PARTS of this book, generally in a very different and shorter
form, appeared as articles or were delivered as lectures. I wish
to thank the following for granting me permission to use such
material: English Miscellany ( Rome) and its Editor, Professor
Mario Praz; Lo Spettatore Italiano ( Rome) and its Editor,
Signora Elena Croce; The Durham University Journal and its
Editor, Mr. J. C. Maxwell; The International Association of
University Professors of English for a paper I read at their
second Conference, and the B.B.C. Third Programme, for
which I broadcast a shortened version of the same paper.

My greatest debt is perhaps to the books of a large host of
Yeats scholars; since a list would run practically to the same
length as the bibliography appended at the end of this book,
I must refer the reader to it, expressing my gratitude to the
different authors, and apologizing to them if, at times, I may
inadvertently have appropriated their thought or used their
findings without direct acknowledgement in the notes.

Generous permission to quote extended passages from copy-
righted works has been granted in the first place by Mrs. W. B.
Yeats, to whose kindness I am particularly grateful, and by the
publishers of Yeats's works or their successors: Macmillan &
Co. Ltd., London; The Cuala Press, Dublin; A. H. Bullen;
Routledge & Kegan Paul; T. Fisher Unwin; Werner Laurie;

-v-