Abstract
Rossetti in one of his letters numbers his favourite colours in the order of his favour, and throughout his work one feels that he loved form and colour for themselves and apart from what they represent. One feels sometimes that he desired a world of essences, of unmixed powers, of impossible purities. It is as though the Last Judgment had already begun in his mind and that the essences and powers, which the Divine Hand had mixed into one another to make the loam of life, fell asunder at his touch. If he painted a flame or a blue distance, he painted as though he had seen the flame out of whose heart all flames had been taken, or the blue of the abyss that was before all life; and if he painted a woman’s face he painted it in some moment of intensity when the ecstasy of the lover and of the saint are alike, and desire becomes wisdom without ceasing to be desire. He listens to the cry of the flesh till it becomes proud and passes beyond the world where some immense desire that the intellect cannot understand mixes with the desire for a body’s warmth and softness.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Copyright information
© 1961 Mrs W. B. Yeats
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Yeats, W.B. (1961). The Happiest of the Poets. In: Essays and Introductions. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00618-2_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00618-2_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-00620-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-00618-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)