From 1900 his poetry grew more physical,realistic and politicised. He moved away from the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with some elements including cyclical theories of life. He had become the chief playwright for theIrish Literary Theatre in 1897, and early on promoted younger poets such asEzra Pound. His major works includeThe Land of Heart's Desire (1894),Cathleen ni Houlihan (1902),Deirdre (1907),The Wild Swans at Coole (1919),The Tower (1928) andLast Poems and Plays (1940).
William Butler Yeats was born inSandymount inCounty Dublin, Ireland.[1] His fatherJohn was a descendant of Jervis Yeats, aWilliamite soldier, linen merchant, and well-known painter, who died in 1712.[2] Benjamin Yeats, Jervis's grandson and William's great-great-grandfather, had in 1773[3] married Mary Butler[4] of alanded family inCounty Kildare.[5] Following their marriage, they kept the name Butler. Mary was of the Butler of NeighamGowran family, descended from an illegitimate brother ofThe 8th Earl of Ormond.[6] At the time of his marriage, his father, John, was studying law but later pursued art studies atHeatherley School of Fine Art, in London.[7]
William's mother,Susan Mary Pollexfen, fromSligo, came from a wealthy merchant family, who owned a milling and shipping business. Soon after William's birth, the family relocated to the Pollexfen home at Merville, Sligo, to stay with her extended family, and the young poet came to think of the area as his childhood and spiritual home. Its landscape became, over time, both personally and symbolically, his "country of the heart".[8] So too did its location by the sea; John Yeats stated that "by marriage with a Pollexfen, we have given a tongue to the sea cliffs".[9]
Yeats was raised a member of theProtestant Ascendancy, which was at the time undergoing a crisis of identity. While his family was supportive of the changes Ireland was experiencing, the nationalist revival of the late 19th century directly disadvantaged his heritage and informed his outlook for the remainder of his life. In 1997, his biographerR. F. Foster observed thatNapoleon's dictum that to understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty "is manifestly true of W.B.Y."[12] Yeats's childhood and young adulthood were shadowed by the power-shift away from the minority Protestant Ascendancy. The 1880s saw the rise ofCharles Stewart Parnell and thehome rule movement; the 1890s saw the momentum ofnationalism, while theIrish Catholics became prominent around the turn of the century. These developments had a profound effect on his poetry, and his subsequent explorations of Irish identity had a significant influence on the creation of his country's biography.[13]
In 1867, the family moved to England to aid their father, John, to further his career as an artist. At first, the Yeats children were educated at home. Their mother entertained them with stories and Irish folktales. John provided an erratic education in geography and chemistry and took William on natural history explorations of the nearbySlough countryside.[14] On 26 January 1877, the young poet entered theGodolphin School,[15] which he attended for four years. He did not distinguish himself academically, and an early school report describes his performance as "only fair. Perhaps better in Latin than in any other subject. Very poor in spelling".[16] Though he had difficulty with mathematics and languages (possibly because he wastone deaf[17] and haddyslexia[18]), he was fascinated by biology and zoology. In 1879 the family moved toBedford Park taking a two-year lease at 8 Woodstock Road.[19] For financial reasons, the family returned to Dublin toward the end of 1880, living at first in the suburbs ofHarold's Cross[20] and later inHowth. In October 1881, Yeats resumed his education at Dublin'sErasmus Smith High School.[21] His father's studio was nearby and William spent a great deal of time there, where he met many of the city's artists and writers. During this period he started writing poetry, and, in 1885, theDublin University Review published Yeats's first poems, as well as an essay entitled "The Poetry ofSir Samuel Ferguson". Between 1884 and 1886, William attended the Metropolitan School of Art—now theNational College of Art and Design—inThomas Street.[1] In March 1888 the family moved to 3 Blenheim Road in Bedford Park[22] where they would remain until 1902.[19] The rent on the house in 1888 was £50 a year.[19]
