Gerotranscendence as Literary Theory: Reading the Later Poems of Margaret Avison and W. B. Yeats

The concept of gerotranscendence has been explored recently in the fields of gerontology and social work as indicated in the OMNI discovery tool listing of 688 citations since 1991. Lars Tornstam’s seminal “Gerotranscendence: The Contemplative Dimension of Aging” was published in 1997, following his earlier work (“Reformulation”). Drawing on Erik Erikson’s theories of life stages, as well as work on older age as a developmental stage with its own characteristics, Tornstam identifies clusters of themes in the thinking of individuals whose attitudes suggest what he terms gerotranscendence. Such attributes associated with perceptions of time also suggest an enlargement of the boundaries between self and other, as well as a kind of temporal phenomenology in which distinctions between past and present are less important. This chapter highlights work in the social sciences on gerotranscendence and considers the extent to which this concept may prove useful to literary studies, particularly in contributing to the articulation of a later-life aesthetics in literary works. Literary examples include canonical works by W. B. Yeats (1865–1939), as well as the work of Canadian poet Margaret Avison (1918–2007).