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W. B. Yeats and the Tribes of Danu is a study of the Irish fairy
faith in its ancient and traditional forms, and of Yeats's response
to that faith. The first part concerns the ancient beliefs, chiefly
as they are expressed in mythology, and describes the origins and
characteristics of the Tuatha De Danann. Peter Alderson Smith shows
how they are a folk memory of an ancient people who have to some
degree acquired divine and ghostly characteristics. Part two
describes the fairies of modern folklore, the various types, their
charac teristics, and differences from ghosts, in being a separate
and supernatural race of people, homogeneous but unpredictable and
notorious for their capriciousness. Part three finds in Yeats's
work between the writing of The Countess Cathleen (1891-92) and the
poems of Responsibilities (1914) a desire to know more about the
Otherworld that resulted in a relationship that fluctuated between
the poles of frustration and despair on the one hand, and morbid
enthusiasm on the other. That the process was ultimately
therapeutic is shown by Yeats's move away from the Celtic Twilight
to the poems of his maturity.
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