Yeats began writing his first works when he was seventeen; these included a poem—heavily influenced byPercy Bysshe Shelley—that describes a magician who set up a throne in central Asia. Other pieces from this period include a draft of a play about a bishop, a monk, and a woman accused ofpaganism by local shepherds, as well as love-poems and narrative lyrics on German knights. The early works were both conventional and, according to the critic Charles Johnston, "utterly unIrish", seeming to come out of a "vast murmurous gloom of dreams".[23] Although Yeats's early works drew heavily on Shelley,Edmund Spenser, and on the diction and colouring ofpre-Raphaelite verse, he soon turned toIrish mythology and folklore and the writings ofWilliam Blake. In later life, Yeats paid tribute to Blake by describing him as one of the "great artificers of God who uttered great truths to a little clan".[24] In 1891, Yeats publishedJohn Sherman and "Dhoya", one a novella, the other a story. The influence ofOscar Wilde is evident in Yeats's theory of aesthetics, especially in his stage plays, and runs like a motif through his early works.[25] The theory of masks, developed by Wilde in his polemicThe Decay of Lying can clearly be seen in Yeats's playThe Player Queen,[26] while the more sensual characterisation of Salomé, in Wilde'splay of the same name, provides the template for the changes Yeats made in his later plays, especially inOn Baile's Strand (1904),Deirdre (1907), and his dance playThe King of the Great Clock Tower (1934).[27]
Yeats had a lifelong interest in mysticism,spiritualism,occultism andastrology. He read extensively on the subjects throughout his life, became a member of theparanormal research organisation "The Ghost Club" (in 1911) and was influenced by the writings ofEmanuel Swedenborg.[28] In 1892 Yeats wrote: "If I had not made magic my constant study I could not have written a single word of my Blake book, nor wouldThe Countess Kathleen ever have come to exist. The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write."[29] His mystical interests—also inspired by a study of Hinduism, under theTheosophistMohini Chatterjee, and the occult—formed much of the basis of his late poetry. Some critics disparaged this aspect of Yeats's work.[30]
During 1885, Yeats was involved in the formation of the Dublin Hermetic Order. That year the Dublin Theosophical lodge was opened in conjunction with BrahminMohini Chatterjee, who travelled from theTheosophical Society in London to lecture. Yeats attended his firstséance the following year.
Yeats was admitted into theHermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in March 1890 and took themagical mottoDaemon est Deus inversus—translated as 'Devil is God inverted'.[a] He was an active recruiter for the sect'sIsis-Urania Temple, and brought in his uncle George Pollexfen,Maud Gonne, andFlorence Farr. Although he reserved a distaste for abstract and dogmatic religions founded around personality cults, he was attracted to the type of people he met at the Golden Dawn.[31] He became heavily involved with Theosophy and with the eclecticRosicrucianism of theHermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He was involved in the Order's power struggles, both with Farr andMacgregor Mathers, and was involved when Mathers sentAleister Crowley to repossess Golden Dawn paraphernalia during the "Battle of Blythe Road". After the Golden Dawn ceased and splintered into various offshoots, Yeats remained with theStella Matutina until 1921.[32]
During séances held from 1912, a spirit calling itself "Leo Africanus" apparently claimed it was Yeats'sDaemon or anti-self, inspiring some of the speculations inPer Amica Silentia Lunae.[33]
Yeats first significant poem was "The Island of Statues", a fantasy work that tookEdmund Spenser and Shelley for its poetic models. The piece was serialized in theDublin University Review. Yeats wished to include it in his first collection, but it was deemed too long, and in fact, was never republished in his lifetime. Quinx Books published the poem in complete form for the first time in 2014. His first solo publication was the pamphletMosada: A Dramatic Poem (1886), which comprised a print run of 100 copies paid for by his father. This was followed by the collectionThe Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889), which arranged a series of verse that dated as far back as the mid-1880s. The long title poem contains, in the words of his biographerR. F. Foster, "obscure Gaelic names, striking repetitions [and] an unremitting rhythm subtly varied as the poem proceeded through its three sections":[34]
We rode in sorrow, with strong hounds three, Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair, On a morning misty and mild and fair. The mist-drops hung on the fragrant trees, And in the blossoms hung the bees. We rode in sadness above Lough Lean, For our best were dead on Gavra's green.
