Patrilineage and Transgenerational Trauma in Yeats’s "Purgatory" (1939)

Abstract

This paper offers a novel dramaturgical reading of Yeats’s 1939 verse play Purgatory to explore the representation of patrilineage from the point of view of transgenerational trauma. In psychological studies, there is a growing body of evidence attesting to the fact that trauma experienced by an individual can significantly affect their children and even grandchildren, although these generations have not had a first-had experience of the initial trauma. This paper, therefore, not only offers a close dramaturgical reading of Yeats’s Purgatory in light of patrilineage, but it also employs cultural trauma theory and some aspects of clinical trauma studies as a new frame of reference to gain a more thorough and topical understanding of what Yeats’s drama has to offer to contemporary audiences.