Classicism and Colonial Retrenchment in W. B.

Yeats's "No Second Troy"

Author(s): Martin McKinsey
Source: Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 48, No. 2 (Summer, 2002), pp. 174-190
Published by: Hofstra University
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Classicismand Colonial Retrenchment
inW B.Yeats's"No SecondTroy"

MartinMcKinsey

From themomentI began TheWanderings ofOisin,"wroteW B.Yeats

of thetitlepoem of his 1889 collection,"my subject-matterbecame Irish"
(Poems' 589). By his own account,Yeats struck out in this new poetic
directionlargelyat theurgingofthe returnedFenianexileJohnO'Leary,
even thoughsuch a move meantleavingbehind"Arcadyand the India
of romance,"which up until then he had "preferredto all countries"
(Ellmann 13). In place of those well-thumbedtropesof BritishHelle-
nismand Orientalism,the youngpoet now began to availhimselfof the
rich but stilllargelyuntappedstockof legendsand mythologicalfigures
out of Ireland'sown past.Thus the gleamingvisionsof Greek antiquity
thathad inspiredso manyof Yeats'searlymodels,especiallyhis beloved
Shelley,fellvictimto the expedienciesof culturalnationalism.Indeed,
forthe firsttwo and a halfdecades of Yeats'swritinglife,Hellenismleft
scarcelya trace in the poems he chose to publishand preserve.2"The
woods ofArcadyare dead,"beginsthespeakerof"The Song ofthe Happy
Shepherd," theinauguralutteranceof Yeats'spoeticcareeras reconstructed
in his CollectedPoems,"And over are its antiquejoys." Given the Irish
poet's polemicsand artisticpracticeduringtheseearlyyears,it is easy to
endow the shepherd'swordswith the forceof synecdoche.Though an-
cient Greece and,in particular, Homer continuedas mainstaysof Yeats's
journalism,his poetrywas leftto standon itsown.
The so-called"Helen poems"publishedin The GreenHelmetand Other
Poemsin 1910 therefore marka significantdeparture.In a seriesof short
lyricsissuing from his troubledrelationshipwithMaud Gonne,Yeatsfor
the firsttime bringsancient Greece into an importantpoetic dialogue

48.2
Literature
Twentieth-Century Summer2002 174

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 "No Second
Yeats's Troy"

withmodernIreland. Whilethevolume'sstylistic innovations havefre-

quentlybeen commented on,and willfigure prominently in thepages
thatfollow, myprimary focus in the present essay will be to registerand
assessthisthematic that the
development, is, reemergence of the Hellenic
inYeats'sversetwofulldecadesafter theCelticturnsignaled by TheWan-
derings of Oisin. By returning the earliest and most important of these
poems to the and
particularity turbulence of itshistorical and biograph-
ical moment,I showhowYeatsdeployedHellenismas an imaginative
ThirdSpace (to use Homi K. Bhabha'sterm)in whichto mediatecon-
flictingpersonal, ethnic,
political, andartistic affiliations.Yeats'sHomeri-
I
cism, argue, encodes the crisscrossing social and sectarian fracturelines
thatcharacterize a colonizedsocietyswiftly movingtowardnationalself-
sovereignty. Recent criticshave followed the lead ofSeamusDeane and
EdwardSaid in situating Yeats'spoetryand theCelticRevivalgenerally
withinthebroadertheoretical framework of postcolonial studies.3 My
essay draws on theirwork, but its
perhaps greatest debt is to R. E Fos-
ter's1997 biography, a majorsynthesis ofnew and old archival material
handledwithgreathistorical acumen.Myprincipal aimhasbeento open
a familiar poem to freshreadings in the light of this recentscholarship,
butI havetwoancillary aims as well: to
first, begin to define Hellenism-
theclassicalGreektradition in
as revived themodernWest-as a locus
ofpostcolonial agon;andsecond,bytracing theinterplay ofpoliticsand
poetic form, to suggestheretofore neglected links between theparticu-
larizedpressures and residuesof cultural decolonization, theemer-
and
genceofAnglo-American literary modernism.
TheWanderings ofOisin was a symbolist lyricawakenedto epic de-
signsby the imperatives of cultural reconstruction. Thereafter,Yeats's na-
tionalistand epic impulseswereincreasingly channeledintoproseand
versedramas likeCathleenniHoulihan (1902) and On Baile'sStrand (1904).
ElsewhereI havearguedthattheearlierpoem,likethelaterdramas, si-
lentlyinvokesGreekprecedents (undertheguiseofCelticmyth)in or-
derto bolsteritsclaimto foundational authority (seeMcKinsey).When,
20 yearsafterOisin,Yeatsdidfinally cometo makeovertuse ofHomer-
ic motifs-partly, BrianArkins suggests, undertheinfluence ofhisfriend
OliverSt.JohnGogarty(85)-it was not in epic formbut in a form
thatwouldcharacterize virtually all hismaturework:"lyricpoetry...
knitby dramatic tension"(Essays521). Nevertheless thefirst-born and
most dramaticof theseHomeric poems,"No Second Troy,"managesto
achievewithinitslyricconstraints
a certaincompressedepic stature:

