Pilgrim Soul: W.B. Yeats and the Ireland of His Time
Pilgrim Soul: W.B. Yeats and the Ireland of His Time
by Daniel Mulhall
Marking the centenary of Yeats’s Nobel Prize, a timely guide to the work of Ireland’s national poet and the changing Ireland he lived through.
9781848408814 | Paperback | 336 pp. | Publishing: 6th November 2023
When W.B. Yeats became the first Irish person to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, the Swedish Academy was crediting him with giving expression to ‘the spirit of a whole nation’. The prize established Yeats as the unofficial poet laureate of a country that had, in his own words, been ‘transformed utterly’ during the preceding decade.
From the Celtic Twilight of the 1890s to his death in 1939, Yeats’s writings offer a unique window through which to view the changing Ireland of his time. In PILGRIM SOUL, Daniel Mulhall’s highly accessible and illuminating guide to Yeats, the poet’s special role in Irish affairs is examined closely.
Each chapter opens with a major Yeats poem through which Mulhall examines the historical events that inspired it. Along the way, he explores Yeats’s ‘indomitable’ Irishness, the roots of his periodic disenchantment with Ireland and the conservative politics of his later years as well as the way Yeats’s lifelong encounter with Irish affairs helped reshape his poetry.
Throughout his life, Yeats produced compelling images of his homeland for readers in Ireland and around the world. As a personal journey through Yeats’s poetry and his life, PILGRIM SOUL, mirrors Daniel Mulhall’s own four decades as an ambassador for Ireland, its people and its culture.
“Releases the great masterpiece from its reputation of impenetrability. An affectionate, accessible tribute.”
“James Joyce’s magnus opus remains in need of chaperones. This is certainly one of the better ones available — highly readable, personable and well researched.”
“Mulhall brings a historian’s eye to Joyce’s text, rather than that of a literary critic, and he writes about Ulysses with exuberance and evident enjoyment.”
“An informed, enjoyable guide, it homes in on Ulysses’ emotional core. A convivial companion to help navigate Joyce’s masterpiece.”
“A fascinating, entertaining and convincing exploration of Yeats’ work, as influenced by, and as an influence on, the nation it immortalises.”
