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Excerpts

Editors' Preface and Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Illustrations

Editors' Introduction

Early Essays

IDEAS OF GOOD AND EVIL

1. What Is 'Popular Poetry'?

2. Speaking to the Psaltery

3. Magic

4. The Happiest of the Poets

5. The Philosophy of Shelley's Poetry

6. At Stratford-on-Avon

7. William Blake and the Imagination

8. William Blake and His Illustrations to The Divine Comedy

9. Symbolism in Painting

10. The Symbolism of Poetry

11. The Theatre

12. The Celtic Element in Literature

13. The Autumn of the Body

14. The Moods

15. The Body of the Father Christian Rosencrux

16. The Return of Ulysses

17. Ireland and the Arts

18. The Galway Plains

19. Emotion of Multitude

THE CUTTING OF AN AGATE

20. Certain Noble Plays of Japan

21. The Tragic Theatre

22. Poetry and Tradition

Discoveries

23. Prophet, Priest and King

24. Personality and the Intellectual Essences

25. The Musician and the Orator

26. A Guitar Player

27. The Looking-Glass

28. The Tree of Life

29. The Praise of Old Wives' Tales

30. The Play of Modern Manners

31. Has the Drama of Contemporary Life a Root of its Own?

32. Why the Blind Man in Ancient Times Was Made a Poet

33. Concerning Saints and Artists

34. The Subject Matter of Drama

35. The Two Kinds of Asceticism

36. In the Serpent's Mouth

37. The Black and the White Arrows

38. His Mistress's Eyebrows

39. The Tresses of the Hair

40. A Tower on the Apennines

41. The Thinking of the Body

42. Religious Belief Necessary to Religious Art

43. The Holy Places

44. Preface to the First Edition of The Well of the Saints

45. Preface to the First Edition of John M. Synge's Poems and Translations

46. J. M. Synge and the Ireland of His Time

47. John Shawe-Taylor

48. Art and Ideas

49. Edmund Spenser

Yeats's Prefaces and Dedication

Preface to The Cutting of an Agate (1912)

Preface to The Cutting of an Agate (1919, 1924)

Dedication of Essays (1924)

Appendices

A. A Chronological List of Essays by Date of First Publication

B. "The Pathway" (1900, 1908)

C. Omitted Section from "At Stratford-on-Avon"

D. Illustrations to Dante included in Periodical Version of "William Blake and His Illustrations to The Divine Comedy"

E. Omitted Passage from "Symbolism in Painting"

F. Omitted Passages from "The Return of Ulysses"

G. Conclusion to "The Tragic Theatre" in Plays for an Irish Theatre (1911)

H. Omitted Passage from "Preface to the First Edition of John M. Synge's Poems and Translations" (1909)

I. Preface to J. M. Synge and the Ireland of His Time (1911)

Textual Matters and Notes

A Note on the Text

Textual Emendations and Corrections

Background Notes on Frequently Cited Writers

Notes

Index