"The Wanderings of Oisin" is based on the lyrics of theFenian Cycle ofIrish mythology and displays the influence of both Sir Samuel Ferguson and the Pre-Raphaelite poets.[35] The poem took two years to complete and was one of the few works from this period that he did not disown in his maturity.Oisin introduces what was to become one of his most important themes: the appeal of the life of contemplation over the appeal of the life of action. Following the work, Yeats never again attempted another long poem. His other early poems, which are meditations on the themes of love or mystical and esoteric subjects, includePoems (1895),The Secret Rose (1897), andThe Wind Among the Reeds (1899). The covers of these volumes were illustrated by Yeats's friendAlthea Gyles.[36]
In 1890 Yeats andErnest Rhys co-founded theRhymers' Club,[37] a group of London-based poets who met regularly in a Fleet Street tavern to recite their verse. Yeats later sought to mythologize the collective, calling it the "Tragic Generation" in his autobiography,[38] and published two anthologies of the Rhymers' work, the first one in 1892 and the second one in 1894. He collaborated withEdwin Ellis on the first complete edition of William Blake's works, in the process rediscovering a forgotten poem, "Vala, or, the Four Zoas".[39][40]
In 1889, Yeats met Maud Gonne, a 23-year-old English heiress and ardent Irish nationalist.[b] She was eighteen months younger than Yeats and later claimed she met the poet as a "paint-stained art student."[41] Gonne admired "The Island of Statues" and sought out his acquaintance. Yeats began an obsessive infatuation, and she had a significant and lasting effect on his poetry and his life thereafter.[42] In later years he admitted, "it seems to me that she [Gonne] brought into my life those days—for as yet I saw only what lay upon the surface—the middle of the tint, a sound as of a Burmese gong, an over-powering tumult that had yet many pleasant secondary notes."[43] Yeats's love was unrequited, in part due to his reluctance to participate in her nationalist activism.[44]
In 1891 he visited Gonne in Ireland and proposed marriage, but was rejected. He later admitted that from that point "the troubling of my life began".[45] Yeats proposed to Gonne three more times: in 1899, 1900 and 1901. She refused each proposal, and in 1903, to his dismay, married the Irish nationalistMajor John MacBride.[46] His only other love affair during this period was withOlivia Shakespear, whom he first met in 1894, and parted from in 1897.
W. B. Yeats (no date)
Yeats derided MacBride in letters and in poetry. He was horrified by Gonne's marriage, at losing his muse to another man; in addition, her conversion to Catholicism before marriage offended the Protestant/agnostic Yeats. He worried his muse would come under the influence of the priests and do their bidding.[47]
Gonne's marriage to MacBride was a disaster. This pleased Yeats, as Gonne began to visit him in London. After the birth of her son,Seán MacBride, in 1904, Gonne and MacBride agreed to end the marriage, although they were unable to agree on the child's welfare. Despite the use of intermediaries, a divorce case ensued in Paris in 1905. Gonne made a series of allegations against her husband with Yeats as her main 'second', though he did not attend court or travel to France. A divorce was not granted, for the only accusation that held up in court was that MacBride had been drunk once during the marriage. A separation was granted, with Gonne having custody of the baby and MacBride having visiting rights.[48]
In 1895, Yeats moved into number 5Woburn Walk and resided there until 1919.[49]
Yeats's friendship with Gonne ended, yet, in Paris in 1908, they finally consummated their relationship. "The long years of fidelity rewarded at last" was how another of his lovers described the event. Yeats was less sentimental and later remarked that "the tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul."[45] The relationship did not develop into a new phase after their night together, and soon afterwards Gonne wrote to the poet indicating that despite the physical consummation, they could not continue as they had been: "I have prayed so hard to have all earthly desire taken from my love for you and dearest, loving you as I do, I have prayed and I am praying still that the bodily desire for me may be taken from you too."[50] By January 1909, Gonne was sending Yeats letters praising the advantage given to artists who abstain from sex. Nearly twenty years later, Yeats recalled the night with Gonne in his poem "A Man Young and Old":[51]
My arms are like the twisted thorn And yet there beauty lay; The first of all the tribe lay there And did such pleasure take; She who had brought greatHector down And put all Troy to wreck.
In 1896, Yeats was introduced toLady Gregory by their mutual friendEdward Martyn. Gregory encouraged Yeats's nationalism and convinced him to continue focusing on writing drama. Although he was influenced by FrenchSymbolism, Yeats concentrated on an identifiably Irish content and this inclination was reinforced by his involvement with a new generation of younger and emerging Irish authors. Together with Lady Gregory, Martyn, and other writers includingJ. M. Synge,Seán O'Casey, andPadraic Colum, Yeats was one of those responsible for the establishment of the "Irish Literary Revival" movement.[52] Apart from these creative writers, much of the impetus for the Revival came from the work of scholarly translators who were aiding in the discovery of both the ancient sagas and Ossianic poetry and the more recent folk song tradition in Irish. One of the most significant of these wasDouglas Hyde, later the first President of Ireland, whoseLove Songs of Connacht was widely admired.
