The Hermeneutical Situation in T. S. Eliot's and W. B. Yeats's Poetry

This study, composed of three chapters, works within the scope of the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical Hermeneutics, focusing more particularly on the primacy of the hermeneutical situation in understanding the poetry of Thomas Stearns Eliot and William Butler Yeats.The investigation carried out throughout the three chapters reveals that both Eliot and Yeats propose an approach that can be experienced in Gadamer's philosophical Hermeneutics. In a sense, there exists an affinity between Gadamer's Hermeneutics and Eliot's and Yeats's poetics.This affinity is what contributes substantially to the realisation of a meaningful hermeneutical understanding of Eliot's and Yeats's genuine poetry; a poetry which speaks more powerfully to the present hermneutical situation and points out to aspects of our reality in a relevant way.This is due to its inherent dialogic power that is attained through Eliot's and Yeats's deliberate use of music, symbolism, impersonal poetry and myth. Such a dialogic poetry is highly praised by Gadamer, insofar as it is what facilitates the disclosure of possible truths.This edition, as a whole, is an invigorating read for all the bibliophiles.