BL. W. B. Yeats

85. Moore, Virginia. The Unicorn: William Butler Yeats’ Search for Reality. New York: Macmillan, 1954.

Moore’s study of the development of and sources for Yeats’s philosophical and religious concerns has been criticised for its style but remains useful, and turns at several points to material relevant here (see index). Of particular interest are suggestions that Fenollosa’s theories of language influenced Yeats’s style more than has been noted (see especially pp. 248-49), and that his study of Zen contributed significantly to his mature development (pp. 346-47), a subject given fuller attention by later critics (see notes at 113). Perpetuates the misunderstanding that Itô (Ap) was a ‘nôh dancer’. Based on ‘Religion and William Butler Yeats’, PhD thesis, Columbia University, 1952.