In 1899, Yeats, Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn andGeorge Moore founded theIrish Literary Theatre to promote Irish plays.[53] The ideals of the Abbey were derived from the avant-garde French theatre, which sought to express the "ascendancy of the playwright rather than the actor-managerà l'anglais."[54][55] The group's manifesto, which Yeats wrote, declared, "We hope to find in Ireland an uncorrupted & imaginative audience trained to listen by its passion for oratory ... & that freedom to experiment which is not found in the theatres of England, & without which no new movement in art or literature can succeed."[56] Yeats's interest in the classics and his defiance of English censorship were also fueled by a tour of America he took between 1903 and 1904. Stopping to deliver a lecture at theUniversity of Notre Dame, he learned about the student production of theOedipus Rex.[57] This play was banned in England, an act he viewed as hypocritical and denounced as part of 'British Puritanism'.[58] He contrasted this with the artistic freedom of the Catholicism found at Notre Dame, which had allowed such a play with themes such as incest and parricide.[58] He desired to stage a production of theOedipus Rex in Dublin.[57][58]
The collective survived for about two years but was unsuccessful. Working with the Irish brothers with theatrical experience,William andFrank Fay, Yeats's unpaid but independently wealthy secretaryAnnie Horniman, and the leadingWest End actressFlorence Farr, the group established theIrish National Theatre Society. Along with Synge, they acquired property in Dublin and on 27 December 1904 opened theAbbey Theatre. Yeats's playCathleen ni Houlihan and Lady Gregory'sSpreading the News were featured on the opening night. Yeats remained involved with the Abbey until his death, both as a member of the board and a prolific playwright. In 1902, he helped set up theDun Emer Press to publish work by writers associated with the Revival. This became theCuala Press in 1904, and inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement, sought to "find work for Irish hands in the making of beautiful things."[59] From then until its closure in 1946, the press—which was run by the poet's sisters—produced over 70 titles; 48 of them books by Yeats himself.
Yeats met the American poetEzra Pound in 1909. Pound had travelled to London at least partly to meet the older man, whom he considered "the only poet worthy of serious study."[60] From 1913 until 1916, the two men wintered in the Stone Cottage atAshdown Forest, with Pound nominally acting as Yeats's secretary. The relationship got off to a rocky start when Pound arranged for the publication in the magazinePoetry of some of Yeats's verse with Pound's own unauthorised alterations. These changes reflected Pound's distaste for Victorian prosody. A more indirect influence was the scholarship on JapaneseNoh plays that Pound had obtained fromErnest Fenollosa's widow, which provided Yeats with a model for the aristocratic drama he intended to write. The first of his plays modelled on Noh wasAt the Hawk's Well, the first draft of which he dictated to Pound in January 1916.[61]
The emergence of a nationalist revolutionary movement from the ranks of the mostly Roman Catholic lower-middle and working class made Yeats reassess some of his attitudes. In the refrain of "Easter, 1916" ("All changed, changed utterly / A terrible beauty is born"), Yeats faces his own failure to recognise the merits of the leaders of theEaster Rising, due to his attitude towards their ordinary backgrounds and lives.[62] Yeats was close to Lady Gregory and her home place ofCoole Park, County Galway. He would often visit and stay there as it was a central meeting place for people who supported the resurgence of Irish literature and cultural traditions. His poem, "The Wild Swans at Coole" was written there, between 1916 and 1917.
He wrote prefaces for two books of Irish mythological tales, compiled by Lady Gregory:Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902), andGods and Fighting Men (1904). In the preface of the latter, he wrote: "One must not expect in these stories the epic lineaments, the many incidents, woven into one great event of, let us say the War for theBrown Bull of Cuailgne or that of the last gathering at Muirthemne."[63]
Yeats in Dublin on 12 December 1922, at the start of his term as member of theSeanad Eireann
Yeats was anIrish nationalist, who sought a kind of traditional lifestyle articulated through poems such as 'The Fisherman'. But as his life progressed, he sheltered much of his revolutionary spirit and distanced himself from theintense political landscape until1922, when he was appointed Senator for theIrish Free State.[64][65]
In the earlier part of his life, Yeats was a member of theIrish Republican Brotherhood.[66] In the 1930s, Yeats was fascinated with the authoritarian, anti-democratic, nationalist movements of Europe, and he composed several marching songs for theBlueshirts, although they were never used. He was a fierce opponent of individualism and political liberalism and saw the fascist movements as a triumph of public order and the needs of the national collective over petty individualism. He was an elitist who abhorred the idea of mob-rule, and saw democracy as a threat to good governance and public order.[67] After the Blueshirt movement began to falter in Ireland, he distanced himself somewhat from his previous views, but maintained a preference for authoritarian and nationalist leadership.[68]
By 1916, Yeats was 51 years old and determined to marry and produce an heir. His rival,John MacBride, had been executed for his role in the 1916Easter Rising, so Yeats hoped that his widow,Maud Gonne, might remarry.[69] His final proposal to Gonne took place in mid-1916.[70] Gonne's history of revolutionary political activism, as well as a series of personal catastrophes in the previous few years of her life—includingchloroform addiction and her troubled marriage to MacBride—made her a potentially unsuitable wife;[45] biographer R. F. Foster has observed that Yeats's last offer was motivated more by a sense of duty than by a genuine desire to marry her.
