This Extraordinary Book

Abstract

When one of the 600 copies of A Vision came to George Russell (A. E.) in late 1925 or early 1926, he immediately wrote a review that, it would have pleased him to know, was prophetic. In some emphases, he was wrong. Fifty-five years have passed since that time, and the book has already been discussed extensively and sometimes feverishly, as Russell thought it might be after a century. Sober academics and students at the Center for Irrational Studies alike treat it seriously. Hence, as Russell wrote, to many others the book also imposed itself so fully on their minds that “It is possible ‘A Vision’ may come to be regarded as the greatest of Mr. Yeats’ works.” Enough skepticism and annoyance have been expressed to validate the possibility that “it may be regarded as his greatest erring from the way of his natural genius, and the lover of his poetry may lament that the most intense concentration of his intellect was given to this book rather than to drama and lyric.”¹