The Tales Of Red Hanrahan: W.B. Yeats

[poliphilo]

The Tales of Red Hanrahan are imitation folk stories marinated in pre-Raphaelitism and self pity. There were a lot of writers turning out this sort of thing in the 1890s but only Yeats went on to become a major 20th century poet. The Hanrahan stories have charm,  but are mostly of interest because of Hanrahan's appearance as a semi-mythical figure in Yeats' great mid-life crisis poem "The Tower". The Hanrahan of The Tower is an earthier, more dynamic figure than his earlier incarnation- but then "old lecher" wasn't a phrase that existed in the lexicon of the Rhymer's Club.