Yeats proposed in an indifferent manner, with conditions attached, and he both expected and hoped she would turn him down. According to Foster, "when he duly asked Maud to marry him and was duly refused, his thoughts shifted with surprising speed to her daughter."Iseult Gonne was Maud's second child withLucien Millevoye, and at the time was twenty-one years old. She had lived a sad life to this point; conceived as an attempt to reincarnate her short-lived brother, for the first few years of her life she was presented as her mother's adopted niece. When Maud told her that she was going to marry, Iseult cried and told her mother that she hated MacBride.[71] When Gonne took action to divorce MacBride in 1905, the court heard allegations that he had sexually assaulted Iseult, then eleven. At fifteen, she proposed to Yeats. In 1917, he proposed to Iseult but was rejected.
That September, Yeats proposed to 25-year-oldGeorgie Hyde-Lees (1892–1968), known as George, whom he had met throughOlivia Shakespear. Despite warnings from her friends—"George ... you can't. He must be dead"—Hyde-Lees accepted, and the two were married on 20 October 1917.[45] Their marriage was a success, in spite of the age difference, and in spite of Yeats's feelings of remorse and regret during their honeymoon. The couple went on to have two children,Anne andMichael. Although in later years he had romantic relationships with other women, Georgie herself wrote to her husband, "When you are dead, people will talk about your love affairs, but I shall say nothing, for I will remember how proud you were."[72]
During the first years of marriage, they experimented withautomatic writing; she contacted a variety of spirits and guides they called "Instructors" while in a trance. The spirits communicated a complex and esoteric system of philosophy and history, which the couple developed into an exposition using geometrical shapes: phases, cones, and gyres.[73] Yeats devoted much time to preparing this material for publication asA Vision (1925). In 1924, he wrote to his publisher T. Werner Laurie, admitting, "I dare say I delude myself in thinking this book my book of books."[74]
In December 1923, Yeats was awarded theNobel Prize in Literature "for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation".[75] Politically aware, he knew the symbolic value of an Irish winner so soon after Ireland had gained independence, and highlighted the fact at each available opportunity. His reply to many of the letters of congratulations sent to him contained the words: "I consider that this honour has come to me less as an individual than as a representative of Irish literature, it is part of Europe's welcome to the Free State."[76]
Yeats used the occasion of his acceptance lecture at theRoyal Academy of Sweden to present himself as a standard-bearer of Irish nationalism and Irish cultural independence. As he remarked, "The theatres of Dublin were empty buildings hired by the English travelling companies, and we wanted Irish plays and Irish players. When we thought of these plays we thought of everything that was romantic and poetical because the nationalism we had called up—the nationalism every generation had called up in moments of discouragement—was romantic and poetical."[77] The prize led to a significant increase in the sales of his books, as his publishersMacmillan sought to capitalise on the publicity. For the first time he had money, and he was able to repay not only his own debts but those of his father.[78]
By early 1925, Yeats's health had stabilised, and he had completed most of the writing forA Vision. Dated 1925, it actually appeared in January 1926, when he almost immediately started rewriting it for a second version. He had been appointed to the firstIrish Senate in 1922, and was re-appointed for a second term in 1925.[79][80] Early in his tenure, a debate on divorce arose, and Yeats viewed the issue as primarily a confrontation between the emerging Roman Catholic ethos and the Protestant minority.[81] When the Roman Catholic Church weighed in with a blanket refusal to consider their anti position,The Irish Times countered that a measure to outlaw divorce would alienate Protestants and "crystallise" thepartition of Ireland. In response, Yeats delivered a series of speeches that attacked the "quixotically impressive" ambitions of the government and clergy, likening their campaign tactics to those of "medieval Spain."[82] "Marriage is not to us a Sacrament, but, upon the other hand, the love of a man and woman, and the inseparable physical desire, are sacred. This conviction has come to us through ancient philosophy and modern literature, and it seems to us a most sacrilegious thing to persuade two people who hate each other... to live together, and it is to us no remedy to permit them to part if neither can re-marry."[82] The resulting debate has been described as one of Yeats's "supreme public moments", and began his ideological move away frompluralism towards religious confrontation.[83]
His language became more forceful; the Jesuit Father Peter Finlay was described by Yeats as a man of "monstrous discourtesy", and he lamented that "It is one of the glories of the Church in which I was born that we have put our Bishops in their place in discussions requiring legislation."[82] During his time in the Senate, Yeats further warned his colleagues, "If you show that this country, southern Ireland, is going to be governed by Roman Catholic ideas and by Catholic ideas alone, you will never get theNorth... You will put a wedge in the midst of this nation."[84] He memorably said of his fellow Irish Protestants, "we are no petty people".
