Pressed against Divinity

Beginning with an analysis of Yeats's Mask theory and an examination of the script materials, Haswell demonstrates the development of feminine masks in the Cuchulain plays; the lyrics "Solomon to Sheba, " "Solomon and the Witch, " "Michael Robartes and the Dancer, " and "Leda and the Swan"; and the sequences "A Man Young and Old, " "A Woman Young and Old, " and "Crazy Jane." Yeats's enactment of the "universal feminine, " progressively complex and fluid, is recognizable ultimately as the complement to the "universal masculine." As Yeats speaks with the voice of his female daimon, he challenges bipolar categories of gender. He questions assumptions that the mind is single-sexed and that gendered voices are naturally monologic and essentialized. The ramifications of double-voiced verse reach beyond literary theory to gender and women's studies, philosophy, and psychology.