The essays collected in W. B. Yeats's “A Vision”: Explications and Contexts off er exegesis and interpretation of this notoriously knotty and peculiar work, as well as examining several of the contexts implicated in A Vision. However, the collection as a whole is also an eff ort of advocacy that seeks to demonstrate and champion A Vision's interest and value. It is, perhaps surprisingly, the first ever volume of essays devoted to A Vision. As such, it could be regarded as part of a third stage in approaches and attitudes to this curious and underanalyzed part of the Yeatsian canon.

The first stage, which prevailed until the sixties, was characterized largely by incomprehension of the work itself and disdain for Yeats's occult interests more generally, most famously summarized in Auden's comment “how embarrassing,” and his observation that “though there is scarcely a lyric written to-day in which the influence of his style and rhythm is not detectable, one whole side of Yeats, the side summed up in the Vision, has left virtually no trace.” The comment may have had some justice with regard to creative influence but says nothing of intrinsic worth. Those for whom Yeats's thought was of interest tended to show a more open-minded acceptance that this “side” was part of the poet's own particular make-up and had been important to his inspiration, and individual critics wrote with varying degrees of personal sympathy. For many, it was a prominent landmark in the terrain that had to be taken into account, with obvious links to some of the most powerful lyrics that Yeats ever wrote, but one to be dealt with as cursorily as possible. For others, including Richard Ellmann, Virginia Moore, Thomas Henn, F. A. C. Wilson, A. G. Stock, and Morton Irving Seiden, A Vision had its place as a source and epitome of Yeats's creative ideas in the latter part of Yeats's life.