NOBEL PRIZE WINNER

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 15, 18 January 1924, Page 10

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER

MR. W. B. YEATS AND IRELAND

THE POETS AIM.

: (PROM OTO OWN CORRBSPOHDENT.) j LONDON, 23rd November. Mr. W. B. Yeats received the Nobel Prize for Literature, and Ireland rejoices. . . ■ " It is well to he reminded," says the "Observer's" Dublin correspondent, "that we are not a nation merely of violent or incompetent irresponsibles. We stand for ssmething else in Europe, and Mr. Yeats has taken the earliest opportunity of reminding us that he does not stand alone. A fine solidarity of comradeship in a common aim links hia work to that of Synge and of ;Lady Gregory; and he associates with these a yjunger writer, Mr. Lennox Robinson. These people have done more to make Ireland really a nation in Europe than all the organised .gunmen—if, indeed, the gunmen have done anything but disunite us. Whateyer is honestest in Northern Ireland will recognise and rejoice that the honour done to Mr. Yeats reflects something on every man, woman, and child in Ireland, and whatever is honestest in the Ireland that desires to be Gaelic and Republican will recognise that Mr. Yeates and those whom he associates with him are none the less Irish because they belong to the Anglo-Irish stock." . All over the world Mr. Yeats is known for his poems and plays, but especially do his lyrics rank among the. best that were written in the latter end of the last century. Their beauty has enriched many anthologies'. Born in Dubling- 58 years ago, educated at Oddolphin School, Hammersmith, and in Dub-' lin, William Butler Yeats started life as an art student, but turned to literature. Mr. Yeats is the third British subject to be awarded the prize, the others being Mr. Rudyard Kipling- and Sir Rabin-d.ranath Tagor. The awaids are made by the Swedish Academy. Recommendations are. made to it by affiliated bodies in the various countries; these areconsidered, but sole authority is vested in the Academy at Stockholm. Under the terms of the bequest the prize is not given solely on grounds of artistic or intellectual eminence. It is also stipulated that the works of a successful candidate^ should have " an idealistic tendency." The phrase is vague enough, and it has been given a wide interpretation. HEIGHT OF' HIS POWERS. -"■ Mr. Yeats's i selection iis very surprising in the circumstances," says another writer in the'" Observer." " Not that he is not one of the greatest living poets and the re-creator of his country's literature, but that his' writings are not of the sort which one would have expected to;-' get across ' to a foreign committee. I do not know which of his plays may have been seen in Continental theatres; I cannot think that much of his verse Has been translated, or that it can have been translated without a great loss of quality, or that, however admirably translated it can have been widely popular. Yet there it is; and both Mr. Yeats and the judges may be congratulated. ' , . ." Mr.' Yeats is /at' the", height of' his power,, and has, let us hope'; many years of active work before him.. He was 24 when, in 1889, he published his first volume of verse, ' The Wanderings .of Oisin.' His production since then has] been immense and diverse; poems, plays, I philosophical essays, memoirs. Few "writers sa copiius have maintained their standards so consistently. Mr. Yeats's | achievement, naturally, hac not been always on the same level, but hehas'never | written without a. strong impulse, and he has never written cajelessly. Some of his experiments may have been unsuccessful, some mediums may suit him better than others, and much of his writing in prose is devoted to themes which are of more interest to the writer than they are to most of his readers his astrological speculations being examples. BEAUTY LIKE A TIGHTENED BOW • "But there is no dilusion of journalism in his works, nothing written topically for the sake of the quick impression, nothing which has the taint of manufacture for the market. These ele-1 ments, indeed, are so conspicuously lack- I -ing in his work that it seems almost absurd to mention them in connection with him but instances of artists at once so ' fastidious and so profuse are very rare. He has aimed always, in words which] he uses of another, at ' beauty like a tagtitened -bow,' a kind that is not natural in any age like this.' "And his/object throughout his life has been dual; to perfect his own art in the light of his own ideals and to advance what he regards as civilisation in Ireland. He had the artistic aim and the practical aim, and tfie two were intertwined. In retrospect his career will be seen to have been very systematic. His resuscitation and adaptation of the old Irish legends and myths would have been imp 3 ssible had he not felt drawn towards them, because they gave him the images his art required; but it was also a deliberate attempt to provide Ireland wath a background. When he turned to the drama the artist in him was craving the use of the stage and human forms and vo,ces, but as soon as he became a playwright he conceived himself also a manager and producer of a new Irish theatre in unregenerate Dublin More recently, almost any evening in Dublin has seen the poet upstairs brooding over astrolog IC al signs, while downstairs a gentleman with a machine-gun has guarded the hall of the Free State Senator against his political opponents."