More Plays By Yeats

[poliphilo]

Everybody in a Yeats play is an archetype. There are kings, there are beggars, there are fools.  One shouldn't expect any of them to behave humanly. Within these limitations we run up and down the scale from symbolism to absurdism, from Maeterlinck to Milligan.

The Resurrection has characters called the Jew, the Greek and the Syrian. They debate the resurrection of Christ as it is happening. The action is topped and tailed by songs that knock spots off everything in between.

Purgatory has the reputation of being Yeats' best play. Two men- an old beggar and his son- fetch up outside a haunted house. It's melodramatic and grim.

The Herne's Egg is bonkers. It's like Monty Python and the Holy Grail- only shot through with a vein of authentic pagan mysticism.

Comments

[sovay]

The Herne's Egg is bonkers. It's like Monty Python and the Holy Grail- only shot through with a vein of authentic pagan mysticism.

That's the first one you've written about that I wanted to read. I glommed on to Yeats' poetry in high school and college, but I bounced off his plays hard.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I love Yeats. I think he's the greatest English language poet of the modern era. Until now I'd left the plays alone.

The Herne's Egg is odd and interesting- but I would claim much more for it.