W. B. Yeats’s A Vision (1925)
Primary and Antithetical in A Vision
In the 1925 A Vision, primary and antithetical name the contrasting objective and subjective tendencies that Yeats also calls Tinctures. His account associates primary with the Sun and attention to the external world, and antithetical with the Moon and inward image-making. He describes human types through the proportions in which these tendencies combine. The first and fifteenth phases are presented as wholly objective and wholly subjective limits rather than ordinary human embodiments. The distinction is specific to the book’s classification; it should not be substituted for the meanings of objective and subjective in every philosophical discussion.
Also known as The two Tinctures in A Vision
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In the sources
Solar and lunar limits
DocumentedThe exposition gives the first and fifteenth phases the full-Sun and full-Moon positions.
A proportion rather than a single label
DocumentedThe following discussion describes people by the proportion in which the objective/primary and subjective/antithetical Tinctures combine.
Context & interpretation
This entry follows the complete edition of A Vision dated 1925 held in the Reader. It does not import revisions from the substantially different 1937 version. The terminology describes Yeats’s literary and esoteric model; references to types, faculties, phases or history are attributed to that model rather than presented as established psychology, astronomy or historical laws.
Original passages
Source 1
A Vision
The first phase is therefore full SunOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Book I, The Great Wheel, section I, printed p. 12
Actual checksum-verified active Reader scan inspected. Short quotation transcribed from the scan; line breaks and spacing normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0374-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0374-E001-P0032
- Original scan leaf
- 37
- Recorded leaf number
- 37
- Current Reader position
- 33
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
Source 2
A Vision
the objective or primary, the subjective or antitheticalOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Book I, The Great Wheel, printed p. 14
Actual checksum-verified active Reader scan inspected. Short quotation transcribed from the scan; line breaks and spacing normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0374-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0374-E001-P0034
- Original scan leaf
- 39
- Recorded leaf number
- 39
- Current Reader position
- 35
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
Illustrations
Continue exploring
The Four Faculties in A Vision
Will, Mask, Creative Mind and Body of Fate: the four interacting faculties in Yeats’s 1925 model.
Shared source pageThe Great Wheel in A Vision
The circular diagram through which Yeats organises twenty-eight phases, contrasting tendencies and human types.
Same subject and traditionGyres in A Vision
Expanding and contracting figures through which Yeats represents opposed tendencies and their movement.