BL. W. B. Yeats

170. McDonald, Keiko Iwai. ‘In Search of the Orient: W. B. Yeats and Japanese Tradition’. PhD thesis, University of Oregon, 1974. Abstract in DAI 35/6: 3753A.

Examines Yeats’s enthusiasm for the nô from 1916 to 1919 and his ‘preoccupations with Zen’ from 1922 to 1935, concluding that the former was ‘not more than superficial’ but the ‘indebtedness to Zen was considerable’. Includes discussion of the meaning to Yeats of Sato’s sword (see notes at 21 and 48k), and the uses to which he put the image of it in his work.