BL. W. B. Yeats

190. Worth, Katharine. The Irish Drama of Europe from Yeats to Beckett. London: Athlone, 1978.

Chapter 2 includes discussion of the ‘strong feeling for Japanese art and theatre’ felt by many of Yeats’s early associates, including Craig (see D17), E. W. Godwin (Ap), Charles Ricketts (Ap), and Arthur Symons (Ap). Worth outlines features of the nô that these associations had prepared Yeats so willingly to value, the musical structure, dance, masks, and the ‘complete self-sufficiency’ of the form. Chapter 8 traces features of Yeatsian drama, including Yeats’s interest in nô, through the work of other writers and artists, including Beckett (see also A39 and BL235 and 250), Britten (see BJ18, 19, and 21), and Eliot (see CA10).