‘Think of an Irish “wind that shakes the barley”. Then think of the East!’: How Lafcadio Hearn and W.B. Yeats mirrored Japan in Ireland.

W.B. Yeats cited Lafcadio Hearn for his favorite definition of poetry — ‘There is something ghostly in all great art’. Hearn was a world-famous writer when Yeats started out as a poet. Hearn lectured on Yeats in Japan. They corresponded. They shared similar social backgrounds and a lifelong interest in folklore dating back to their Irish childhood. Both produced their best mature work in collaboration with their wives. Hearn explained Japanese culture to the outside world and gave new life in English to Japanese ghost stories. Yeats turned the ghost stories underlying Noh theater into a new form of Irish art. The parallels between them offer useful insights into their work, and their work offers useful insights into Japan and Ireland.

Biographical Note:

Seán Golden was Professor of East Asia Studies at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona until retirement. He organized Yeats on Asia. Asia on Yeats, the International Yeats Society Symposium, in Barcelona (2016). Editor and co-author of Yeats and Asia: Overviews and Case Studies (Cork University Press, 2020), he has published and spoken extensively on Yeats. Co-editor with Peter Fallon of Soft Day. A Miscellany of Contemporary Irish Literature, he has published in Ireland in Cyphers, The Crane Bag, The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Force 10, The SHOp, and The Stinging Fly.

This talk is presented by the OPW in support of the Farmleigh Gallery exhibition Kwaidan – Encounters with Lafcadio Hearn, which runs until Sunday 24th August, and as part of the Farmleigh House cultural program for 2025.