W. B. Yeats’s introduction to W. T. Horton, A Book of Images (1898)
Symbol and Allegory in Yeats
In his introduction to Horton’s A Book of Images, Yeats begins by arguing that readers often confuse symbolism with allegory. He recounts a discussion with an unnamed German artist who thought a symbol needed instinctive understanding, while an allegory needed knowledge of its meaning. Yeats partly accepts this distinction but resists making it absolute: a traditional flower can still contribute to an expressive symbol. His examples place bodily forms, light and inherited religious images within a continuing imaginative tradition. He argues that a powerful symbol can yield different meanings to successive generations, whereas the explanation of an allegorical subject may exhaust its particular message. This is Yeats’s account of artistic meaning in 1898, rather than a universal dictionary for decoding Horton’s drawings.
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In the sources
A distinction under discussion
DocumentedYeats reports an artist’s distinction between instinctive understanding of symbols and learned explanation of allegory.
An unresolved boundary
DocumentedYeats allows traditional emblems into symbolic art and says it is hard to locate the exact point where the two forms merge.
Meaning across generations
DocumentedHis comparison of paintings argues that a symbol can sustain different readings beyond one generation’s account.
An invitation to look again
InterpretationThe distinction encourages repeated attention to an image rather than treating its title as a complete answer to its meaning.
Context & interpretation
This entry records Yeats’s aesthetic argument and the debate he recounts. It does not establish fixed meanings for every symbol, identify the unnamed artist, or claim that all art follows this distinction.
Original passages
Source 1
A Book of Images
they confuse symbol and allegoryOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: W. B. Yeats, Introduction to A Book of Images (1898), printed p. 7
Printed introduction and cited passage inspected in the public Reader.
- Edition
- IMJ-0249-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0249-E001-P0004
- Original scan leaf
- 11
- Recorded leaf number
- 11
- Current Reader position
- 5
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
Source 2
A Book of Images
needed but a right instinct for its understandingOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: W. B. Yeats, Introduction to A Book of Images (1898), printed p. 8
Printed introduction and cited passage inspected in the public Reader.
- Edition
- IMJ-0249-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0249-E001-P0005
- Original scan leaf
- 12
- Recorded leaf number
- 12
- Current Reader position
- 6
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
Source 3
A Book of Images
no symbol tells all its meaning to any generationOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: W. B. Yeats, Introduction to A Book of Images (1898), printed p. 9
Printed introduction and cited passage inspected in the public Reader.
- Edition
- IMJ-0249-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0249-E001-P0006
- Original scan leaf
- 13
- Recorded leaf number
- 13
- Current Reader position
- 7
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
