Yeatsian Trivia
Nov. 30th, 2015 08:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloI've spent much of the day noodling around the world of W.B. Yeats. It's hard to separate the man from the poet. I don't suppose any writer ever did such a thoroughgoing job of mythologising himself, his times and the people he knew.
One treasures small deflating incidents- like the time Yeat's father smacked him round the back of the head with a framed picture- breaking the glass- after an argument about Ruskin.
It's hard to find a picture of him that's not been posed- but that's true, I suppose, of anyone of his generation. There are occasional snapshots- in which he wears a social smile or gets caught between poses- most of them taken on the lawns of country houses.
Talking about photos I've learned- for what it's worth- that Maud Gonne- supposedly a person of statuesque beauty- looked a lot like Cherie Blair and that Yeats's wife- Georgie Hyde-Lees (who I find more attractive than Gonne)- looked a lot like Yoko Ono.
One treasures small deflating incidents- like the time Yeat's father smacked him round the back of the head with a framed picture- breaking the glass- after an argument about Ruskin.
It's hard to find a picture of him that's not been posed- but that's true, I suppose, of anyone of his generation. There are occasional snapshots- in which he wears a social smile or gets caught between poses- most of them taken on the lawns of country houses.
Talking about photos I've learned- for what it's worth- that Maud Gonne- supposedly a person of statuesque beauty- looked a lot like Cherie Blair and that Yeats's wife- Georgie Hyde-Lees (who I find more attractive than Gonne)- looked a lot like Yoko Ono.
