W. B. Yeats and Katharine Tynan Hinkson: The last young Irelanders.

Abstract

William Butler Yeats maintained a close association with Katharine Tynan (later Katharine Hinkson) throughout the decade following their initial meeting in June, 1885. This dissertation examines Tynan's role in Yeats's early development and describes Yeats's and Tynan's personal and professional relationship throughout their lives. Tynan achieved popularity in Ireland at an early age with her conventional Catholic lyrics and her imitations of the poetry of Young Ireland, which she repeated throughout her career. Tynan influenced Yeats's earliest efforts to write nationalistic poetry by bringing him in contact with the Irish Catholic poets who contributed to Father Matthew Russell's literary magazine, the Irish Monthly. Later, Yeats and Tynan worked together to produce a small collection of poems, Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland, which they dedicated to their mentor, the fenian leader, John O'Leary. They hoped their efforts would stimulate a sense of national identity transcending the factionalism which divided their nation as the Young Ireland movement had done in the 1840's. Their hopes presumed the existence of a unified national spirit which did not, in fact, exist. Parnell's defeat exposed social divisions which could never be soothed by sentimental lyrics. Yeats's and Tynan's collaboration constituted the last impulse of an exhausted literary movement. Nevertheless, Yeats composed some of his most popular poems, including "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," "The Stolen Child," and "The Ballad of Moll Magee" in the context of his literary partnership with Tynan. In addition, Yeats composed his first major poem based on Irish mythology, "The Wanderings of Oisin," as part of a joint project with Tynan who simultaneously produced her interpretation of "The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grania.". Yeats eventually deleted references to Tynan from his own account of his early years. Nevertheless, Yeats's correspondence with Tynan demonstrates that she was his first confidante. His initial admiration for her work provides evidence of youthful attitudes which he later took pains to suppress.