W. B. Yeats’s A Vision (1925)
The Historical Cones in A Vision
The red-and-black diagram that aligns dates, phases and historical Faculties in Yeats’s first A Vision.
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A symbol's meaning depends on its setting. Follow an object or image into the book, illustration or ritual that uses it, then compare other appearances while preserving their distinct contexts.
97 entries · A–Z
W. B. Yeats’s A Vision (1925)
The red-and-black diagram that aligns dates, phases and historical Faculties in Yeats’s first A Vision.
Dante, Purgatorio
A flexible shoreline plant becomes Dante's girdle before the mountain journey.
Austin Osman Spare’s allegorical drawings and verse in Earth Inferno (1905)
Spare’s recurring image of ordinary existence shaped by conventional belief, limited knowledge and inner conflict.
Literary symbolism in Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, English edition of 1907
Conflicting visions of the moon frame a tragedy in which looking becomes desire, warning and, finally, exposure.
Baughan’s historical astrology
Baughan describes the moon as a principal luminary and assigns its house or houses to Cancer.
L. Newton Hayes, The Chinese Dragon
Two dragons coil through a circular form on the moulded brick illustrated by Hayes.
Goethe’s Faust, Part One
The image of universal harmony that proves insufficient for the scholar.
Japanese legends in F. Hadland Davis’s English retellings (1912)
A luminous apparition leads fishermen to an abandoned sword, whose recovery resolves a coastal disturbance in Davis’s tale.
Manly P. Hall, The Sacred Magic of the Qabbalah
Hall makes the square an image of matter, resistance and a problem that spiritual effort must work through.
Baughan’s historical astrology
Baughan describes the sun as a principal luminary and assigns its house or houses to Leo.
Lord Dunsany, The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories; London: George Allen & Sons, 1908 title page
The preserved curved blade that passes from heroic relic to Rold’s weapon, then becomes the focus of his horror at war.
Norwegian fairy tales: Old Tales from the North
The apple, carding-comb and spinning-wheel that the girl trades for three nights of access to the prince.
Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
Maier’s first emblem pictures an infant inside a personified wind, joining the Latin motto to an image of Boreas.
Japanese mythology, Davis retelling
The paired jewels given to Hoori by the Sea God, said in the story to govern the rising and falling tide.
Japanese legends, Davis retelling
The gateway whose origin and form Davis discusses through competing interpretations.
Japanese legends, Davis retelling
The New Year vessel of the Gods of Luck and its fortunate cargo.
John Milton, Paradise Lost
The tree beside life whose knowledge becomes inseparable from the cost of knowing evil.
John Milton, Paradise Lost
The garden’s tallest tree, misused by Satan as a lookout.
Historical talisman traditions
A funerary emblem of the helping gesture of Horus.
Egyptian funerary religion
Small funerary figures that answer the deceased person’s summons to work.
Historical talisman traditions
The thunderbolt-scepter described as a Tibetan protective emblem.
Baughan’s historical astrology
Baughan describes venus as favourable and assigns its house or houses to Taurus and Libra.
W. B. Yeats’s introduction to W. T. Horton, A Book of Images (1898)
Yeats’s account of Horton turning reported waking visions into formal black-and-white drawings.
Buddhist traditions, Nivedita and Coomaraswamy
The tree beneath which the Buddha-elect withstands Mara and attains awakening.