The Collected Works of W.b. Yeats Volume Xiii: a Vision: the Original 1925 Version

Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.; The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume XIII: A Vision is part of a fourteen-volume series under the general editorship of eminent Yeats scholar George Bornstein and formerly the late Richard J. Finneran and George Mills Harper. One of the strangest works of literary modernism, A Vision is Yeats's greatest occult work. Edited by Yeats scholars Catherine E. Paul and Margaret Mills Harper, the volume presents the system of philosophy, psychology, history, and the life of the soul that Yeats and his wife George (nee Hyde Lees) received and created by means of mediumistic experiments from 1917 through the early 1920s. Yeats obsessively revised the book, and the revised 1937 version is much more widely available than its predecessor. The original 1925 version of A Vision, poetic, unpolished, masked in fiction, and close to the excitement of the automatic writing that the Yeatses believed to be its supernatural origin, is presented here in a scholarly edition for the first time. The text, minimally corrected to retain the sense of the original, is extensively annotated, with particular attention paid to the relationship between the published book and its complex genetic materials. Indispensable to an understanding of the poet's late work and entrancing on its own merit, A Vision aims to be, all at once, a work of theoretical history, an esoteric philosophy, an aesthetic symbology, a psychological schema, and a sacred book. It is as difficult as it is essential reading for any student of Yeats.--Publisher's website. Publisher Marketing: "The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, Volume XIII: A Vision" is part of a fourteen-volume series under the general editorship of eminent Yeats scholar George Bornstein and formerly the late Richard J. Finneran and George Mills Harper. One of the strangest works of literary modernism, "A Vision" is Yeats's greatest occult work. Edited by Yeats scholars Catherine E. Paul and Margaret Mills Harper, the volume presents the "system" of philosophy, psychology, history, and the life of the soul that Yeats and his wife George (nee Hyde Lees) received and created by means of mediumistic experiments from 1917 through the early 1920s. Yeats obsessively revised the book, and the revised 1937 version is much more widely available than its predecessor. The original 1925 version of "A Vision," poetic, unpolished, masked in fiction, and close to the excitement of the automatic writing that the Yeatses believed to be its supernatural origin, is presented here in a scholarly edition for the first time. The text, minimally corrected to retain the sense of the original, is extensively annotated, with particular attention paid to the relationship between the published book and its complex genetic materials. Indispensable to an understanding of the poet's late work and entrancing on its own merit, "A Vision" aims to be, all at once, a work of theoretical history, an esoteric philosophy, an aesthetic symbology, a psychological schema, and a sacred book. It is as difficult as it is essential reading for any student of Yeats. Review Citations: PW Notes and Reprints 03/17/2008 pg. 49 (EAN 9780684807331, Hardcover) Library Journal 04/01/2008 pg. 84 (EAN 9780684807331, Hardcover) Library Journal 12/01/2006 pg. 126 (EAN 9780684807294, Hardcover) Wilson Public Library Catalog 01/01/1998 pg. 638 (EAN 9780684839356, Hardcover) Wilson Senior High Core Col 01/01/2002 pg. 371 (EAN 9780684839356, Hardcover) Wilson Senior High Core Col 01/01/2007 pg. 483 (EAN 9780684839356, Hardcover) Wilson Senior High Core Col 01/01/2011 pg. 594 (EAN 9780684839356, Hardcover) Library Journal 05/01/1992 (EAN 9780026327022, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Yeats, William Butler William Butler Yeats is generally considered to be Ireland's greatest poet, living or dead, and one of the most important literary figures of the twentieth century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923. Contributor Bio:  Paul, Catherine E Catherine E. Paul is Associate Professor of English at Clemson University. She is the author of "Poetry in the Museums of Modernism: Yeats, Pound, Moore, Stein" and of numerous articles relating to modernist studies. Contributor Bio:  Harper, Margaret Mills Margaret Mills Harper, a coeditor of Yeat's "Vision" Papers (volumes 3 and 4), is the author of "Wisdom of Two: The Spiritual and Literary Collaboration of George and W. B. Yeats", "The Aristocracy of Art in Joyce and Wolfe", and numerous articles on Yeats, Irish literature, and literary modernism. She is Professor of English and Women's Studies at Georgia State University.