W. B. Yeats,the Abbey Theatre,and the Cinema, 1909–1939

ABSTRACT

Given the significance of new technologies to the literary and visual cultures of the early-twentieth century, it is surprising how little has been written about W. B. Yeats and cinema. Viewed by some scholars as emphatically resistant to what he termed “the leprosy of the modern,” Yeats has long been a difficult writer to situate in relation the progressive impulses of modernity. Building on Kevin Rockett’s identification of the parallels between the work of Abbey Theatre and a nascent Irish cinema culture, this article argues that Yeats played a prominent role in early attempts to develop an indigenous film industry, and to cultivate representations of Ireland on screen abroad. During the period I consider, the Abbey Theatre and the film industry were similarly affected by state censorship programmes and various forms of cultural nationalism. Exploring the Abbey Theatre Minute Books and archival materials discovered in Trinity College Dublin, I suggest that Yeats’s Abbey was a shaping force in Irish cinema history, despite the fact that most attempts to create a national cinema met with limited success.