Contents

Abbreviations

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Part One: W. B. Yeats as Spiritual Seeker

1

General Prologue: The Thinking of the Body

3

1.

Introduction: Bodily Decrepitude and the Imagination

13

2.

Hermeticism, Theosophy, Gnosticism

25

3.

The Seeker

37

4.

The Byzantium Poems; Apocalypse in ‘The Secret Rose’ and ‘The Second Coming’

51

5.

Gnosis and Self-Redemption

61

6.

Sex, Philosophy, and the Occult

79

7.

Mountain Visions and Other Last Things

93

Part Two: Love’s Labyrinth: Yeats as Petrarchan Poet (The Maud Gonne Poems)

105

Preface to Part Two

107

8.

Poet and Muse

111

9.

Maud Gonne, and Yeats as Petrarchan Lover

123

10.

The Poems: A Sampling

137

11.

Rose, Wind, and the Seven Woods

151

12.

Maud as Helen: The Green Helmet Poems

165

13.

Responsibilities and The Wild Swans at Coole

175

14.

‘A Bronze Head’ and Beyond

191

15.

Thought Distracted: ‘Man and the Echo,’ ‘Politics,’ and Conclusion

209

Eulogy: Harold Bloom (1930–2019)

227

Select Bibliography

231

Index

241

About the Cover

255