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 No SecondTroy
WhyshouldI blameherthatshefilledmydays
Withmisery,or thatshewouldoflate
Have taughtto ignorant menmostviolentways,
Or hurledthelittlestreets
uponthegreat
Had theybutcourageequalto desire?
Whatcouldhavemadeherpeacefulwitha mind
Thatnobleness madesimpleas a fire,
Withbeautylikea tightened bow,a kind
Thatis notnaturalin an agelikethis,
Beinghighandsolitary andmoststern?
Why,whatcouldshehavedone,beingwhatsheis?
Wasthereanother Troyforherto burn? (Poems91)
Yeats'spoem alliesitselfwiththe epic tradition firstand foremost
through classical and
allusion, through micropoetic effectsthatElizabeth
Cullingford labels"poetic'manliness."'4
But it is also a matterofstruc-
ture,thewaythepoem yokestogether privateand publicturmoil, the
individual andthetranshistorical.
The effect is something likea Renais-
sanceportrait: in theforeground we see an aristocratic beautypossessed
of classicalpoise;fromthewordmisery, we surmisethatthisis Maud
Gonne,theonlywoman,itappears, withthepowerso deeplyto trouble
thepoetin life.Behindher,we distinguish angrymobs,burningcities.
Thisseamless weldingofdomainsis doneso deliberately, andYeats'scase
wasso particular in itstumblingtogether of the personal and thepoliti-
cal,thatit makeslittlesense,forthispoem,to speakofcultural or social
allegoryas Fredric Jameson describesitin a much-discussed essay:
Third-world eventhosewhichareseemingly
texts, private...
necessarily a dimension
project political in theform ofa nation-
thestoryofprivateindividual
al allegory: destiny alwaysan
is
allegory ofthe embattledsituation
ofpublicthird-worldculture
andsociety. (69)
By 1908,Yeatsand Gonnehadalreadythemselves becomepartallegory,
partofIreland's hadenvisioned
socialimaginary.Yeats Gonnein thetitle
roleofhis Cathleen
niHoulihan,a playaboutan old crone(traditionally
who duringtheWolfeToneRisingis mag-
withIrelanditself)
identified
icallytransformed
by thepatriotismofMayopeasants into"a younggirl

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 "No Second
Yeats's Troy"

[with]thewalkofa queen"(Collected Plays88).WhenGonneactedthe

rolein its1902 debut,shewasIreland.Sixyearslater, as thedarkladyof
"No SecondTroy," shewasarguably stillIreland,buta verydifferent Ire-
land.As we shallsee,thedistancebetweenthesetwovisionsofthepo-
et'shomelandcan serveas a gaugeofwhatthoseintervening yearshad
meantforYeats.
The mythological identificationofthepoem'sfemalesubjectiswith-
helduntilthelastline,thendisclosedonlybyinference. Untilthatde-
finingquestion-"WasthereanotherTroyforherto burn?"-she is a
classicPetrarchan objectof maledesire, as notablefor"beingwhatshe
is" as forwhatshedoes,and forhereffect on themenaroundher:the
miseryshe causesthepoet (whichin turncausesthepoemto be writ-
ten),and theviolencesheinducesin others.It is a catalytic qualityshe
shareswithCathleenni Houlihan-and,of course,Helen of Troy5-
but in termsof literary genealogiesand nationalist implications,Yeats's
1902and 1908heroines couldnotbe farther apart.
Yeats'sHelen,likehisPetrarchism generally,comesto himby way
of PierreRonsard,authorof the Sonnets pourHle'ne.Yeatshad already
imitated one of thesein "WhenYou AreOld" (1891) and wouldsoon
do so againin"At theAbbeyTheatre"(1911).In "No SecondTroy," he
borrowsnot onlythefigureof Helen butalso something of Ronsard's
classicalrestraint,that"severediscipline of [the]French"thatearlierhe
had prescribed forIrishplaywrights (Explorations80). In place of the
Shakespearean sonnet,Yeats offersus (as he had in"WhenYou AreOld")
a pared-downFrenchvariation, thedouzaine.In place of theElizabe-
than's jaggedbipolarities, he offersthestatuesque poiseofthePleiade,a
kindof "graceunderpressure" portending high modernist stylesto come.
In a definitional movewe recognizefromOisin,Yeatsrouteshimself
aroundEnglandin his questto nationalize boththe sonnetformand
the Homericinheritance.6 Afterall,"the [Irish]nationalcharacter," he
hadwritten in 1901,"isso essentially
different from theEnglish thatSpan-
ish and Frenchinfluences maybe the mosthealthy" (Explorations 76).
Following in the footstepsof the insurrectionistWolfe Tone,Yeats found
itexpedient to recruitalliesfromtheContinent whenmounting hischal-
to
lenge English culturaldomination.
This is notto denythatthereweregood circumstantial reasonsfor
Yeats'sliterary imagination to gravitatetowardFrance(rather thanSpain
or, indeed,Renaissance Italy,which would soon figureso prominently

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MartinMcKinsey

in his thought),forit was in FrancethatMaud Gonne herselfwas living.

