His Mistress's Eyebrows
The text examines the nature of artistic and literary creation as an evolving process driven by inherent instinct rather than deliberate reason. It argues that once the initial allure of any subject or form has been exhausted by repeated exposure, art naturally seeks out new, often stranger and more elusive manifestations of beauty. This continual pursuit is fueled by the fact that the mind cannot experience the same state of wonder twice; it must move on to explore the obscure or hidden once the simple forms have become overly familiar. It contends that the hierarchical valuation by critics—placing epic and dramatic works above lyric and other forms—is ultimately arbitrary, for true artistic selection arises out of personal instinct and reaction rather than a calculated intellectual decision. The text posits that while deliberate actions can alter characters in literature, the transformative power of art on its subject matter is largely unconscious. As art’s “logical energies” work to reframe and refashion even the simplest things, different eras continually reinvent classic themes and styles. Furthermore, the passage suggests that civilization itself must inevitably undergo cycles of deconstruction and rebirth in both artistic and cultural expressions. Traditional forms, once discarded in favor of novel approaches, resurface reinvigorated, as seen in the re-interpretation of classical motifs and narratives. This implies that the evolution of art and literature is not a linear progression of improvement but a cyclic process in which past forms continually influence and merge with emerging ones. In essence, the work presents a meditation on the inexorable drive within art to seek out new territory when familiar avenues lose their appeal, underscoring a tension between intellectual criticism and the uncontrollable force of instinct in shaping both artistic creation and reception.
By W.B. Yeats · First published 1899 · Genre: Literary Criticism, Philosophical Essay, Modernist Literature · 616 words
First lines
The preoccupation of our Art and Literature with knowledge, with the surface of life, with the arbitrary, with mechanism, has arisen out of the root. A careful, but not necessarily very subtle man could foretell the history of any religion if he knew its first principle, and that it would live long enough to fulfil itself. The mind can never do the same thing twice over, and having exhausted simple beauty and meaning, it passes to the strange and hidden, and at last must find its delight, having outrun its harmonies in the emphatic and discordant. When I was a boy at the art school I watched an older student late returned from Paris, with a wonder that had no understanding in it. He was very amorous, and every new love was the occasion of a new picture, and every new picture was uglier than its forerunner. He was excited about his mistress's eyebrows, as was fitting, but the interest of beauty had been exhausted by the logical energies of Art, which destroys where it has rummaged, and can but discover, whether it will or no. We cannot discover our subject-matter by deliberate intellect, for when a subject-matter ceases to move us we must go elsewhere, and when it moves us, even though it be 'that old ballad material of Shakespeare' or even 'the morbid terror of death,' we can laugh at reason. We must not ask is the world interested in this or that, for nothing is in question but our own interest, and we can understand no other. Our place in the Hierarchy is settled for us by our choice of a subject-matter, and all good criticism is hieratic, delighting in setting things above one another, Epic and Drama above Lyric and so on, and not merely side by side.
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His Mistress's Eyebrows is listed on Textopian as a short story by W.B. Yeats, dated 1899 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Short story
- Author: W.B. Yeats
- Date: 1899 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Literary Criticism, Philosophical Essay, Modernist Literature, Aesthetic Theory, Cultural Commentary
- Length: 616 words
- Structure: 1 section, 2 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Difficult (College Level)
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Similar titles
- The Romance Of Rhyme by G. K. Chesterton
- The Thinking Of The Body by W. B. Yeats
- Rose Of All The World by D. H. Lawrence
- The Perfume Of Eros by Edgar Saltus
- Smoke by Theophile Gautier
- The Tower by G. K. Chesterton
Genres
- Literary Criticism — The work examines the evolution of art and literature, scrutinizing the selection of subject matter and hierarchy in creative expression.
- Philosophical Essay — It engages in abstract reflections on aesthetics and the nature of artistic creation, typical of philosophical inquiry.
- Modernist Literature — The text reflects modernist preoccupations with fragmentation of meaning and the deconstruction of traditional forms in art and literature.
- Aesthetic Theory — The discussion of beauty, form, and the logical energies of art aligns with explorations in aesthetic theory.
Tags
romance · drama · suspense · intimacy · passion · mystery · seduction · poetic · symbolism · mythology · feminine · allure