The emergence of the nation states was one of the fruits of Romanticism, udand each reborn country needed to rediscover its identity: in Ireland, identity udwas very much tied to the landscape and what remained of the Irish language, udplace-names playing a special role in the evocation of national desires.udA study of these key texts of Yeats’ shows how his dedication to the life of udthe mind mirrored the loss of contact with the natural world. This is true of its udlandscapes and its mythological figures. I hope to show that in an early poem ud“The Song of Wandering Aengus” that in developing an antithetical self, Yeats udwas at significant times not only opposed to Nature intellectually and udspiritually, but also emotionally. The privileging of the life of the mind over the udanimal self has played in his own life and in his influence what may have been a udcostly division.
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