Home Performance, Performativity, and the Medium of Poetry: W. B. Yeats’s “Among School Children”
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Performance, Performativity, and the Medium of Poetry: W. B. Yeats’s “Among School Children”

  • Ralf Haekel EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: October 7, 2016
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

Performance theory has a long and complex history. Initiated by J. L. Austin’s How To Do Things With Words, it has been critically discussed by Émile Benveniste, Jacques Derrida, and Paul de Man among others. Most recently, media studies and the concept of cultural techniques have added yet another facet to what originated in speech act theory. Although poetry with its musical dimension seems especially prone to be investigated in the field, this is rarely the case. After an overview of the relevant theoretical developments, I analyze William Butler Yeats’s “Among School Children” – with a special focus on its final verse “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” – as a powerful reflection on the performative nature of poetry in general.


Corresponding author: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Ralf Haekel, English Department, British Literature and Culture, University of Göttingen, Käte-Hamburger-Weg 3, 37073 Göttingen, Germany

Works Cited

Abrams, M.H. (1984). “Structure and Style in the Greater Romantic Lyric.” The Correspondent Breeze: Essays on English Romanticism. Jack Stillinger, ed. New York, NY: Norton, 76–108.Search in Google Scholar

Austin, John Langshaw (1961). “Performative Utterances.” Philosophical Papers. J.O. Urmson and G.J. Warnock, eds. Oxford: Clarendon, 220–239.10.1093/019283021X.003.0010Search in Google Scholar

Austin, John Langshaw (1962). How to Do Things with Words. J.O. Urmson and Marina Sbisà, eds. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Search in Google Scholar

Benveniste, Émile (1971). Problems in General Linguistics. Trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press.Search in Google Scholar

Culler, Jonathan (1997). Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

de Man, Paul (1979). Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust. New Haven, MA and London: Yale University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Derrida, Jacques (1988). Limited Inc. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Fischer-Lichte, Erika (2004). Ästhetik des Performativen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Search in Google Scholar

Fischer-Lichte, Erika and Christoph Wulf, eds. (2001). Theorien des Performativen. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.Search in Google Scholar

Goodman, Nelson (1978). Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.10.5040/9781350928558Search in Google Scholar

Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich (1998). “Medium Literatur.” Manfred Faßler and Wulf Halbach, eds. Geschichte der Medien. München: Fink, 83–107.Search in Google Scholar

Haekel, Ralf (2014). The Soul in British Romanticism: Negotiating Human Nature in Philosophy, Science and Poetry. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.Search in Google Scholar

Jahraus, Oliver (2003). Literatur als Medium: Sinnkonstitution und Subjekterfahrung zwischen Bewußtsein und Kommunikation. Weilerswist: Velbrück.Search in Google Scholar

Kenner, Hugh (1989). A Colder Eye: The Modern Irish Writers. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.10.56021/9780801838385Search in Google Scholar

Kermode, Frank (2002). Romantic Image. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Krämer, Sybille (2002). “Sprache – Stimme – Schrift: Sieben Gedanken über Performativität als Medialität.” Uwe Wirth, ed. Performanz: Zwischen Sprachphilosopie und Kulturwissenschaften. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 323–346.Search in Google Scholar

Mills Harper, George (1987). The Making of Yeats’s “A Vision”: A Study of the Automatic Script. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Mills Harper, Margaret (2006). “Yeats and the Occult.” Marjorie Howes and John Kelly, eds. The Cambridge Companion to W. B. Yeats. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 144–166.10.1017/CCOL0521650895.009Search in Google Scholar

Müller-Zettelmann, Eva (2000). Lyrik und Metalyrik: Theorie einer Gattung und ihrer Selbstbespiegelung anhand von Beispielen aus der englisch- und deutschsprachigen Dichtkunst. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter.Search in Google Scholar

Pfister, Manfred (2005). “‘As an unperfect actor on the stage.’ Notes Towards a Defintion of Performance and Performativity in Shakespeare’s Sonnets.” Eva Müller-Zettelmann and Margarete Rubik, eds. Theory into Poetry: New Approaches to the Lyric. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 207–228.Search in Google Scholar

Pittock, Murray G.H. (1989). “Yeats, Plotinus, and ‘Among Schoolchildren.’” Irish University Review 19, 213–219.Search in Google Scholar

Radcliffe, Evan (1985). “Yeats and the Quest for Unity: ‘Among School Children’ and Unity of Being.” Colby Quarterly 21, 109–121.Search in Google Scholar

Reinfandt, Christoph (2009). “Literatur als Medium.” Fotis Jannidis, Gerhard Lauer and Simone Winko, eds. Grenzen der Literatur: Zum Begriff und Phänomen des Literarischen. Berlin: De Gruyter, 161–187.10.1515/9783110210835.3.161Search in Google Scholar

Senatore, Mauro (2013). “Introduction: Positing, the Performative and the Supplement.” Mauro Senatore, ed. Performatives After Deconstruction. London: Bloomsbury, 1–39.10.5040/9781472548146Search in Google Scholar

Siegert, Bernhard (2011). “Kulturtechnik.” Harun Maye and Leander Scholz, eds. Einführung in die Kulturwissenschaft. München: Fink, 95–118.Search in Google Scholar

Torchiana, Donald T. (1966). W. B. Yeats and Georgian Ireland. Evanston, IL.: Northwestern University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Vendler, Helen (2006). “Later Poems.” Marjorie Howes and John Kelly, eds. The Cambridge Companion to W. B. Yeats. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Vendler, Helen (2007). Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.2307/j.ctv1pncppzSearch in Google Scholar

Winthrop-Young, Geoffrey (2013). “Cultural Techniques: Preliminary Remarks.” Theory, Culture & Society 30.6, 3–19.10.1177/0263276413500828Search in Google Scholar

Wirth, Uwe (2002). “Der Performanzbegriff im Spannungsfeld von Illukution, Iteration und Indexikalität.” Uwe Wirth, ed. Performanz: Zwischen Sprachphilosopie und Kulturwissenschaften. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 9–61.Search in Google Scholar

Wolf, Werner (2005). “The Lyric: Problems of Definition and a Proposal for Reconceptualisation.” Eva Müller-Zettelmann and Margarete Rubik, eds. Theory into Poetry: New Approaches to the Lyric. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 21–56.10.1163/9789401202510_003Search in Google Scholar

Yeats, William Butler (1994). “If I Were Four-And-Twenty.” William H. O’Donnell, ed. Later Essays. New York, NY: Scribner, 34–46.Search in Google Scholar

Yeats, William Butler (1997). The Poems. Ed. Richard J. Finneran. New York, NY: Scribner.Search in Google Scholar

Yeats, William Butler (2008). A Vision (1925). Catherine E. Paul and Margaret Mills Harper, eds. New York, NY: Scribner.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2016-10-7
Published in Print: 2016-11-1

©2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 1.10.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/zaa-2016-0028/html?lang=en
Scroll to top button