"Imagination Is Now the World": W.B. Yeats and the Staging of Visionary Experience
Modern Drama June 1, 2021 Daniel Larlham
Throughout his career, W.B. Yeats was fascinated by the phenomenology of mental images and the mystical potential of imagination. This article examines how Yeats's beliefs—drawn from occult philosophy and séance experiences—shaped his dramaturgical choices, especially in his Noh-inspired 'plays for dancers.' His convictions about acting, staging, and scenography served an aesthetic and spiritual goal: to transform theatre into a visionary medium that, through poetic language, could restore audiences' connection to the 'world-soul' (anima mundi) in an industrialized, scientific age.