to write it.’ Less than a fortnight later, he sent another letter about the play he was going to write:
As soon as my lecture [on 4 April] is over and past, I mean to get to work on my play. It is Destiny and must be fulfilled. All the details are in my mind, and I will make it drama. The characters, the dialogue, all shall be drama – with a breadth of treatment that will carry across the footlights. The hero is a poet whose idea is revolt against the sovereignty of any woman, he being in himself exceptionally susceptible to women – the heroine very much in love with the hero – her love a woman’s, that is more of soul than of passion.
For the third time, Yeats the father mentioned Synge: ‘And remember Synge said I could write dialogue,’ he wrote, and then went on: ‘The whole play will be a novelty. I am confident. I have the idea, and I think that execution will be granted unto me. The play a success, I shall sing my “nunc dimittis”.’ His references to his writing and his sending his poems were met with silence from the other side of the Atlantic. On 19 March 1916 he wrote: ‘You say nothing about my “poetry”. I did hope for a compliment on the “spirit and go of my lines”.’ In a postscript he added: ‘At any rate let me know if you got my verses.’
By the end of May he had written more of the play:
I tell you it is good – not a tragedy or a satire or in any way profound, but a lively comedy. A psychological comedy, each character with its outlines distinct, with happy laughter and happier tears. I have not the slightest doubt that some day it will be acted. It is all in my head to the last line, and half or more of it is written, and it has its own melody and is a dream throughout.
The play was finished by October 1916. On 25 October he wrote to his son:
I have revised my play and as soon as possible will have it typed. And you will hear with consternation [my] mak[ing] the ghost express the state of his mind in rhymed verse, and by my soul, I think it is poetry – and it is modest poetry, like the poor ghost who sees it, and whose only wish is that he may be released from ghostdom and permitted to go down into Hell where his sweetheart waits.
Once the play was typed, its author was euphoric and foolish enough to write the following to his son, who had, by this time, written eleven plays:
As soon as I can manage it, I will send you my play. It is a Psychological Comedy and goes with speed and substance. I am convinced that when you have read it you will write to consult me as to your next play, showing it to me in its prose form. I think I shall be able to help you. I remember of old how quick you were to take a hint. You are receptive as well as creative.
Eleven days later, W. B. Yeats’s father had more good news about his play. ‘Yesterday for the first time,’ he wrote, ‘I read my play to a group of friends, and I assure [you] I had a most successful first night. Also be it noted that they praised my poetry, which is I assure you in excellent rhyme.’ Eight days later he wrote again:
A few nights ago at Sloan’s I read my little play to a small company. They were not literary, but just ordinary theatre-goers, and they were enthusiastic. It caught their fancies and I was given a very successful ‘first night’. Among them was a literary man who admired my poetry. For there is a ghost who tells his story in rhymes which are as old as your castle. Age in a castle is admirable, but in Rhymes may be another matter.
In January of the following year, John Butler Yeats returned to the matter of his own value as a teacher of playwriting to his son. ‘I sometimes wish,’ he wrote, ‘that it had been possible for you tohave consulted with me about your plays. I think I have a playwriting instinct, and that my play … proves it. And if it is simple it is without pretences, unaffected and easy, and yet fresh and new as a morning in June.’
Later that year, John Butler
As soon as my lecture [on 4 April] is over and past, I mean to get to work on my play. It is Destiny and must be fulfilled. All the details are in my mind, and I will make it drama. The characters, the dialogue, all shall be drama – with a breadth of treatment that will carry across the footlights. The hero is a poet whose idea is revolt against the sovereignty of any woman, he being in himself exceptionally susceptible to women – the heroine very much in love with the hero – her love a woman’s, that is more of soul than of passion.
For the third time, Yeats the father mentioned Synge: ‘And remember Synge said I could write dialogue,’ he wrote, and then went on: ‘The whole play will be a novelty. I am confident. I have the idea, and I think that execution will be granted unto me. The play a success, I shall sing my “nunc dimittis”.’ His references to his writing and his sending his poems were met with silence from the other side of the Atlantic. On 19 March 1916 he wrote: ‘You say nothing about my “poetry”. I did hope for a compliment on the “spirit and go of my lines”.’ In a postscript he added: ‘At any rate let me know if you got my verses.’
By the end of May he had written more of the play:
I tell you it is good – not a tragedy or a satire or in any way profound, but a lively comedy. A psychological comedy, each character with its outlines distinct, with happy laughter and happier tears. I have not the slightest doubt that some day it will be acted. It is all in my head to the last line, and half or more of it is written, and it has its own melody and is a dream throughout.
The play was finished by October 1916. On 25 October he wrote to his son:
I have revised my play and as soon as possible will have it typed. And you will hear with consternation [my] mak[ing] the ghost express the state of his mind in rhymed verse, and by my soul, I think it is poetry – and it is modest poetry, like the poor ghost who sees it, and whose only wish is that he may be released from ghostdom and permitted to go down into Hell where his sweetheart waits.
Once the play was typed, its author was euphoric and foolish enough to write the following to his son, who had, by this time, written eleven plays:
As soon as I can manage it, I will send you my play. It is a Psychological Comedy and goes with speed and substance. I am convinced that when you have read it you will write to consult me as to your next play, showing it to me in its prose form. I think I shall be able to help you. I remember of old how quick you were to take a hint. You are receptive as well as creative.
Eleven days later, W. B. Yeats’s father had more good news about his play. ‘Yesterday for the first time,’ he wrote, ‘I read my play to a group of friends, and I assure [you] I had a most successful first night. Also be it noted that they praised my poetry, which is I assure you in excellent rhyme.’ Eight days later he wrote again:
A few nights ago at Sloan’s I read my little play to a small company. They were not literary, but just ordinary theatre-goers, and they were enthusiastic. It caught their fancies and I was given a very successful ‘first night’. Among them was a literary man who admired my poetry. For there is a ghost who tells his story in rhymes which are as old as your castle. Age in a castle is admirable, but in Rhymes may be another matter.
In January of the following year, John Butler Yeats returned to the matter of his own value as a teacher of playwriting to his son. ‘I sometimes wish,’ he wrote, ‘that it had been possible for you tohave consulted with me about your plays. I think I have a playwriting instinct, and that my play … proves it. And if it is simple it is without pretences, unaffected and easy, and yet fresh and new as a morning in June.’
Later that year, John Butler
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