International conference explores links between two major Irish writers

This year’s annual James Joyce Italian Foundation conference in Rome on 2-3 February is entitled Yeats, Joyce and the Revival.

The international conference marks the year-long international celebration of the life and works of the Nobel Prize-winning poet William Butler Yeats, on the 150th anniversary of his birth in 1865.

Among many other things the conference will go beyond the following anecdote about the two Irish writers: Yeats was already a well-established literary figure when, in October 1902, he met Joyce for the first time. At the end of their exchange Joyce asked Yeats how old he was. Yeats said he was 38 (he was actually 39) but Joyce replied: “I thought as much. I have met you too late. You are too old.”

The conference will show that this is far from the whole story and explore the many connections between these two great figures of Irish and of world literature within the context of the Irish Literary Revival.

The speakers are from Italy, Ireland, Britain, Germany, Singapore, Turkey, Georgia, the US and Brazil, and will include Prof. Matthew Campbell (University of York) and associate director of the Annual Yeats Summer School; Fritz Senn, director of the Zurich James Joyce Foundation; Barry McCrea, University of Notre Dame; Ronan Crowley (University of Passau).

For further information see website or contact joyce.foundation@uniroma3.it or john.mccourt@uniroma3.it.