Adventures in the Deeps of the Mind : Princeton University Press : 9780691616537 : 0691616531 : 05 Nov 2019 : Barton Freidman demonstrates that, as a cycle, the Cuchulain plays form a paradigm of Yeats's dramatic career. They trace his progress, the author contends, toward finding a genuine dramatic mode, and examination of this process reveals much about a playwright whose work is simultaneously great literature and extaordinarily effective theater. In his interpretation of the Cuchulain cycle the author concentrates upon dramatic method. He examines first the evolution of Yeats's dramatic aesthetic and his attempts to translate it into practice. He then treats each play of the cycle in order of composition, moving from On Baile's Strand, of which the first version was begun in 1901, to The Death of Cuchulain completed in 1939. Deirdre is included, since it demonstrably belongs to the cycle. Professor Freidman discusses not only the plays in their final form but, in crucial instances,