DAPHNE FULLWOOD The Influence on W. B. Yeats Of Some French Poets (Mallarmé, Verlaine, Claudel) T: SENSE IN which I use the word “influence” is per- haps best defined by Shelley’s words in his Preface to “The Revolt of Islam” when he said: “There must be a resemblance, which does not depend upon their own will, between all the writers of any particular age. They cannot escape from subjection to a common influence which arises out of an infinite combination of circumstances belonging to the times in which they live, though each is in a degree the author of the very influence by which his being is thus pervaded,” for I do not wish to suggest any direct borrowing on Yeats’s part from these French writers. As Yeats himself wrote, “we do not seek truth in argument or in books but clarification of what we already believe.” I think that these French poets may have given Yeats the solidarity of shared belief, or may have helped him to a clarification of what he already instinctively apprehended. George Moore’s amused incredulity that Yeats with his limited knowledge of French could possibly understand Jammes or Péguy has been echoed many times since. But such condescension is more flatter- 356 Ws 92012 eA apd ers scence em