In the summerof 1908, and again the followingDecember,Yeats had
spenttimewithherin Paris.Gonneclearlysuppliedthepoem'socca-
sion,but some of itsimagerymaywell havecome fromelsewherein
herParisian
household
(possibly aninfatuation
foreshadowing tocome).
Fosterwrites:

[Gonne's daughter]Iseultwas now a charmingand precocious

fourteen-year-old, toYeatsthroughher
appealingparticularly
passionforthe (notably "Ilead"):"she all but setthehouse
classics the
onfirebymakinga burntoffering on themantelpiecetoArtemisa
fewdaysago." (Foster andYeatsqtd.in Foster387;emphasis added)
The Frenchcapitalalso providedYeatswitha chance to indulgehis own
recentpassionforclassicism:
Ten yearsago when I was lastin Paris I loved all thatwas myste-
rious and gothicand hatedall thatwas classicand severe... now
I am all forDavid and above all Ingreswhose Perseusis all classic
romance-the poetryof... clearfarsighted eyes.
(qtd.in Foster388-89)
Classicism,as it emergedin his poetry,suppliedYeatswitha lens through
which to reconsiderand refurbishhis image of Gonne-and through
herof Irelanditself-as distilledin thefigureof Helen of Troy.His Helen,
however,is not the softand fatallyalluringbeauty out of Homer but
ratherthe veryembodimentof classicalseverity, more a Greek goddess
than Menelaus's all too human spouse.The question is,which goddess?
In thelate poem "BeautifulLoftyThings,"Yeats comparesthe Gonne of
his youthto "PallasAthenain thatstraight back and arroganthead" (Po-
ems303). But in "No Second Troy,"the allusionto a bow,coupled with
attributeslike"solitary"and "stern,"takesus back to the object of Iseult's
burntoffering: Artemis.As the goddessof the mountainsand the wilds,
Artemis was a deityof "high and solitary"places.A virgingoddess,she
shared Gonne's professed"horrorand terrorof physicallove" (Gonne
qtd. in Foster203), and was "most stern"in punishingmale intruders
likeActeon.As Edna Longleyhas observed,"Yeatswas reluctantly com-
to
pelled recognize Gonne as Amazon rather than icon" (207)-Ama-
zons being"mortalbyforms"ofArtemis(Pomeroy5).
If markedlymore warlikethan Oisin'sNiamh, thatsensualemana-

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 "No SecondTroy"
Yeats's

tionoftheCelticTwilight, thisArtemis is alsonotablymorearistocratic

thanbarefoot Cathleenni Houlihan,itinerant amongtheMayocottag-
es.Here,too,thegoddessbearstracesofherFrenchsojournwhere,Ro-
manizedas Diana, she acquiredconsiderable refinement throughher
association in Ronsard'sdaywithDiane de Poitiers, HenryII's favorite,
and by hersubsequentsculpting in marbleor in bronzeon thefoun-
gates,andalliesofcountless
tains, Renaissancechateaus.Yeats hadample
opportunity, during his own in
sojourns Paris, to traceher classical
lin-
eamentsin the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century specimenson dis-
playin the Louvre. But hisimagination also had accessto literarymodels
closerto home.Ifhe bestowedon hisheroinesomeof the"rock-nur-
tured"fireofhisownAoife("The GreyRock,"Poems105),he alsogave
hersome of the queenlygraceand "dreadmajesty"of Spenser'sBel-
phoebe,who "[like]Diana ... Wandereth alonewithbow and arrows
keen"(2.3.31.1,31.4).' (Onlya fewyearsbefore, Yeatshad editeda se-
lectionofSpenser's verse.)Yethowevermixedanddecidedlycosmopol-
itanherparentage, themultinational heroineof"No SecondTroy"had
an important Irishroleto playin thepoet'sevolvingmythology of his
homeland.
In the10 yearssincehisreturn, in 1897,to"an activeIrishlife"(Ex-
plorations a
235),Yeatshad notbeen stranger to thedisillusionment and
chagrinthatcan be thelot ofa colonialidealisthomefromthemetro-
pole.His laborsin Dublinas a playwright andtheater manager, first
with
theIrishLiterary Theater, then with the National Theater at theAbbey,
broughthimfaceto facewith"thoseenemiesof life,the chimerasof
thePulpitandthePress"(Essays119).Then,in 1903,on theheelsofher
rolein Cathleen, Maud Gonnehad marriedthenationalist figureJohn
MacBride,whichhadtheeffect ofestrangingYeats notonlyfromGonne
herself(temporarily) butalsofromthemoremilitant formsofIrishna-
tionalism likethe IRB; in anycase,his contactwiththesegroupshad
been primarily forhersake.Yeats reactedto suchchafings and ruptures
notbyretreating intoa retrograde WestBritonism nor,forall hisgrow-
ingfame,byescapingintocosmopolitan disengagement. Rather,he be-
gan inventing a new Irish for
identity himself, one thatreclaimedfor
Irishnationalism a traditionfrequently demonizedin thechargedrhet-
oric of post-Famine politics.By 1907,accordingto Foster, Yeats"was
becoming interested in thetraditionsof the [Anglo-Irish] andfamily
caste
backgroundwhich he had been elaboratelyrepudiating
fortwentyyears"

