 and 23, 159 nn.4 and 5, 164 nn. 7
petty, 120 and8,165 n.ll,l91 n.3,
true, 29, 120 192 n.28, 193 nn.l6 and 18,
Vision, A (Yeats), xi, xii, 6, 10, 19, 22, 194 nn.l9and 13,195 nn.2, 4, 7
24,25,26,30,37,38,81,86, and8,196nn.4,8;9,11,17,18,
88-9,90,102,111,112,114-15, 22 and 23, 197 nn.4, 5, 7, 8 and
125, 126, 127, 128, 129,130, 132, II
133, 134, 135, 136, 14(}-1, 148, What War Lost' (Yeats), 181
153, 155, 156-8, 164, 165, 166, wheel
Index 221
child as, I 19 119,127,128,148-9

of Giraldus, I 76 Dionysian, 42, 45, 53, 61, 77, 79,
ofhistory, 128, 154, 162, 166-70, 101, 122, 148
173, 177, 181 Greek folk, 51
ofindividual, 128, 129, 177 of instinct, 128
Where There Is Nothing (Yeats), xii, 45, tragic, 45, 51-3
59-62, 178, 195 n.l8 Wise Man, 98-9
Whitaker, Thomas R., 20 n.l, 193 n.l wit, 9, 96
Whitman, Walt, 31 Words upon the Window-pane, The
Whole Mystery ofArt, The (Melchiori), (Yeats), 90
195 n.18 Wordsworth, William, 6
wholeness, 24, 31, SG-1, 86, 124, 139, Works of Plato. The (Taylor), 20 n.l,
150, 151, 155, 186 193 n.l
Wild Swans of Coole. The (Yeats), 78, World as Will and Idea, The
81 (Schopenhauer), 22,41
Wilde, Oscar, 92 Wotan, 35
will, 34, 35-8, 48, 50, 68, 69, 77, 79, wrath, 15
81,90,92, 102,117,120,129,
132, 133, 136, 139, 140, 141, 144, Yahoo, Ill, 121
146, 152, 153, 158, 163, 187, year, see history, great year of
194 n.26 Yeats (Tuohy), 197 n.l7
free, 67,71 Yeats and the Heroic Ideal (Zwerdling),
to joy, 57 17 n.37, 193 n.37
to power, xii, 21, 35-8, 120, 122, 'Yeats and NietlSChe' (Heller), II n.30,
125, 156, 161, 179, 190; of artist, 192 n.30
96 Yeats and the Theatre (eds O'Driscoll
Will to Power. The (NietlSChe), xiii, 4, and Reynolds), 23 n.7, 47 nn.3
6, 14, 15, 19, 21, 24, 25,26-7,34, and 4, 48 nn.5 and 6, 49 n.8,
35-6,37,38,54,63-4,65-6, 193 n.7, 194 nn.J-6 and 8,
67-9,70,71-2,73, 79,80,81,87, 196 n.20
88,91,92-3,94,95,96-7, 104, Yeats, Elizabeth, 22
112, 123, 132, 140, 153, 157, 159, Yeats, John Butler, 3, 6, 22, 38, 47, 48,
160, 161-2, 194 n.26, 196 n.26 64, Ill, 112, 113, 121, 148
William Blake (Symons), xi, 191 n. 2, Yeats on Personality: Three
193 n.33 Unpublished Lectures'
'William Blake and the Imagination' (0 'Driscoll), 4 7, 194 nn. 3 and 4
(Yeats), 72 Yeats the Playwright(Ure), 24 n.9,
William Butler Yeats (Donoghue), 193 n.9
18 n.40, 152 n.34, 191 n.3, Yeats We Knew. The(ed. MacManus),
193 n.40, 197 n.34 3 n.l3, 192 n.l3
William Butler Yeats: The Lyric of Yeats's Iconography (Wilson), 7 n.27,
Tragedy(Reid), 58 n.14, 194 n.l4 24 n.8, 125 n.l4, 143 n.25,
Wilson, F. A. C., 2, 7 n.27, 24 n.8, 191 n.3, 192 n.27, 193 n.8,
125 n.l4, 143 n.25, 167 n.13, 196 nn.l4 and 25
191 n.3, 192 n.27, 193 n.8, Yeats's 'Vision and the Later Plays
196 nn.14 and 25, 197 n.l3 (Vendler), II n. 29, 25 n.l2,
Winding Stair, The (Yeats), I 0, II, 12, 192 n.29, 193 n.l2
83, 84, 138
wisdom, 49, 73, 83, 85, 87, 99, 107, Zagreus, 51
222 Index
Zarathustra, 5, 6, 33, 36, 57, 58, 59, 65, Zimmern, Helen, 194 n.25
66, 80, 90, 98, Ill, 113, 114, Zola, Emile, 92
116-17, 13Q-l, 133,136,150, Zorba, 64
153,158,165,166,167,173,178, Zorba the Greek (Kazantzakes), 19 5 n.l
181 Zwerdling, Alex, 17, 193 n.37
Zeus,87, 185

