Joseph Skipsey, the ‘peasant poet’, and an unpublished letter from W. B. Yeats

• Autores: Gordon Tait
• Localización: Literature and history, ISSN 0306-1973, Vol. 25, Nº 2, 2016, págs. 134-149
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article examines an unpublished letter from Yeats to the ‘pitman-poet’ Joseph Skipsey, which gives new insight into the early career of Yeats and a deeper understanding of the possibilities and capabilities of the Victorian working-classes. It argues that, in Skipsey, Yeats found an English equivalent to the Irish peasant poet, a figure whose life and poetry was central to Yeats’s vision of Ireland and his nation’s literary revival. The article contends that, following the discovery of a letter from Yeats, Skipsey’s poetry and influence should be considered outside the bounds of the Pre-Raphaelite clique within which he is usually located.