Yeats and Pessoa
Parallel Poetic Styles

Patricia Silva McNeill

Cover of Yeats and Pessoa

Studies In Comparative Literature 19

Legenda

23 April 2010  •  194pp

ISBN: 978-1-906540-56-2 (hardback)  •  RRP £80, $110, €95

ISBN: 978-1-315083-78-0 (Taylor & Francis ebook)

ModernEnglishPortuguesePoetry

W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) and Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) regarded style as a tool for metaphysical inquiry and, consequently, they adopted distinct poetic styles to convey different attitudes towards experience. Silva McNeill’s study examines how the poets’ stylistic diversification was a means of rehearsing different existential and aesthetic stances. It identifies parallels between their styles from a comparative case studies approach. Their stylistic masks allowed them to maintain the subjectivity and authenticity associated with the lyrical genre, while simultaneously attaining greater objectivity and conveying multiple perspectives. The poets continuously transformed the fond and form of their verse, creating a protean lyrical voice that expressed their multilateral poetic temperament and reflected the depersonalisation and formal experimentalism of the modern lyric.

Patricia Silva McNeill recently completed a Ph.D. at King’s College London. She has published several articles, notably in Comparative Critical Studies and Portuguese Studies.

Reviews:

  • ‘A very worthwhile study which demonstrates how two poets from small, peripheral European nations reflected the Zeitgeist of their times in poetry which posterity has come to regard as among the most important produced in either nation or language.’ — Jean Andrews, Modern Language Review 106.3, July 2011, 840-41 (full text online)

Bibliography entry:

McNeill, Patricia Silva, Yeats and Pessoa: Parallel Poetic Styles, Studies In Comparative Literature, 19 (Legenda, 2010)

First footnote reference: 35 Patricia Silva McNeill, Yeats and Pessoa: Parallel Poetic Styles, Studies In Comparative Literature, 19 (Legenda, 2010), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 McNeill, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

McNeill, Patricia Silva. 2010. Yeats and Pessoa: Parallel Poetic Styles, Studies In Comparative Literature, 19 (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (McNeill 2010: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 McNeill 2010: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

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