In 1924 he chaired a coinage committee charged with selecting a set of designs for thefirst currency of the Irish Free State. Aware of the symbolic power latent in the imagery of a young state's currency, he sought a form that was "elegant, racy of the soil, and utterly unpolitical".[85] When the house finally decided on the artwork ofPercy Metcalfe, Yeats was pleased, though he regretted that compromise had led to "lost muscular tension" in the finally depicted images.[85] He retired from the Senate in 1928 because of ill health.[86]
Towards the end of his life—and especially after theWall Street crash of 1929 andGreat Depression, which led some to question whether democracy could cope with deep economic difficulty—Yeats seems to have returned to his aristocratic sympathies. During the aftermath of the First World War, he became sceptical about the efficacy of democratic government, and anticipated political reconstruction in Europe through totalitarian rule.[87] His later association with Pound drew him towardsBenito Mussolini, for whom he expressed admiration on a number of occasions.[77] He wrote three "marching songs"—never used—for the Irish GeneralEoin O'Duffy'sBlueshirts.
At the age of 68 he was 'rejuvenated' by theSteinach operation which was performed on 6 April 1934 byNorman Haire.[88] For the last five years of his life Yeats found a new vigour evident from both his poetry and his intimate relations with younger women.[89] During this time, Yeats was involved in a number of romantic affairs with, among others, the poet and actressMargot Ruddock and the novelist, journalist and sexual radicalEthel Mannin.[90] As in his earlier life, Yeats found erotic adventure conducive to his creative energy, and, despite age and ill-health, he remained a prolific writer. In a letter of 1935, Yeats noted: "I find my present weakness made worse by the strange second puberty the operation has given me, the ferment that has come upon my imagination. If I write poetry it will be unlike anything I have done."[91] In 1936, he undertook editorship of theOxford Book of Modern Verse, 1892–1935.[46] From 1935 to 1936 he travelled to theWestern Mediterranean island ofMajorca withIndian-bornShri Purohit Swami and from there the two of them performed the majority of the work in translating theprincipal Upanishads fromSanskrit into common English; the resulting work,The Ten Principal Upanishads, was published in 1938.[92]
Yeats died at the Hôtel Idéal Beauséjour inRoquebrune-Cap-Martin, nearMenton, France, on 28 January 1939, aged 73.[93] He was buried after a discreet and private funeral at Roquebrune. Attempts had been made at Roquebrune to dissuade the family from proceeding with the removal of the remains to Ireland due to the uncertainty of their identity. His body had earlier been exhumed and transferred to theossuary.[94] Yeats and his wife, George, had often discussed his death and his express wish was that he be buried quickly in France with a minimum of fuss. According to George, "His actual words were 'If I die, bury me up there [at Roquebrune] and then in a year's time when the newspapers have forgotten me, dig me up and plant me in Sligo.'"[95] In September 1948, Yeats's body was moved to the churchyard ofSt Columba's Church,Drumcliff, County Sligo, on the Irish Naval ServicecorvetteLÉ Macha.[96] The person in charge of this operation for the Irish Government wasSeán MacBride, son of Maud Gonne MacBride, and thenMinister of External Affairs.[97]
His epitaph is taken from the last lines of "Under Ben Bulben",[98] one of his final poems:
Cast a cold Eye On Life, on Death. Horseman, pass by!
