The Influence of Villiers de l'Isle-Adam on W. B. Yearts

Yeats called Villiers's play Axël one of his "Sacred Books," and it had a long influence on his work. References to it are scattered throughout his criticism, essays, and letters from 1894 to 1933. That influence is also apparent in the forms, themes, and symbols of The Shadowy Waters, The Secret Rose, and The Wind Among the Reeds. "Sailing to Byzantium" shows us the last clear traces of Villiers's occult idealism, but even when Yeats renounced the idealist tradition, he chose to mark his break with a parody of Axël, which he included in A Vision. (LP)