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Yeats's "perfect man"

"Far from being either a quasi-artistic quest for self-realization, or a conventional act of duty or conformity, however, [Robert] Gregory’s decision to sign up turns out to have been precipitated by an explosive personal drama that played out at Coole in the spring and summer of 1915. The circumstances of his enlistment would leave a significant mark on the writing of Yeats’s elegies, contributing to the strained and evasive qualities evident in the poems; and they would also permanently change Yeats’s transactions with Lady Gregory and the young Gregorys, and his conception of the Coole heritage itself."

-- from "Yeats's 'perfect man'"