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Martin
McKinsey

(375).The coolingofhisrelations withGonneandwithnationalist Ire-

landhadbeenamplycompensated andperhapsevenprecipitated byhis
growing attachment to thesociallymoreconservative cultureoftheBig
House,as embodiedforYeatsbyLadyGregory and herestateat Coole
Park,wherehe was a frequent guest.Thoughthepoet'sapotheosisof
Ascendency figureslike Swiftand Burkewasstillto come,theclassicism
of"No SecondTroy"wassubstantially theclassicism oftheireighteenth
century, "thatone Irish that
century escaped from darkness and confu-
sion"(Explorations 345).
In "No SecondTroy," Maud Gonneis madewilly-nilly to represent
thattradition and to bodyforthitsideals.As a statuesque sisterto the
goddessDiana, the presiding deityof Renaissancepastorals, thismost
urbanof womenservesas emblemfortheruralcharmsof theAnglo-
Irishcountry estate.The tightened bow to whichGonneis likenedin-
vokesthehuntthatwas forYeatsan integral partofthatculture. (Yeats
first associatedarchery withCoole Parkin thetitlepoem of hisprevi-
ous collection, In theSevenWoods: "whilethatGreatArcher/Who but
awaitsHis hourto shoot,stillhangs/ a cloudyquiveroverPairc-na-lee"
[Poems77].)8 In addition, Gonne'sbeautyis described in termssuggest-
ing the aristocraticvirtues ofthat asYeats
class, conceived it:self-control,
elevation, As she
nobility. such, represents forYeats (as had,differently,
Niamhand Cathleenbeforeher)"thatidealIreland, perhapsfromthis
pointoutan imaginary Ireland,in whoseserviceI labor,"as he wrotein
the1907 essay"PoetryandTradition" (Essays246).
In theprocessofdefining an idealIrelandthrough itsHelen-Gonne
figure, "No SecondTroy"simultaneously thereal(or"natural")
profiles
Irelandthatconstitutes itsopposite:ifHelen-Gonneis"high,"thelatter
mustbe "low";ifsheis"solitary" (Yeatswouldlaterwriteofan"Anglo-
Irishsolitude"), it is populous;wheresheis"moststern," it,presumably,
is "lax."Low,populous,lax ofhabit-one suspects thattheportrait that
emerges of the"natural" here owes to
something Anglo-Irish stereotypes
ofthoseproducts of"meanrooftrees,"9 theunwashedCatholicmajority.
Yetlikeall suchbinomialschemata inYeats,thisopposition is riven
withparadox.Forevenas Helen-Gonnedefines herclass,shebetrays it.
It is perhapsin keepingwiththehistorical origins of that classthat the
poem'sfemaleprotagonist hasbeenengaged"oflate"in theparadigmat-
ic colonialist pastime:teachingthe ignorant.Yeats'sheroine, however,
would instillin her pupilsnot what Edward Gibbon termed"the artsof

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 "No SecondTroy"
Yeats's

peace and civilpolicy"(442)-the highestachievementof European civ-

ilization-but "violentways."It was not so much the violence thatdis-
turbedYeats-he was well on his way to the philosophicmilitarismof
his prime-as itsmisapplication: forlikeArtemisturningthe hounds on
Acteon, Gonne would unleash Ireland'slittleupon its great.To preach
suchThyrsitianinsubordination was to threatenthe social hierarchyand
moral economythatgovernedYeats's vision of both the Homeric world
and the ideal Irelandforwhich it stood.
Of course the poem's blame, retractedbut neverthelesspersisting
under erasure,10 masksa deeper wounding than class.For Gonne had
compounded her betrayalimmeasurablyby fraternizing with the com-
moners-or, as Yeats increasinglyfelt,consortingwith the enemy.She
had gone fartherthanthe activistGore-Booth sisters, againstwhom the
poet inveighselsewhere,by marrying a man like MacBride.Yeats'sargu-
mentswith her on this point,the more pitifulfor being too late,are
again imbued withall the prejudicesof his emergentAnglo-Irishidenti-
ty.TomarryMacBride,he told her,was to "fallinto a lower order":"You
come to the people fromabove.You representa superiorclass."Catholi-
cism,to which she had converted,represented "a lower orderof faith"
(Yeatsqtd. in Foster 285). The guidingprincipleof theAscendency-in
Yeats'sdeterminedconstructionof it as a "Protestantaristocracy"-was
the notion of "the best knit to the best." (The weaknessfor eugenics
which looms so large in his later work was already well advanced.)
Gonne's mismatchedunion withMacBride mirroredherpervertedpol-
itics-hurling"the littlestreetsupon the great"-by allowinghis "low"
to top her "high."It was an imagined scene of transgression thatYeats
would revisitoften-most centrallyin the play Purgatory, publishedin
the lastyearof hislife:
This nightshe is no betterthanher man
And does not mindthathe is halfdrunk,
She is mad about him.They mountthe stairs
She bringshim into her own chamber.
And thatis the marriage-chamber now.