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YEATS AND NIETZSCHE

First published 1982 by

ISBN 978-1-349-05039-0 ISBN 978-1-349-05037-6 (eBook)

Typeset by Computacomp (UK) Ltd

1 ENCOUNTER AND KINSHIP 1

Yeats's 'Stylistic Arrangements' of History 166

1-2 Annotated pages from Yeats's copy of Thomas Common's

on Nietzsche and the presence of Nietzschean parallels throughout

however, and, masterful though Nietzsche's prose is widely

ations, 1962 by Mrs W. B. Yeats; Autobiographies, 1916,

Auto Yeats, The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats (New

Russell, revised 1903, reissued 1967).

There can be no certainty as to exactly when it was that William

begins- as the notes he scrawled in the margin of his copy testify.

The gentle Nietzscheans seek to provide an antidote to the harsh

Schopenhauer's 'pity' has always been the main cause of trouble

to exert a creative influence. 23 A year earlier he had complained to

between opposing passions which I cannot cope with.' Nietzsche

so are aristocracies and pessimists . . . so are College Dons and

He considered William's talent 'benign', like Shakespeare's and

fascination that contributed significantly to the development of ideas

Underlining the words 'only obligations' and 'to discretion', Yeats

Is this what Nietzsche means? Whatever the answer to that, it is this

than his own magnanimous sense of responsibility. It is this inner

The sweet laughing eagle thoughts that grow

Here is Nietzsche's vision of a caste possessing 'The rare gifts that

And therefore, friend, if your great race were run

What cared Duke Ercole, that bid

Gentle Nietzscheans - or Yeatsians - would view that eagle only in

The 1933 Winding Stair collection of poems contains no such

A bloody, arrogant power

This reveals Yeats as a harsh Nietzschean, and revelling in it. What it

no philosopher will be in any doubt as to the type of perfection in

Nietzsche does not expect all his ideas to be capable of practical

After Stephane Mallarme, after Paul Verlaine, after Gustave

Would Yeats, though, have seen the darker implications of his

that favourite Yeatsian maxim from Villiers's Axel, a 'sacred book':

The capacity and obligation for prolonged gratitude and

a feeling for which I find no name adequate: I sense it when I see

pity squandering of feeling, a parasite harmful to moral

health.... If one does good merely out of pity, it is oneself one

William Blake, that great English precursor of Nietzsche's, also

Yeats often reverberate all the way back to Blake.

an exaggeration of sentiment and sentimental beauty which I have

There are few places Yeats would have found womanish

would have considered to have had a 'bitter mind') died in 1909,

hope' reveals Synge as having been a significant contributor to the

All events, all motion, all becoming

I saw the world as a conflict. ...

'The total character of the world . . . is in all eternity chaos',

There was everywhere a conflict like that of my play between two

Antinomy of this kind is fundamental to Yeats's view of existence,

This is Yeats's identification of consciousness with conflict given

I feel about me and in me an impulse to create form, to carry the

Though there is some misrepresentation of Nietzsche in this, it is a

Every kind of organism is a kind of social hierarchy in perpetual

The friend he is writing of is John Synge. He might just as easily

when he found himself finally enclosed within the walls of society

It is an attitude to 'conscience' that Yeats would have found also in

moral good, that 'snowy cloud' of the 'Fiend of Righteousness' [K,

One isfruitful only at the cost of being rich in contradictions; one

Yeats speaks of this inner chaos of the individual in A Vision, where

I have never known love but as a kiss