The French ambassadorStanislas Ostroróg was involved in returning Yeats's remains to Ireland in 1948; in a letter to the European director of the Foreign Ministry in Paris, "Ostrorog tells how Yeats's son Michael sought official help in locating the poet's remains. Neither Michael Yeats nor Sean MacBride, the Irish foreign minister who organised the ceremony, wanted to know the details of how the remains were collected, Ostrorog notes. He repeatedly urges caution and discretion and says the Irish ambassador in Paris should not be informed." Yeats's body was exhumed in 1946 and the remains were moved to an ossuary and mixed with other remains. The French Foreign Ministry authorized Ostrorog to secretly cover the cost of repatriation from his slush fund. Authorities were worried about the fact that the much-loved poet's remains were thrown into a communal grave, causing embarrassment for both Ireland and France. Per a letter from Ostroróg to his superiors, "Mr Rebouillat, (a) forensic doctor in Roquebrune would be able to reconstitute a skeleton presenting all the characteristics of the deceased."[99]
Yeats is considered one of the key 20th-century English-language poets. He was aSymbolist poet, using allusive imagery and symbolic structures throughout his career. He chose words and assembled them so that, in addition to a particular meaning, they suggest abstract thoughts that may seem more significant and resonant. His use of symbols[100] is usually something physical that is both itself and a suggestion of other, perhaps immaterial, timeless qualities.[101]
Unlike themodernists who experimented withfree verse, Yeats was a master of the traditional forms.[102] The impact of modernism on his work can be seen in the increasing abandonment of the more conventionally poetic diction of his early work in favour of the more austere language and more direct approach to his themes that increasingly characterises the poetry and plays of his middle period, comprising the volumesIn the Seven Woods,Responsibilities andThe Green Helmet.[103] His later poetry and plays are written in a more personal vein, and the works written in the last twenty years of his life include mention of his son and daughter,[104] as well as meditations on the experience of growing old.[105] In his poem "The Circus Animals' Desertion", he describes the inspiration for these late works:
Now that my ladder's gone I must lie down where all the ladders start In the foulrag and bone shop of the heart.[106]
During 1929, he stayed atThoor Ballylee nearGort inCounty Galway (where Yeats had his summer home since 1919) for the last time. Much of the remainder of his life was lived outside Ireland, although he did leaseRiversdale house in the Dublin suburb ofRathfarnham in 1932. He wrote prolifically through his final years, and published poetry, plays, and prose. In 1938, he attended the Abbey for the final time to see the premiere of his playPurgatory. HisAutobiographies of William Butler Yeats was published that same year.[107] The preface for the English translation ofRabindranath Tagore'sGitanjali (Song Offering) (for which Tagore won the Nobel prize in Literature) was written by Yeats in 1913.[108]
While Yeats's early poetry drew heavily onIrish myth and folklore, his later work was engaged with more contemporary issues, and his style underwent a dramatic transformation. His work can be divided into three general periods. The early poems are lushly pre-Raphaelite in tone, self-consciously ornate, and, at times, according to unsympathetic critics, stilted. Yeats began by writing epic poems such asThe Isle of Statues andThe Wanderings of Oisin.[109] His other early poems are lyrics on the themes of love or mystical and esoteric subjects. Yeats's middle period saw him abandon the pre-Raphaelite character of his early work[110] and attempt to turn himself into aLandor-style social ironist.[111]
Critics characterize his middle work as supple and muscular in its rhythms and sometimes harshly modernist, while others find the poems barren and weak in imaginative power. Yeats's later work found new imaginative inspiration in the mystical system he began to work out for himself under the influence of spiritualism. In many ways, this poetry is a return to the vision of his earlier work. The opposition between the worldly-minded man of the sword and the spiritually minded man of God, the theme ofThe Wanderings of Oisin, is reproduced inA Dialogue Between Self and Soul.[112]
Some critics hold that Yeats spanned the transition from the 19th century into 20th-century modernism in poetry much asPablo Picasso did in painting; others question whether late Yeats has much in common with modernists of theEzra Pound andT. S. Eliot variety.[113]
Modernists read the well-known poem "The Second Coming" as a dirge for the decline of European civilisation, but it also expresses Yeats's apocalyptic mystical theories and is shaped by the 1890s. His most important collections of poetry started withThe Green Helmet (1910) andResponsibilities (1914). In imagery, Yeats's poetry became sparer and more powerful as he grew older.The Tower (1928),The Winding Stair (1933), andNew Poems (1938) contained some of the most potent images in 20th-century poetry.[114]
Yeats's mystical inclinations, informed by Hinduism,theosophical beliefs and theoccult, provided much of the basis of his late poetry,[115] which some critics have judged as lacking in intellectual credibility. The metaphysics of Yeats's late works must be read in relation to his system of esoteric fundamentals inA Vision (1925).[116]
Yeats is commemorated in Sligo town by a statue, sculpted byRowan Gillespie in 1989. On the 50th anniversary of the poet's death, it was erected outside theUlster Bank. When receiving his Nobel Prize in Stockholm, Yeats had remarked on the similarities between that city'sRoyal Palace and the Ulster Bank. Across the river is the Yeats Memorial Building, which houses the Sligo Yeats Society.[117]Standing Figure: Knife Edge byHenry Moore is displayed in the W. B. Yeats Memorial Garden atSt Stephen's Green in Dublin.[118][119]
ComposerMarcus Paus' choral workThe Stolen Child (2009) is based on poetry by Yeats. Critic Stephen Eddins described it as "sumptuously lyrical and magically wild, and [...] beautifully [capturing] the alluring mystery and danger and melancholy" of Yeats.[120] Argentine composerJulia Stilman-Lasansky based herCantata No. 4 on text by Yeats.[121]
There is ablue plaque dedicated to Yeats at Balscadden House on the Balscadden Road inHowth; his cottage home from 1880 to 1883.[122] In 1957 theLondon County Council erected a plaque at his former residence on 23Fitzroy Road, Primrose Hill, London.[123]
^Daemon est Deus inversus—is taken from the writings ofMadame Blavatsky in which she claimed that "... even that divine Homogeneity must contain in itself the essence of both good and evil", and uses the motto as a symbol of theastral plane's light.
