4. No Second Troy

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we explore Yeats' poem 'No Second Troy', in which he reflects on his relationship with Maud Gonne. In particular, we focus on his identification of Maud as Helen of Troy and himself as … who?

Course

In this course, Dr Peter Howarth (Queen Mary, University of London) explores the poetry of W. B. Yeats through six key poems: 'An Irish Airman Foresees his Death', 'Easter, 1916', 'Leda and the Swan', 'No Second Troy', 'The Cold Heaven', and 'Sailing to Byzantium'. As we move through the course, we think about why Yeats wrote the poetry he did – looking in particular at his passion for Ireland, his obsession with Maud Gonne, and his interest in philosophy and the occult.

Lecturer

Dr Peter Howarth came to Queen Mary in 2007, after lecturing at the University of Nottingham (2000-2007) and completing a PhD at Cambridge in 2000. His first book, British Poetry in the Age of Modernism (CUP, 2006) explored the poetics of non-modernism in the twentieth century, and his teaching and writing have continued to explore the relation of form, social setting and historical time ever since.