Yeats's evolution from The Shadowy Waters to At the Hawk's Well

Abstract

My purpose in this essay is to study the evolution of Yeats's dramatic style from The Shadowy Waters to At the Hawk's Well. I will be considering changes in dramatic technique as well as in Yeats's world-view. As a middle point between these two plays, I have also chosen to study The Hour-Glass (1914), the last play that Yeats wrote before adopting the Noh form in At the Hawk's Well (1917), and which, for Francisco Javier Torres Ribelles "can be considered the expression of Yeats's own symbolist theories" (26). The version of The Shadowy Waters that I will be referring to is the final acting version of 1911. Occasional references to other works by Yeats, both dramatic and poetic, will nevertheless be included.