ENGL2035:
Modernism

Handbook entry 

Thoor Ballylee is the sixteenth-century Norman castle near Coole which Yeats bought in 1918. He lived in it for some of the summer months each year until 1929. The walls are about 2m thick. The internal spiral stone staircase connecting the four levels and the roof is central to much of Yeats's poetry.

I declare this tower is my symbol; I declare
This winding, gyring, spiring treadmill of a stair is my ancestral stair...

"Blood and the Moon", from The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)

I, the poet William Yeats,
With old mill boards and sea-green slates,
And smithy work from the Gort forge,
Restored this tower for my wife George;
And may these characters remain
When all is ruin once again.

"To Be Carved On A Stone At Thoor Ballylee", from Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921)
 

The contents of these pages are © 2004, The University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia 4072

email ENGL2035