William Butler Yeats is so renowned as a poet that he is often overlooked as a playwright. ... The drama of Yeats was influenced by the politics of the time and inspired by current social issues. ... Two of Yeats’s plays, Calvary and The Resurrection, exemplify Knowles’ definition. Yeats linked the dramatic with a moral significance that was to confront and inspire change. In both plays the characters debate submitting to the Divine Will versus the loss of their individual identity and freedom. ... Yeats Dramatist of Vision, “They worship whatever life brings, and in their good natured tolerance offer Him the ironical comfort of the knowledge that He can do nothing for them, which of course is the last thing He wants to hear. ...
Yeats was not completely finished exploring the biblical accounts of Christ sacrifice for man’s salvation. ... Yeats chooses not to give names to these characters, but instead generalizes them to such a degree that they represent attitudes and ideas rather than any individual. ... For Yeats the Divine supersedes even our own individual views. ... They explore Yeats’s conflicting emotions regarding Christianity. “Yeats accused ‘Christianity’ of ‘teaching men to live not in the continuous present of self-revelation but to deny self & present for future gain’” (Keane 140). ... These plays confirm that for Yeats whether man has the ability to rise to a divine existence without sacrificing individuality remains an enigma.
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