'The Passionless Passion of Slaughter': Heroism and the Aesthetics of Violence

TY - CHAP

T1 - 'The Passionless Passion of Slaughter'

T2 - Heroism and the Aesthetics of Violence

AU - Bubb, Alexander

PY - 2019/7/11

Y1 - 2019/7/11

N2 - Kipling and Yeats led not only parallel but also curiously intertwined lives. Born in a colonial milieu, each was painfully wrenched from his boyhood haunts to be schooled in England, later rediscovering his homeland at the age of sixteen. Besides their interest in the visual arts, both men were similarly preoccupied with heroism, with folklore, balladry and the demotic voice. They were drawn to heterodox religion, and each devoted much time to secretive and hierarchical orders—in Kipling’s case Freemasonry, in Yeats’s Theosophy, and later the Golden Dawn. Most of all, both struck vatic postures, and made bids for public authority premised on an appeal to what they considered the ‘philomythic’, or myth-loving, impulse in fin-de-siècle culture. From the letters and memoirs left by their interlocutors and go-betweens, and from a study of their reception in contemporary periodicals, a picture of Kipling and Yeats embedded within their shared social nexus gradually emerges.© 2019, The Author(s). The attached document (embargoed until 11/01/2021) is an author produced version of a chapter published in KIPLING AND YEATS AT 150: RETROSPECTIVES/PERSPECTIVES uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self- archiving policy. The final published version (version of record) is available online at the link. Some minor differences between this version and the final published version may remain. We suggest you refer to the final published version should you wish to cite from it.

AB - Kipling and Yeats led not only parallel but also curiously intertwined lives. Born in a colonial milieu, each was painfully wrenched from his boyhood haunts to be schooled in England, later rediscovering his homeland at the age of sixteen. Besides their interest in the visual arts, both men were similarly preoccupied with heroism, with folklore, balladry and the demotic voice. They were drawn to heterodox religion, and each devoted much time to secretive and hierarchical orders—in Kipling’s case Freemasonry, in Yeats’s Theosophy, and later the Golden Dawn. Most of all, both struck vatic postures, and made bids for public authority premised on an appeal to what they considered the ‘philomythic’, or myth-loving, impulse in fin-de-siècle culture. From the letters and memoirs left by their interlocutors and go-betweens, and from a study of their reception in contemporary periodicals, a picture of Kipling and Yeats embedded within their shared social nexus gradually emerges.© 2019, The Author(s). The attached document (embargoed until 11/01/2021) is an author produced version of a chapter published in KIPLING AND YEATS AT 150: RETROSPECTIVES/PERSPECTIVES uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self- archiving policy. The final published version (version of record) is available online at the link. Some minor differences between this version and the final published version may remain. We suggest you refer to the final published version should you wish to cite from it.

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9781138343900

SP - 213

EP - 226

BT - Kipling and Yeats at 150

A2 - Varma, Promodini

A2 - Pradhan, Anubhav

PB - Routledge India

ER -