The Gonne-Yeats Letters 1893-1938 - Softcover

Gonne, Maude; Yeats, William Butler

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393332667 ISBN 13: 9780393332667

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008

Synopsis

Correspondence of W.B. Yeats and the love of his life Maud Gonne revealing the depth of his love and her tempestuous private life.

It is harsh exercise to put into cold print and to bare all the faults of such subjective things as letters written ‘in great haste’ in the middle of a busy active life, and it requires the kindness and tolerance of the reader. Nuances in the handwriting, or insertion of omitted words and afterthoughts, or positioning of postscripts, are all lost in printing; while irregularities in spelling, punctuation, abbreviations and repetitious phrases are exaggerated. The few of Yeat’s letters to Maud Gonne that have survived were scattered through old bundles of correspondence. The only two kept particularly safe were together in an envelope, one marked ‘last letter from W. B. Y.’ which was written on 16 June 1938 from Steyning, Sussex, and the other a letter concerning the death of William Sharp which he had asked her to keep safely and which she must have put in a separate place, and so it survived. The letters he received from her before her marriage of 10 and 24 February 1903, had been very crumpled as if carried around in his pocket and reread many times, then smoothed out to be put away with the others.

About this title

Review

Maud Gonne and William Butler Yeats met in early 1889, and he first proposed to her--unsuccessfully--two years later. Some of Yeats's greatest poems chronicle his long obsession with her, among them "A Woman Homer Sang," "Reconciliation," and "No Second Troy":

What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

We tend to see Maud Gonne through his prism--a firebrand, a great beauty, above all a political fanatic who made him suffer like mad. These letters tell a more complex tale, since the majority are hers, most of Yeats's having been destroyed. What he portrayed as extremism instead becomes deep political involvement: her letters record an endless round of meetings, protests, and good works. In addition, the concern she again and again manifests for Yeats mitigates his cries of indifference; rather, Maud Gonne emerges as steady and heroic. Even as she was preparing to marry John MacBride, she took time out to console her longtime suitor in a characteristic run-on: "Friend of mine au revoir. I shall go over to Ireland in a couple of months, if you care to see me I shall be so glad & you will find I think that I am just the same woman you have always known, marriage won't change me I think at all...." The editors declare the original letter "very crumpled and creased as if carried in Yeats's pocket and taken out and read many times."

About the Author

A. Norman Jeffares was born in Dublin, Ireland, and now lives in Scotland. He is the author and editor of numerous books on Irish literature.

A. Norman Jeffares was born in Dublin, Ireland, and now lives in Scotland. He is the author and editor of numerous books on Irish literature.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0393332667
• ISBN 13: 9780393332667
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 564
• Editor: White Anna Macbride, Jeffares A. Norman