Re: Yeats, Crowley, Chesterton, Thursday

On Sat, 3 Mar 2001 10:21:13 -0600, jorn@mcs.com (Jorn Barger) wrote:

Reading RF Foster on WB Yeats, I was struck by the overtones of
Chesterton's "Thursday"-- most obviously in that Yeats grew up in
Bedford Park (where 'Thursday' opens), but then even more with RFF's
account of the 1900 power-battle within the Order of the Golden Dawn (a
magical society WBY took very seriously) between Yeats and Aleister
Crowley, climaxing in a totally Thursday-like scene with Crowley in a
kilt and Egyptian mask, wielding a dagger, trying to break into the OGD
headquarters...
>
But then a few years on (1903), Chesterton himself pops up (in RFF) with
WBY and Maud Gonne, getting an early reading by Synge of "Riders to the
Sea'.
>
And now I'm trying to remember Martin Gardner's annotations-- does he
identify the anarchist poet-villain 'Lucian Gregory' as WBY?
>
Yeats in 1897 also wrote two magical stories that Joyce was nuts for,
c1901.  It's interesting to think GKC was simultaneously picturing Yeats
as an allegorical figure of evil...
>
>
more gossip: http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/gossip.html
Yeats&co: http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/yeats.html

Just replying to an old message to show the kind of discussions we
used to have here.

 
--
Stephen Hayes, Author of The Year of the Dragon
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