She should have known he was not her kind.

(CollectedPlays686-87)

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Martin
McKinsey

In theend,however, "No SecondTroy"is Gonne'swritofabsolu-

tion.The blameis not hers,thepoem tellsus,butthetimes--orTime
itself.ForlikeOisinin St.Patrick's Ireland, Gonnewas out ofphase(as
Yeatswouldcometo thinkofit) withtheworldaroundher."[B]redto
be a hero'swage,"her"eyessetuponfar/ magnificence / uponimpos-
sibleheroism," shefoundherself in a placeandagebereft ofheroes, with
only a "drunken, vaingloriouslout" like MacBride to claim her.11 she
If
wasnow"solitary," thiswasthereason.She wasa Cathleenni Houlihan
lackinga MichaelGillane, thespeirbhean ofa traditional aislingpoemwith-
out Irishmen(howevermisdirected) whose couragemightequal their
desire.
If Yeatswas able to sympathize and forgive, thiswas in largemea-
suredue to thewaythepredicament of his one-timePetrarchan tor-
mentormirrored hisownas an artist. Forjustas therewasno otherTroy
fora Helen to burn,so wasthereno otherTroyfora would-beHomer
to writeabout.The "brainless patriotic force"Yeatsso oftenlockedpo-
lemichornswithin Dublinwasnotthestuff ofepic;herehe couldnot
hope to find"Character isolatedby a deed / To engross thepresent and
dominatememory"(Yeatsqtd.in Foster365; Poems347).A fewyears
later,in thepoem"September 1913,"YeatswouldpronounceRoman-
tic Ireland"dead and gone" (Poems108); in "No SecondTroy"he had
already buriedheroicIreland.
Thisjudgment, registeredfirstin theclipped,percussive finalityof
the title,is centralto thepoem'smorphology. In OisinYeatshad pre-
sumedto speakin thevoiceoftradition, to transume themedievalIrish
genreofChristian-pagan dialoguein a longpoemwithstrong national-
istovertones; "No SecondTroy"commences withan unmediated lyric
"I"-the "I" ofa thousand Petrarchan recriminations. The earlierpoem
had,in itsepicmodality, rehearsed theconsolidation ofthestate;itstex-
tualextensiveness figured thatof a free and independent polity."No Sec-
ond Troy,"by contrast, is an allegoryof epic curtailment. Its verbal
musculature recordstheLaoco6nianeffort to wrestletheepic impulse
intoa lyricmold.That thismold shouldconsistof 12 ratherthan14
iambicpentameter linesfurtheraccentuates thepoem'sexcruciating sense
of limitation: "No SecondTroy"is a sonnetin searchof a concluding
couplet,a poemaboutfrustrated desirethatenactsitsownunfulfillment.
Hellenismperforms a darkerrolewithinthisstraitened poeticecon-
omy.In his earlyarticlesand essays, particularly his Letters to theNew

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Yeats's"No SecondTroy"

