The 2025 Conference of the International Yeats Society

W.B. YEATS: DUBLINER

30 October to 1 November | Trinity College Dublin  

CALL FOR PAPERS 

Reviewing Lady Wilde’s Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland in 1890, W. B. Yeats bemoaned that ‘around and northward of Dublin no small amount of gloom has blown from overseas’. Just outside the city in Howth, however, he noted that ‘the old life goes on but little changed’; the hospital patients of Sir William Wilde, drawn to Dublin from across Ireland, had also offered a rich source of folklore now being ‘quarried’ in his widow’s latest book. This review captures something of the complexity of the city’s culture, as well as its close yet fraught relationship with the rest of the country. Such complexity and contestation has been an under-regarded aspect of scholarly writing on Yeats’s work.  

At different points in his life, the poet resided in many parts of Dublin and its environs. Significant parts of his education took place in the city. He was also formed by and an inveterate shaper of many of its cultural organisations and institutions. Important too was Dublin’s then vibrant and distinctive salon culture. A site of many close friendships and collaborations, the city was for periods the location of his father’s and brother’s studios, and his sisters’ Arts and Crafts enterprises. Through Dun Emer and Cuala, Yeats also had direct involvement in the local publishing of his and others’ writings. Furthermore, the city is a setting for many of his works – from the protagonist sat dreaming in a house in ‘the old parts of Dublin’ in the 1896 short story ‘Rosa Alchemica’ to the recollections of encounters on its streets that open ‘Easter 1916’. Whatever his stated antipathy to the city and its environs, including as a site of British-influenced urban modernity, the poet was very much a Dubliner.  

Taking place in the heart of the city at Trinity College – an institution the poet condemned in 1892 for having ‘shut itself off from every kind of ardour, from every kind of fiery and exultant life’ – this conference offers an opportunity to reflect on Yeats’s working life in Dublin, and the place of the city and its cultures in his work. Confirmed keynote lecturers include Gregory Castle (Arizona State University) and Emilie Morin (University of York).  

The organisers invite proposals of no more than 250 words for twenty-minute papers, three-paper panels or discussion roundtables on the topic of ‘W. B. Yeats: Dubliner’. In keeping with the International Yeats Society’s general practice, proposals are invited on other aspects of Yeats’s work as well. Please also include a brief biographical sketch of up to 50 words for each speaker. Proposals should be emailed to yeats2025@tcd.ie. The deadline for submission is 16 June.