Description: Michael McAteer examines the plays of W. B. Yeats, considering their place in European theater during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This original study considers the relationship Yeats's work bore with those of the foremost dramatists of the period, drawing comparisons with Henrik Ibsen, Maurice Maeterlinck, August Strindberg, Luigi Pirandello and Ernst Toller. It also shows how his plays addressed developments in theater at the time, with regard to the Naturalist, Symbolist, Surrealist and Expressionist movements, and how symbolism identified Yeats's ideas concerning labor, commerce and social alienation. This book is invaluable to graduates and academics studying Yeats but also provides a fascinating account for those in Irish studies and in the wider field of drama.
Brief description: Michael McAteer is a lecturer at the School of English, Queen's University Belfast.
Review Quotes: "McAteer is careful to trace lines of influence backwards as well as forward, as well as nationally and internationally, so that we find comparisons not only with Strindberg, Ibsen and French Symbolism, but also with Irish models (Synge in particular). More vitally, we are shown how Yeats's dramas, initially forbiddingly individualistic, might actually provide models for other writers: McAteer's work on Yeats's influence on Beckett is particularly intriguing in this light."
Tara Stubbs, Yeats Annual