SOURCE: Miller, Liam. “W. B. Yeats and Stage Design at the Abbey Theatre.” Malahat Review, no. 16 (October 1970): 50-64.

In the following essay, Miller—a stage designer—discusses the “pioneering work in stage design” that occurred at the Abbey Theatre during the Irish Literary Renaissance.

Among the earliest published works of W. B. Yeats are three dramatic poems, “Mosada,” privately printed for the poet's father in the 1880's with a frontispiece showing Yeats at the time, “The Island of Statues” and “The Seeker,” none of which had been attempted on the stage, when, on July 1, 1887, he wrote from London to Katharine Tynan:

I do not think I shall ever find London very tolerable. It can give me nothing; I am not fond of the theatre, literary society bores me, I loathe crowds and was very content with Dublin, though even that was a little too populous

… but, although the...