This is not a straightforward biography but rather an attempt to describe and examine Yeats as a phenomenon, partly shaped by forces and movements around him and partly shaping the public events of his time. His position in literary, political and cultural matters is detailed and the book offers, through the study of Yeats, an introduction to the fashions of ideas between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Preface - Acknowledgements - Chronology: Yeats's Life and Contemporary Events - Introduction - Family and Place - Yeats and the 1890s: Celtic Twilight and Golden Dawn - Yeats and Politics - Yeats and the Theatre: 'Baptism of the Gutter' - Friends and Loves - Masks and Development - A Vision of Byzantium - Yeats and Modern Poetry - Notes - Selected Bibliography - Index