‘Of war and war’s alarms’: W.B. Yeats from On the Boiler (1939)

On the Boiler is W.B. Yeats’s last piece of completed prose. Published posthumously through his family’s Cuala Press in 1939, it represents what appears to be his final authorized word on politics, on education, on aesthetics, on war and peace. Controversial, and in places unpalatable, of all Yeats’...

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Main Author: Adrian PATERSON
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA) 2020-06-01
Series:E-REA
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/erea/9656
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author Adrian PATERSON
author_facet Adrian PATERSON
author_sort Adrian PATERSON
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description On the Boiler is W.B. Yeats’s last piece of completed prose. Published posthumously through his family’s Cuala Press in 1939, it represents what appears to be his final authorized word on politics, on education, on aesthetics, on war and peace. Controversial, and in places unpalatable, of all Yeats’s published prose it is that which comes closest to fascism. It is also a serious meditation on art and European politics by a major poet. In any analysis of modernist nonfictional prose concerning war, On the Boiler should not be ignored. This essay argues that On the Boiler, hybrid and contradictory as it is, does not represent an anomaly, but a continuation. Yet it is also contingent, occasional, and conditional, and must therefore be examined as a printed object formally, paratextually, and contextually in order to understand the full resonance of its incendiary charge.
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spelling doaj-art-085e0e28a0d8436c81eed05ef7fe0fe12025-01-09T12:55:08ZengLaboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA)E-REA1638-17182020-06-0117210.4000/erea.9656‘Of war and war’s alarms’: W.B. Yeats from On the Boiler (1939)Adrian PATERSONOn the Boiler is W.B. Yeats’s last piece of completed prose. Published posthumously through his family’s Cuala Press in 1939, it represents what appears to be his final authorized word on politics, on education, on aesthetics, on war and peace. Controversial, and in places unpalatable, of all Yeats’s published prose it is that which comes closest to fascism. It is also a serious meditation on art and European politics by a major poet. In any analysis of modernist nonfictional prose concerning war, On the Boiler should not be ignored. This essay argues that On the Boiler, hybrid and contradictory as it is, does not represent an anomaly, but a continuation. Yet it is also contingent, occasional, and conditional, and must therefore be examined as a printed object formally, paratextually, and contextually in order to understand the full resonance of its incendiary charge.https://journals.openedition.org/erea/9656paratextmodernismpoliticswarfascismYeats
spellingShingle Adrian PATERSON
‘Of war and war’s alarms’: W.B. Yeats from On the Boiler (1939)
E-REA
paratext
modernism
politics
war
fascism
Yeats
title ‘Of war and war’s alarms’: W.B. Yeats from On the Boiler (1939)
title_full ‘Of war and war’s alarms’: W.B. Yeats from On the Boiler (1939)
title_fullStr ‘Of war and war’s alarms’: W.B. Yeats from On the Boiler (1939)
title_full_unstemmed ‘Of war and war’s alarms’: W.B. Yeats from On the Boiler (1939)
title_short ‘Of war and war’s alarms’: W.B. Yeats from On the Boiler (1939)
title_sort of war and war s alarms w b yeats from on the boiler 1939
topic paratext
modernism
politics
war
fascism
Yeats
url https://journals.openedition.org/erea/9656
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