(edit 30th August 2018 – for more on the uneasy relationship between another poet and Yeats, see here. For a TLS letter which also features Kipling (in a perhaps less than flattering light) see here. For yet another TLS letter to by, well myself, see here)
Sir, – Jan Montefiore’s review of Alexander Bubb’s book on Kipling and Yeats (February 24) deserves a footnote. The Irish journalist Lionel Fleming, while on the staff of the Irish Times, met Yeats several times. On one occasion Yeats remarked: “It might surprise you to know what I am reading. It is Kipling. I dislike his works so much that I feel sure it must have something to teach me” (see Fleming’s Head or Harp, 1965).
KLAUS PETER JOCHUM
University of Bamberg, 96045 Bamberg.
There’s also an interesting letter from Martin Scorsese responding to a review of “Silence” (at the same link)
Séamus Sweeney 