Myth, Language and Tradition

Myth, Language and Tradition is an in-depth study of three modernist poets: W. B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens and T. S. Eliot with regard to the concepts of myth, poetic language and tradition. These are analysed against the later philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Each part of the book is devoted to one poet and one of the abovementioned aspects, the conclusion seeks to consolidate the various ideas explored throughout the book and to propose a new reading of the literary modernism. The main objective of the book is to reconsider modernism in relation to the three poets so as to reveal that during the first half of the twentieth century a change took place, shifting the intellectual emphasis from thinking the world as finite to instigating a question at the root of reality. This transition is analysed on the basis of Heidegger's search for Being and it is this key notion that allows to reformulate the ideas of myth in Yeats, poetic language in Stevens and tradition in Eliot. Along with the macro-scale restructuration of modernist principles, a thorough re-reading of the three poets' work is conducted with a view to indicating that the individual changes totalised into a grand effort of poetic dwelling. This book seeks to enter into a debate with the long-standing interpretations of modernism, offering a critical revaluation of both poetry and philosophy of the period in a joint project. The customary views on both areas are observed and noted but then I seek to lay focus on other possibilities to read modernist poetry.