Wayne E. Hall, Shadowy Heroes: Irish Literature of the 1890s and Mary Helen Thuente, W. B. Yeats and Irish Folklore

Abstract

Over four decades after Yeats’s death, critical and scholarly interest remains strong and his life and work continue to be examined from a great variety of perspectives. The two volumes considered in this review differ dramatically in their focus and especially in the attitudes of their authors towards their subjects. Disappointingly, however, like too many other recent studies (which have the benefit, after all, of the substantial body of previous scholarship to draw upon), they both fail to do justice to the complexity of their topics.