[Gutenberg 5794] • Rosa Alchemica

For those who are familiar with Yeats' poetry, particulary his beloved early poems like "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," reading "Rosa Alchemica" is an experience of joy. Called by critics his best work of fiction, "Rosa Alchemica" incorporates not only the lush language and imagery of early Yeats, but also his personal interests: Irish culture, myth and legend, and his lifelong membership in the society of the Golden Dawn, a secret society that believed it could practice magic. Yeats believed that "poetry and romance cannot be made by the most conscientious study of famous moments and of the thoughts and feelings of others, but only by looking into that little, infinite, faltering, eternal flame that we call ourselves."