BL. W. B. Yeats

230. Martin, Heather C. W. B. Yeats: Metaphysician as Dramatist. Gerrards Cross: Smythe, 1986.

Mainly concerned with the influence of Yeats’s mystical studies on his drama, but includes discussion of the influence of the nô: Yeats’s dance plays ‘are strikingly similar . . . to the Japanese Noh’, Martin believes, but this is ‘almost completely coincidental’; Yeats ‘embraced the Japanese plays . . . because they provided him with an established tradition for his own dramatic experiments’, but they influenced the development of his drama ‘far less than is often supposed’.