The Theory of Mask and Yeats’s Poetic Career

Abstract

Yeats’s theory of Mask and his personal poetic career have an intense but complex relationship which needs to be focussed on. The present study points out the ever remaining tension between the poetic self and the real self of Yeats throughout his poetic career. ‘Mask’ is representative of the bifurcated self of the poet which he intentionally wants to portray instead of his secret self. The challenge with which he proceeded in his poetic career was to find out a technique by which the personal could become objectified. Yeats’s journey was to translate his personal frustrations, feelings, emotions into an impersonal objectified universal poetic truth. This apparently simple doctrine of Mask becomes complicated when Yeats connects it with his ‘vision.’ Yeats’s theory takes the poet to the level of an actor in a play where he detaches himself from the experiences with which he is living. As an authentic poet Yeats could successfully heighten his theory of Mask and sometimes associated it not only with an individual but also to the whole country. Thus the question of freedom of Ireland also creeps in while discussing Yeats’s theory of Mask.