Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines W. B. Yeats's and Fernando Pessoa's use of stylistic variation to transform their incipient neo-Romantic and post-Symbolist diction into a protean modern lyric voice. It traces common influences from Romantic, Victorian and Symbolist poetry in their early poetic works. The book deals with Yeats's and Pessoa's incorporation of neoclassical features into their poetry as a reaction to their post-Symbolism. It discusses Yeats's and Pessoa's re-enactments of the heroic epos and the elevated style of the epic genre as an antithesis to the mundane ethos and prosaic style of pastoral poetry, which occurred to a great extent concurrently with it. The book explores the association between the poets' visionary nationalism and theories of authoritarianism and their re-enactment of heroic and epic poetry. It evaluates Yeats's and Pessoa's poetic oeuvres in relation to the underlying metaphor of ontological, epistemological and metaphysical quest.