The poetic drama of Fernando Pessoa and W.B. Yeats and the Symbolist Theatre Tradition

Abstract

This essay explores the impact and influence of the Symbolist theatre and, in particular, of the dramas of Maeterlinck and Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, on Fernando Pessoa and W.B. Yeats. It examines the way in which the principles underlying the theatre produced by those playwrights and that movement met with the aesthetic aspirations and philosophical inclinations of the two poets, which led them to engage with those principles and their enacting dramatic devices in their poetic drama. It also analyses points of contact between their works and works by those playwrights, their critique of their practices and efforts to surpass what they perceive as being their limitations and to make original contributions to the development of that strain of Symbolist theatre in the twentieth century.

Keywords

• Portuguese drama
• Teatro Estático
• Symbolism (Literary movement)
• Pessoa, Fernando
• Marinheiro
• Yeats, W. B. (William Butler)
• Synge, J. M. (John Millington)
• Maeterlinck, Maurice
• Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Auguste