Island,Yeatshad recruitedGreece as inspiration

and blueprintin hisproject
ofcultural
uplift: a symbolforall thatIreland
Greecewaspurepotential,
mightbecome.The analogyof Homer had underwritten Oisin's nation-
alistaspirations, investingwith epic aura the raveled storiesand dimmed
historicdestinyof a subject people. In The GreenHelmetpoems,Yeats
dissolvesthisauthorizingpartnership. The comparisonbetween Ireland
and Greece henceforthwill be one of unlikeness.The Greek frameof
"No Second Troy"-title, last line-serves to damn ratherthan to re-
deem, heighteningthe contrastbetween then and now,here and there,
ideal and actual. In the peculiar reverseperspectiveof classicism,what
should be the temporalforeground-modernIreland-is dwarfedby its
classicalparallel,reducedto a Lilliputianworld of"littlestreets"inhabit-
ed by knavesand dolts,Paudeensand Biddys.Only Maud Gonne is mag-
nified;she alone inhabitsthe mythicframethe poet has constructedin
orderto show her true dimensionsas "a woman Homer sung."All else
"at one common level lies."12In the relativeuniverseinto whichYeats's
post-Nietzscheanthoughtwas advancing,each halfof the analogyillu-
minatedthe other.AgainstYeats's visionof presententropy, Homer stands
as an unrepeatablepoetic event:to say "No Second Troy" is to say of
Ireland,in bitterretraction, thatit is "No Second Greece."Colonial be-
latednessis affirmed.
This takesus close to the territory of epic founderingtouched on
in Tennyson's"The Epic."13What separates Yeats'spoem fromitsVictori-
an antecedentsis the insistenceof its questioning,the furiousintensity
with which it burnsthroughthe fuseof its measuresto detonatein the
finalline. It is a furyborn of colonial disillusionand chagrin.Like his
own Oisin 20 yearsearlier,Yeats had suffered a rockyhomecoming.The
10 yearsof "embitteredcontroversy" thatattendedhis culturalactivism
in Dublin "rang down the curtain... on what was called 'The Celtic
Movement"' (Explorations 72). It also rang in a distinctively new style
that,in lightof itssubsequentinfluence,deservesa closerlook.
The emergence of what for convenience I will label Yeats's"ma-
ture"stylehas been linkedby recentcriticsto,alternately, the poet's in-
volvementwith the theater,his absorptionin the writingsof Nietzsche,
and his need to severthe culturalapronstringsbindinghim to "mother
Britannia."14 This last interpretation is surelycorrectin foregrounding
the oppositionalnatureof thistransformation and locatingit withinthe
family romance of colonialism; nevertheless it is importantto remember

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Martin
McKinsey

thattheprimary focusofYeats'soppositional vigoratthisformative stage

wasnotthecolonizer-thoughYeats's "hatred" oftheEnglishnationcon-
tinuedunabated-butrather elements withinhisown"fool-driven land"
("AllThings Can Tempt Me," Poems 97). Like many a lettered returnee
to thecolonialmargin, filledwith"manymisconceptions" regarding his
particularIthaca,"sYeatswas stricken by thegapbetweentheInnisfree
he wasatliberty to imaginefromabroadandthedingydisputatious fact
ofcolonialreality in whichhe foundhimself mired; between he
(as puts
it in "The Fisherman") "WhatI had hopedt'wouldbe / To writefor
myown race/ And thereality" (Poems148).In responseto thetrauma
ofreentry, he chosenotDedalianexileand cunningbut(to shift Hom-
ericparadigms) anAchilles-like wrath, born out of embattled prideand
ambition.
Yeatsrefittedhisverseto reflect thispsychicreorientation. His po-
etry of"The Celtic Movement," under the influence of William Mor-
ris,had adoptedas its aestheticemblemthe pacificand traditionally
feminine artofweaving. Thingswere"wrought" (as if"wrought" were
thepastparticiple of"weave")"out ofmoonlitvapours"or"withsilken
thread"or"withglimmering hands"or"withmusic"(Poems62,66,72,
369). NowYeats sought a more resistive mediumthatwouldsuggest the
refractory nationalelement in which he moved: something hammered,
Hephaestean. The poetrythatresulted was a fighting poetry, one suited
to theskirmishes and standoffs of a nationbeingborn.Yeats had made
thecharacteristic high modernist move into the "masculine." Shornof
itsPetrarchan passionand witha heaviermeasure of Gallic irony, the
stylewouldfindan echo in youngercontemporaries likeEzra Pound
andT. S. Eliot (whoseparallelpoliticalreactionand metropolitan exile
arethemselves to
open postcolonial readings).16 Given these laterrever-
berations,and givenhighmodernism's customary castingas a predomi-
nantlymetropolitan enterprise, it is all the more essential to recognize
thecultural of
specificity Yeats's stylistic gesture, genesis"amid[the]
its
and
riot greatanger" of intracolonial contestation (Explorations 230).Little
wonderthatit strucka chordwithlaterwriters of decolonization like
ChinuaAchebeandDerekWalcott.
More narrowly, we can saythattheprosodicconstriction thattypi-
fiesYeats's this
styleduring period embodies in verse the defensive reflex
of a colonialelitemadevulnerable by thegathering momentum of an
exclusionary IrishCatholicnationalism.Yeats figures thisthreat ofcounter-

