TY - JOUR AU - He, Chu PY - 2021/06/16 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Yeats’s Dreaming Back, "Purgatory", and Trauma JF - Studi irlandesi. A Journal of Irish Studies JA - SiJis VL - 11 IS - 11 SE - Miscellanea DO - 10.13128/SIJIS-2239-3978-12891 UR - https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-sijis/article/view/12891 SP - AB - <p>As few plays can compare&nbsp;with&nbsp;Yeats’s late play&nbsp;<em>Purgatory&nbsp;</em>with&nbsp;its probe into the tormented human psyche,&nbsp;this&nbsp;play can be viewed as a precursor to trauma plays we see later in modern Irish theatre. Yeats’s&nbsp;<em>Purgatory</em>&nbsp;not only deals&nbsp;with&nbsp;a subject of generational trauma accompanied by grinding guilt, shame, anger, and despair but also establishes many of the defining features of later trauma plays through its hybrid form of realism, symbolism, Japanese Noh, minimalist setting, linear-cyclical structure, etc. Yeats’s interest in spiritualism and occultism also allows him a few profound glimpses into psychological studies: Yeats’s <em>A Vision</em>, though viewed by many as his philosophical writings on mystic spirituality, contains some pioneering insights into trauma. By placing <em>Purgatory</em> in dialogue with&nbsp;<em>A Vison</em>, I want to acknowledge&nbsp;<em>A Vision</em>&nbsp;as the theoretical framework for the play, which, however, does not reduce the play to a mere illustration of the theory Yeats outlines in his <em>A Vision</em>, but rather, enables us to understand the complicated process of working through trauma.</p> ER -