In the following essay, Johnston examines Yeats's attempts to define himself and integrate various aspects of his personality in Autobiographies.

Although an access has been opened to Yeats's autobiography by two astute essays on this work as well as by the many recent studies of this newly discovered genre, at least three critical problems continue to block a full understanding and appreciation of this autobiographical masterpiece. First, it is not clear which edition to prefer, the 1926 Autobiographies or The Autobiography of 1938. Secondly, and most significant, both works seem built on contrary intentions: the memoirist's desire to define his own place in a fluctuating and discontinuous society and the apologist's efforts to recreate an integral self - an essential, unique, and continuous self-image. Finally, the conclusions to both works seem to abandon the apologist's problem and to offer a somewhat artificial solution to the problem of disunity in...