The Gonne-Yeats Letters 1893-1938 - Softcover

What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

We tend to see Maud Gonne through his prism--a firebrand, a great beauty, above all a political fanatic who made him suffer like mad. These letters tell a more complex tale, since the majority are hers, most of Yeats's having been destroyed. What he portrayed as extremism instead becomes deep political involvement: her letters record an endless round of meetings, protests, and good works. In addition, the concern she again and again manifests for Yeats mitigates his cries of indifference; rather, Maud Gonne emerges as steady and heroic. Even as she was preparing to marry John MacBride, she took time out to console her longtime suitor in a characteristic run-on: "Friend of mine au revoir. I shall go over to Ireland in a couple of months, if you care to see me I shall be so glad & you will find I think that I am just the same woman you have always known, marriage won't change me I think at all...." The editors declare the original letter "very crumpled and creased as if carried in Yeats's pocket and taken out and read many times."

A. Norman Jeffares was born in Dublin, Ireland, and now lives in Scotland. He is the author and editor of numerous books on Irish literature.

A. Norman Jeffares was born in Dublin, Ireland, and now lives in Scotland. He is the author and editor of numerous books on Irish literature.