^Gonne claimed they first met in London three years earlier. Foster notes how Gonne was "notoriously unreliable on dates and places (1997, p. 57).
^W. B. Yeats,Autobiographies (1956), p. 12. London: Macmillan.
^Gordon Bowe, Nicola. "Two Early Twentieth-Century Irish Arts and Crafts Workshops in Context".Journal of Design History, Vol. 2, No. 2/3 (1989). 193–206.
^Cullingford, Elizabeth. "How Jacques Molay Got Up the Tower: Yeats and the Irish Civil War".English Literary History, Vol. 50, No. 4, 1983, pp. 763–789
^Nally, Claire V. "National Identity Formation in W. B. Yeats'A Vision".Irish Studies Review, Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2006, pp. 57–67
^Alspach, Russell K. "The Use by Yeats and Other Irish Writers of the Folklore of Patrick Kennedy".The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 234, December 1946, pp. 404–412
^Papp, James R. "Review [The Rhymers' Club: Poets of the Tragic Generation by Norman Alford]".Nineteenth-Century Literature, Vol. 50, No. 4, March 1996, pp. 535–538JSTOR2933931
^Allen, James Lovic. "'Imitate Him If You Dare': Relationships between the Epitaphs of Swift and Yeats".An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 70, No. 278/279, 1981, p. 177
^"The Documents".The Irish Times.Archived from the original on 9 November 2017. Retrieved8 November 2017.
^Ulanov, Barry.Makers of the Modern Theater. McGraw-Hill, 1961
^Gale Research International.Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, No. 116. Gale Cengage Learning, 2002, p. 303
^Finneran, Richard.Yeats: An Annual of Critical and Textual Studies 1995. University of Michigan Press, 1997. 82
^Logenbach, James.Stone Cottage: Pound, Yeats, and Modernism. Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 13–14
^Bell, Vereen.Yeats and the logic of formalism. University of Missouri Press, 2006. 132
^Martin, Wallace. Review of "Tragic Knowledge: Yeats' "Autobiography" and Hermeneutics" by Daniel T. O'Hara.Contemporary Literature. Vol. 23, No. 2, Spring 1982, pp. 239–243
^Holdeman, David.The Cambridge Introduction to W. B. Yeats. Cambridge University Press, 2006ISBN978-0-521-54737-6, p. 80
^Spanos, William. ″Sacramental Imagery in the Middle and Late Poetry of W. B. Yeats.″Texas Studies in Literature and Language. (1962) Vol. 4, No. 2. pp. 214–228.
^Lorenz, Dagmar C. G.Transforming the Center, Eroding the Margins. University of Rochester Press, 2004, p. 282.ISBN978-1-58046-175-7
^Powell, Grosvenor E. "Yeats's SecondVision: Berkeley, Coleridge, and the Correspondence with Sturge Moore".The Modern Language Review, Vol. 76, No. 2, April 1981, p. 273
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Jordan, Anthony J. (2003).W. B. Yeats: Vain, Glorious, Lout – A Maker of Modern Ireland. Westport Books.ISBN978-0-9524447-2-5.
Malins, Edward; Purkis, John (1994).A Preface to Yeats (2nd ed.). Routledge.ISBN978-0-582-09093-4.
O'Grady, David (Autumn 2016). "Yeats and Zen and a Horseman Passing By: A Buddhist Source for Yeats's Epitaph".New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua.20 (3):125–140.doi:10.1353/nhr.2016.0045.JSTOR44807219.
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