Horses and Horsemen: The Centaur in the Poetry of William Butler Yeats

Abstract

"God guard me from those thoughts men think In the mind alone; He that sings a lasting song Thinks in a marrow-bone." 'A Prayer for Old Age' | Ever since Donald Davidson's article for Southern Review and Virginia Moore's book, The Unicorn (1952), critics have tried to mount William Butler Yeats's centaur from the off side; finding the beast skittish under their approach, they have failed not only to master it, but even to avail themselves properly of a "leg up" from the poet himself. Recognizing the close relationship between Yeats's prose and poetry, Davidson uses one reference to the poetry to boost himself past the centaur's back altogether. Moore, on the other hand, seems determined to lead to a Jungian mounting block an ungainly creature, made more in the image and likeness of her own thesis than formed by the word of the poet himself.