W.B. Yeats, an Irish poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, is one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. T.S. Eliot, was a poet, playwright, literary and social critic, and is widely acclaimed as one of the major poets of 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, “for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry.”
Both Yeats and Eliot made an extensive use of myth in their poems. In fact an understanding of basic sources like Irish cultural nationalism and poetic myths is essential in comprehending Yeats’s poetry. He poeticizes myths which make his poetry unite reality with imagination, life with art, landscape with universe, humanity with divinity, and history with literature. He explores the philosophical and religious possibilities of poetry and even revitalizes myth through his poems.
Eliot’s The Waste Land is full of myth, allusion and imagery. For him myth is a point of departure for maintaining a cultural or historical perspective. His employment of myth is not simply an allusive and metaphorical tactic, but rather an endeavor to relate his own themes and objectives to universal truths to establish some external order for the chaos being presented. He uses it as a device to gain a perspective on his “myth-forsaken time.”
The book adopts a multi-disciplinary approach, and explicates how Yeats and Eliot, the two epoch-making and the most influential poets of twentieth century, extensively use myth in their poetry as an aesthetic device and poetic discourse to reach the deepest layers of personal, religious, social and political life. It shows how both the poets were adequately aware of the psychological, anthropological and historical perspectives, and how all these perspectives are inextricably fused together, transfiguring the human situation to a complex poetic utterance.
The book will be useful for the students and teachers of modern English poetry and researchers in this field.
Dr. Panchanan Mishra, M.A., Ph.D., has the experience of teaching in various Government Colleges of Odisha for 33 years, including 15 years of P.G. level teaching. He retired as the Head of the Department of English from Rajendra College (Autonomous), Balangir.
An eminent poet, critic and translator of Odia (Oriya), Dr. Mishra is engaged with research activities, contributing papers to various literary journals. He is also guiding research scholars pursuing Ph.D.
