We also owe him the Abbey Theater. As much of a flake as he could be his
practical streak had enduring results.
At 08:55 AM 9/20/2000 +0000, you wrote:
>Scott writes:
>
>>The Protestants are certainly not all members of the
>>ruling classs. My Ulster Protestant forebears, for
>>example, were potato farmers!
>>The issue really though is not that Yeats was or was
>>not a hypocrite but that Yeats helped perpetuate a
>>pretty crummy regime in Ireland.
>
>I really don't follow this at all. Which "crummy regime" are you talking
>about? Presumably you don't mean rule from Westminster. If you mean
>Yeats's involvement in the politics of the Irish Free State, then you are
>doubtless aware of Yeats's stand, as a senator, against such collusions of
>(Roman Catholic) Church and State as the banning of divorce. On a less
>important level, the Republic should also be grateful to him for being
>instrumental in the design of the Irish coinage--without W. B., £ s & d
>would have been adorned with ghastly saints rather than paganistic animals.
> Both Wallace Stevens and Pound were envious of Yeats's public position as
>a senator, in which, despite some silly pronoucements, he would appear to
>have aquitted himself rather well. One should recall this practical side
>to Yeats when one lambastes him for his deliberately provocative statements
>in, say, _On the Boiler_.
>
>And as for "the fascist Green Shirts," they actually wore Blue Shirts (as
>did Yeats, who, yes, briefly flirted with the ideas of the absurd wannabe
>Il Duce, O'Duffy, though this did not dictate his choice of shirt-colour, I
>believe!).
>
>Best Alex
>
>
>
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