As years pass, it must seem strange that there was ever a time when people looked up at the oddly-shaped mountain of Ben Bulben, shouldering up the Sligo sky, and did not think of William Butler Yeats. By choosing to be buried at its foot, and by writing his own epitaph, which includes the oft-quoted words, "Under bare Ben Bulben's head", Yeats has literally become part of the landscape.
For 42 years now, people have been coming from all over the world to attend the Yeats Summer School, which traditionally runs for the first two weeks of August. This year, there are some 110 students registered with the school, which celebrates Yeats's life and work.
They have travelled from places as diverse as New Zealand, Taiwan, Canada, Hungary, Japan, Spain, France, Britain, and the US. Why? For students of literature, the academic content of the fortnight is the draw. As is the fact that Sligo is small and relaxed; a place where interaction between students and lecturers is encouraged, and where useful contacts are no doubt made for the more ambitious. This year, the course director is Prof Bernard O'Donoghue from Wadham, Oxford, and the associate director is Prof Geraldine Higgins from Emory, Atlanta. They've put together a programme which includes such established speakers as Prof Hel en Vendler of Harvard, Prof John Kelly of St John's Oxford, Prof Edna Longley of Queen's, and Prof Declan Kiberd of UCD, as well as poets Seamus Heaney and Tom Paulin.
Carmen Bugam (31) has come over from the US to do her D Phil at Oxford, and this is her first time at the Yeats School. "The poetry of exile is my main theme," she says. Bugam has first-hand knowledge of exile: her whole family were moved out of Romania in 1989 by Amnesty International, just before the execution of the Ceausescus. Her father had spent time there in prison as punishment for protesting against communism.
She was 18 when they left. "It was a bit like a funeral when we left; we left a whole language and a culture." Bugam, who writes poetry, is hoping that being in Sligo will be like "filling up the camel's hump with water. Here, you can really connect the landscape with the poetry".
One student who is particularly vigilant with his camera, who snaps students, lecturers, and everything on two legs in the vicinity, as if he were on loan from Hello! is Youngmin Kim from Seoul University. He works in their department of English, and it's his fourth time in Sligo: he did his dissertation on Yeats. He has a theory that Korea and Ireland are identical politically, socially, and culturally. "We have Japan, you have England; we both like to drink and sing; and we both like poetry," he explains brightly. Kim holds up his pint of Guinness. "The Guinness is going inside, so then I become part of the culture, yes?"
On Sunday evening, the day the school has been officially opened by Michael B. Yeats, son of W.B., a sort of whisper drifts round the supper room of the Tower Hotel, where everyone has gathered after the opening. The whisper moves like the reeds on a the lake of a Yeats poem. It goes, SSSSShhhhaaaayyymmusssssss. Many people are discreetly and not-so-discreetly craning for a look at Seamus Heaney, who is sitting at a table with several of the lecturers, Michael B. Yeats, and novelist Thomas Flanagan.
Heaney's reading on the first day of the school is the ticket of the fortnight. For many of those in the room, half of whom are American, it's probably the first time they've seen the Nobel laureate. To see him sharing a table with the distinguished son of another of Ireland's laureates is the stuff that moments of history are made of.
At the first lecture of the fortnight the following morning, "Liking Yeats", Prof Bernard O'Donoghue addresses a full house from the stage of the Hawks Well Theatre. Seamus Heaney is in the audience, along with some of the school's lecturers. He's sitting at the end of a row, but I already know where he is by the reedy whisper and the bodies that sway in his direction. When O'Donoghue states at one point that Heaney is Yeats's successor, something which is often said, the reeds sway once more. It really must be very odd to sit there and hear something like that about yourself in public, in a theatre named after one of the plays which your named predecessor has written.
The interesting thing about the Yeats school is that it seems to have equal attraction for both academics and non-academics. It certainly has a packed programme: two morning lectures are followed by an afternoon of seminars or workshops in either poetry or drama, followed in the evening by plays, readings, or music, with everyone ending up in the Swan's bar at the end of the night. At the weekend, there are excursions to places of Yeats interest, such as Coole.
Olivia Linsley (61) is a psychologist from Boston, and has attended the school several times before, just for pleasure. She's sitting on a bench that overlooks the Garavogue river, with her registration folder beside her. "I love taking courses," she says simply. "While you're doing the school, you meet soulmates. They might not be permanent friendships, but they're great while you're here." It appears that women in particular like taking courses: they seem to make up most of the numbers. "Women are more open to learning new things all the time - look at the variation in ages here," said Mary Meyer from Chicago, as she waited in line for supper at the Tower Hotel the evening before.
Kathleen Burt from Santiago was standing beside her. It's her first time at the school, and the poetry workshops were the attraction for her.
"I write lots of poetry," she explained. "I've written a book on astrology, so I find Yeats very fascinating, especially his work with alchemy." "I heard someone saying that Yeats was in touch with his feminine side," Meyer interjected, wondering aloud if that is why so many women sign up. Now, that would make an interesting paper - Yeats, the New Man.
The Yeats Summer School continues until August 10th. More information from 071-42693 or www.yeats-sligo.com Among the lectures still to come are: Prof John Kelly of St John's Oxford, on "Yeats the Modernist" at 9.30 a.m. Thursday; Prof George O'Brien of Georgetown, Washington, on "Yeats's Fiction" at 9.30 a.m. Wednesday 8th; and poet Tom Paulin of Hertford College Oxford on "Blake and Ireland - Yeats, Joyce, and Van Morrison" at 11.15 a.m. the same day. Poet Jamie McKendrick reads at the Yeats Memorial Building at 9 p.m. Monday 6th; and Tom Paulin reads there at 9 p.m. on Wed 8th.