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 "No Second
Yeats's Troy"

disenfranchisement in theAnglo-Irish solitudeof his Helen,whichis

portrayed (withagencyreversed) as a kindofsublimerenunciation, akin
to Gonne'sforeswearing ofherCatholichusband. Ramazani,following
Yeats,correlates thepoet'spreference for"lyricpoemsthataretenseand
compact"to geographical factors:theiroriginon an islandwith"Great
hatred.Littleroom"(86). In lightof theforegoing, we can extendthis
formulation: in contrast to Oisin'ssymbolic assertion ofterritorialreach,
"No SecondTroy"represents a strategic retrenchment, a digging-in be-
hindmoredefensible boundaries: theboundaries ofthecountry demesne.
(Twenty years later, thisinstinct would find itspurest and most concen-
tratedexpression in theemblem-bothtextualandconcrete-ofa Nor-
mantower.) We shouldnotbe fooledbythisdefensive posture,however.
Contractility(to borrow a term from physiology) is a measure ofstrength:
theimpliedviolenceofArtemis's tightened bow.Indeed,Yeats's newstyle
didnothing so muchas releaseforhispoetrythecombativeness andag-
gressionthat drives his earlypolemicalprose.
Into thistensespaceHellenisminterposes itself. Whateveritsclass
elsewhere-andforYeatsclassand classicism
affiliations wereneverfar
apart-hereit servesto muffle suchsocialdivisions. Reversingtheco-
vertstrategy of Oisin,"No SecondTroy"usesGreeceto disguiseitsori-
gins in sectarianfeuding,displacingsocial realityinto myth.This
subterfuge allowsYeatsto advancehisattackas universalist critique,and
at thesametimediffuses theobjectofthatattackintoan abstract func-
tionofhistory: "an age likethis." Anglo-American criticsintenton the
transnationalscopeofliterary modernism longtookthistactical maneuver
moreor lessat facevalue,a simplification thatunderthecircumstances
thepoetmighthavewelcomed.Thetruth is thatYeats's imagination con-
tinuedtobe enmeshed in thematerial "complexities ofmire[and]blood"
thatdefinedtheIrishculture warsat thestartofthelastcentury. IfYeats
summonedthefigureof Helen to hisside,it was becausehe believed
she(as opposedto Gonne,who bythenhadwithdrawn frompubliclife)
mightstillhavesomething to contribute in thestruggle overhiscoun-
future.
try's
In theever-narrowing funnelof nationalist politics, the"Irishness"
oftheAnglo-Irish wasa disputed issue.Efforts to definea Celticessence
thatwouldjustifyand unifyan independent Irelandwerenot always
motivatedto accommodate the Protestantminority, who were resented
by many as a colonialistimposition.Yeats,the highlyvisible and vocal

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MartinMcKinsey

leader of a movementand a theatercompanydominatedby theAnglo-

Irish,was oftenthe targetof what he termedthe"Nationalistattacks...
of ignorantmen" (Explorations 239). There is both ironyand poeticjus-
tice in this,forYeats,along with his mostlyAnglo-Irishassociatesin the
Celtic Revival,had been instrumental in stokingthisrenewednational-
istfervor, while also supplyingit (as Edward Said has pointed out) with
manyof its most forcefulnativisttropes.To a degree,Yeatsand to some
extenteven his classwere now payingthe price forthisearlyzeal. But
here Helen mightintercedeon theirbehalf,in the name of culturaldi-
versity.This LatinizedAnglo-Irish"half-Asiatic"Greek whomYeats had
evolved out of the strongpersonalityof Maud Gonne came to Yeats's
countrymenwith a message:thatthe surestway"to give Irelanda hardy
and shapelynationalcharacter[was] by opening the doors to the four
winds of the world,insteadof leavingthe door thatis towardsthe east
wind [towardEngland]open alone" (Explorations 76). Indeed,one of the
poem's unvoiced questions,no less rhetoricalthan the rest,is whether
an awarenessof Homeric precedentmightnot give Ireland the forti-
tude-the "courage equal to desire"-to standup to itsEnglishsatraps.
Afterall (as theyoungYeatshad written),"without herpossiblymythical
of
siege Troy,perhaps, Greece would never have had her realThermopy-
lae" (Jeffares,W B. Yeatsxii). By such relativelyquiet means,and forall
her encoding of traditionalprejudice,Helen made the case forcultural
openness,formakingroom withinIreland'snarrowbordersforthe ethni-
callyimpureand thehistorically tainted.In pardoningHelen ("Whyshould
I blameher... ?")Yeatsarguedbyanalogyforthepardoningofhisclass.
And yetthekernelof bitterness aroundwhich thepoem was formed
came fromYeats'spained foreknowledgethatthiswas a deal unlikelyto
go through. The doublenessof the poem's structure-Troy/NoTroy--is
exactlythegap between"What [he] had hoped ... and the reality." Helen
standsfirstand foremostforthe "imaginaryIreland" Yeats had under-
taken,in romanticarrogance,to conjure into being. He had imagined
Ireland'sreconstitution as a kind ofArnoldianculturaleugenics:a splic-
ing of the best of Irelandwith the best of Europe, the lion's share of
which he located in ancient Greece.The Celtic Twilight,thatrealmof
infinitepromiseand deferral, provideda medium in which,fora time,
Yeatswas able to reconcileaspirationand actuality. But the centrifugeof
Irishpoliticaldiscourseeventuallyisolatedthe individualstrands.In "No
Second Troy,"his visionreemergesin distilledform,strainedof itsCeltic

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Yeats's"No SecondTroy"

admixture.NowGreecebecameIreland's a haunting
spectre: bylostpos-
another
sibilities.Yet twodecades hadthecour-
wouldelapsebeforeYeats
to
age attempt a new a
rapprochement,
metaphysical ofHellas
merger
and Hibernia thatwould accommodate (even ifit could not efface)the
contradictionsof his selfand hisworld.

