âPerfection of the Life, or of the Workâ: W.B. Yeats and the Struggle for Self-Optimization

Peter Liebregts

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Chapter 10 âPerfection of the Life, or of the Workâ: W.B. Yeats and the Struggle for Self-Optimization

In: Self-Optimization in Modernist Culture

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Peter Liebregts

Peter Liebregts
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 220â237

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004720701_012

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Abstract

The quest for the best possible self was a determining factor throughout the Irish writer W.B. Yeatsâs life and work. Yet despite this hankering to overcome the limits of the self, there was always at the same time, even in old age, an intuitive attachment to this world which made him not want to wholly shed the bodily and the physical. The result is that for Yeats the notion of self-optimization throughout his life and work is very much governed by an acute awareness of this conflict between his various selves, as well as by an inner struggle to deal with the tension between the spiritual and the material, the transcendent and the sensual. In this article I will look at the general pattern of Yeatsâs struggle for self-optimization throughout his life and work.

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Self-Optimization in Modernist Culture

Series:Â Literary Modernism, Volume: 9

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004720701

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 03 Jun 2025

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies

Front Matter

Part 1 The Self

Part 2 Emotions and Nerves

Part 3 Body and Gender

Part 4 The Technology of Self-Optimization

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Chapter 10 âPerfection of the Life, or of the Workâ: W.B. Yeats and the Struggle for Self-Optimization

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Self-Optimization in Modernist Culture

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Chapter 10 âPerfection of the Life, or of the Workâ: W.B. Yeats and the Struggle for Self-Optimization