#yeats

[archerinventive]

"The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper." -W.B. Yeats

A happy Sunday to you all!

Recently, the new spring light has brought with it a little gift.

On sunny mornings, my room is filled with prisms, only for an hour or so, but for a brief moment I get to bathe in rainbows. 🌈

So, while recently waiting for the paint to dry on a few new orders going out next week, I did a small lighting test, and captured this sliver of time.

May your days be filled with rainbows, and your senses ever sharpening.

Thank you all for following me on this magical adventure. ❤️

[apoemaday]

The Mermaid

by W.B. Yeats

A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown.

[trans-cuchulainn]

i don't know why bluesky is suddenly overrun by yeats memes but here is a random selection of yeats memes for those who are not on bluesky to enjoy

(these were in a more logical / pleasing order and then tumblr ate half of them and i couldn't make them rearrange once i put them back, sorry)

[a-hopeless-romantic18]

01:39

What if I wake up one day, and everything is gone...

[letsmakebelieve]

"How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you." WB Yeats

Falling in love with Yeats again.

[squeakowl]

The trees are in their autumn beauty,  The woodland paths are dry,  Under the October twilight the water  Mirrors a still sky.  –William Butler Yeats

[sailormoonsub]

I found a secondhand copy of that Mixx release where they translate Yeats back into English in an astoundingly wrong way in the wild. To me, this is like owning a piece of history

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.

- W.B. Yeats

This is the quote from W.B. Yeats as a painted sign on the wall as you enter the famous bookstore Shakespeare and Company in Paris.

Strangers always found a welcome at Shakespeare and Company, where they could browse untroubled for hours, especially if they were aspiring writers themselves; and a few – well, a very few – of them may indeed have turned out to be angels, or at least angelic.

The original Shakespeare and Company shop was started in 1921 in the Rue de l’Odéon by Sylvia Beach, the daughter of a US Presbyterian minister. The first writer to patronise the shop was Gertrude Stein, but she fell out with Beach when she took up with James Joyce, whom Stein hated.

Beach published Joyce’s Ulysses when no established publisher would touch it, performing the arduous labour of love of proofreading it. Ernest Hemingway discovered the shop soon after his arrival in Paris, and wrote about it lovingly decades later in A Moveable Feast. When the Germans occupied Paris, Beach refused to sell a signed copy of Finnegans Wake to an invading officer. He said he would return for it the next day. So she moved all the books out and closed the shop. It was “liberated” by Hemingway himself in 1944. However, Beach didn’t have the heart to start again.

In 1948, after a wandering youth and war service, George Whitman came to Paris on the GI Bill, and in 1951 opened an English-language bookshop which he called Le Mistral. A few years later, he moved to the Rue de la Bûcherie, but didn’t rename the shop until after Beach’s death in 1961. He had been too shy to ask her if he could use the name, although they were friends and she used to come to readings at Le Mistral.

Whitman ran his shop as a species of anarchic democracy, even though in some respects he was a benevolent dictator. Anyone who called himself a writer could find a bed there, if there was one free, and stay as long as he liked or until Whitman got tired of him. The only rule for residents was that they must read a book a day and serve in the shop for an hour. One poet, or self-styled poet, who broke the second rule and lay in bed all day reading detective novels was ejected; but his chief offence was his choice of literature rather than his idleness.

The bookshop has its regulars, residents in Paris, not all of them English-speakers by any means, who use it as a sort of club and drop in for conversation and coffee.

Stock control has always been on the casual side. It’s not unknown for someone to lift a book from the shelves, slip it into his pocket, read it and return to sell it for the secondhand shelves the following day.

Inevitably, Shakespeare and Company has long been on the tourist trail, recommended in all the guides. This is just as well, because without their custom it’s hard to see how the shop could have survived. Many are in search of a copy of A Moveable Feast. This is not always on offer because, for some reason which I can’t remember, Whitman took a scunner to Hemingway. The tourists also toss coins into the well in the shop, and it’s not unusual to see an indigent young person lying on the floor and fishing for euros.

On occasion I drop in because the lure of its history is too much even if there are other good independent book stores nearby. Visitors to Paris always want me to take them there and I oblige them even if I feel its lost some of its past glory. Still, I always buy a few books because it’s the best way to support independent book stores in this age of Amazon, as every independent book store needs all the help it can get.

[uwmspeccoll]

Ambiguous by Nature

I wanted to share a beautiful rendition of Leda and the Swan by the renowned Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865-1939). It comes from Wisconsin artist Mark Brueggeman, who taught in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point for 27 years. He is a versatile, talented artist known for his work in stain-glass, painting, drawing, and printmaking. This work has now extended his work to include the roles of both publisher and illustrator. According to a quote from hiddenstudiosarttour.com, Brueggeman states he has “always enjoyed the look of text incorporated into drawings and paintings.”

Brueggeman's artwork is a rare gem, a testament to his meticulous craftsmanship. Printed in an edition of 15 copies at Brueggeman's Atelier Vermeil Studio in 2015, the work is a blend of letterpress and intaglio prints on Root River Mill paper handmade by the artist and several of his colleagues, and published as a portfolio of broadsides.

The poem, rooted in a Greek myth about a sexual encounter between the immortal god Zeus and the beautiful Spartan queen Leda, presents a unique perspective. In Yeats’ version, he offers a provocative and ambiguous account of a sexual act. Brueggeman's visual interpretation of the poem adds another layer of intrigue, leaning into the vague nature of the poem itself.

The artwork and poetry blend seamlessly, taking on a sensual yet brutal quality. They intentionally leave much to the reader's imagination, allowing for various interpretations and assumptions. However, one thing is certain in the poem and the artist’s rendering: following the rash and impulsive act, Leda is left on her own, carrying the knowledge of the future consequences that their union has created.

-Melissa, Special Collections Classics Intern

View other Classics posts

[et-in-arkadia]

[fieriframes]

[An aimless joy is a pure joy, I said, quoting Yeats.]

[belle-keys]

Nothing lasts forever.

– The Second Coming (1920) by Willian Butler Yeats and All Things End (2023) by Hozier.

[apoemaday]

When You Are Old

by W.B. Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

[hiyutekivigil]

[beforevenice]

But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

// William Butler Yeats

[allweknewisdead]

The Second Coming (1919) - W. B. Yeats

The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.