Notes
1. References
to Poemsrefer
to ThePoemsofW B.YeatseditedbyRichardJ.
Finneran.
2.The lines"Doomed likeOdysseusandthelabouring ships/Andproudas
Priammurdered withhispeers"in thepoem"The SorrowofLove,"fromThe
Rose,wereaddedin 1922 (Poems40). On theotherhand,theline"Troypassed
awayin one highfuneralgleam"in anotherpoemfromthesamevolume
("The Rose oftheWorld")datesfromtheoriginal1892 edition(Poems
36).
3. In particular,
see Kiberd,Lloyd,andRamazani,andtheessayscollectedin
Fleming.
4.Accordingto Cullingford,
theseinclude"elliptical
condensation ofsyntax,
thereplacementofparataxisbysubordination,stress-packedlines,colloquial
consonantal
diction, rather
thanvocalicemphasis" (78-79).
in thepoemwithhavingburnedIliummuchas ifshehad
5. Helenis credited
wieldedthetorchherself-anascriptionofpassiveagencyin keepingwith
Homer;cf. thebitter of
accusation theswineherdEumaiosthatHelen"cutthe
legsfrom under troopsofmen" 14.80-81).
(Odyssey
6. HelenVendlerhasspokenof Yeats's"Irishing"
oftheEnglishsonnet("Son-
"At
nets"); theAbbey Theatre,"writtenwhen thepoetwas47 yearsold,was
hisfirst sonnet.
Shakespearean But even therethepoemproclaims itsindepen-
dence,bothin itssubtitle--"(after
Ronsard)"-and in theIrishphrasewith
whichitbegins,unintelligible
andunpronounceable to theuninitiated.
7. In On Baile'sStrand,
Cuchulainrefersto theHighlander
Aoife's"high,laugh-
ing,turbulent head... / thrownbackward, andthebowstringat herear"(Col-
lectedPlays258).Belphoebe,on theotherhand,Spenser'scostumeportrait of
Elizabeth,sharedDiana'slow regardfor"basedesire":

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MartinMcKinsey

In [hereyes]theblindedgod hislustful
fire
To kindleoftassayed,
buthadno might,
Forwithdreadmajesty andawfulire,
She brokehiswantondartsandquenchedbasedesire.
(2.3.23.6-9)
8. Ultimately,
theimageofthearcherappearsto go backto a visionYeats ex-
periencedshortly beforehe first
metLadyGregory.While on Edward
staying
Martyn'sestatein Galway,he visualized
"a marvellousnakedwomanshooting
an arrowata star.She stoodlikea statueupona stonepedestal"(Memoirs 100).
Manyyears later,Yeatsglossesthis
as follows:
"She it
was, seems,theMother-
Goddess.... ButsheisalsoArtemis." 391;emphasis
(Autobiography added).
9. "Upon a House ShakenbytheLandAgitation"
(Poems95).
10.Commentators havetendedto gloss"oflate"as ifitmeant"untilrecently,"
eventhoughitsmostimmediate implicationsareofan ongoing (seefor
activity
exampleJeffares, 87 and
Commentary Albright 505 note to line2).The "era-
sure"hereis,in biographicalterms,Yeats's withGonnein 1908,
reconciliation
in thetitleofthelyricsequenceto which"No SecondTroy"origi-
as reflected
nallybelonged: "RaymondLullyandHisWifePernella." Fora thorough dis-
of and
cussion thesetextual biographical as
issues, wellas a different
account of
theriseofYeats'sprosodicclassicism,see Holdeman161-67.
in turn,fromPoems92,Yeatsqtd.in Foster239,and
11. Quotationstaken,
Poems181.
12.See "AWomanHomerSung"(90),"TheFascination of What'sDifficult"
(93),and"TheseAretheClouds"(96),allfromYeats's
TheGreen Helmet.
13."The Epic"tellsofEverardHall,a poemwho burnedhisArthurian
mag-
numopusin 12 booksbecauseit contained but"faintHomericech-
nothing
oes" (Tennyson
2).
14.Cf.Vendler 78,andRamazani85.
21,Cullingford
15."I onlyescapedfrommanymisconceptions when,in 1897,I beganan
activeIrishlife"(Explorations wroteforthetheatrical
235).The articlesYeats
supplement Samhain a
provide vividchronicleof histribulations
andevolving
thought during the crucial
first
yearsofthe century.
16. Forstylistic
comparison,see Pound'sHughSelwyn part3,and
Mauberly,
Eliot's"SweeneyErect,"whichuse a similar
double-frame Both
technique.
werewritten a good decadeafterYeats's
poem.

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