W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)

W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)
Selected Poems
Irish
Victorianism/Realism/Modernism
The poetry of William Butler Yeats does not fit easily into any literary movement. He admired the Victorian Pre-Raphaelites, who embraced a combination of realistic techniques and symbolic meanings. Yeats’ poetry is full of myths and symbols, and his belief in a type of mysticism or spiritualism underlies much of his work (for Yeats, mysticism and the occult were real, not metaphorical). His earlier poems, such as “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” (1890), could be straight out of Victorianism, but over time, Yeats began to incorporate more realistic elements into his poetry. In “Easter, 1916″—written right after the failed Easter Uprising for Irish independence—Yeats offers a critical (and mostly unflattering) view of the individuals who were executed, but recognizes how their deaths for the cause have transformed them into something greater than themselves (a new mythology). Despite that transformation, the narrator worries about whether it was a worthwhile sacrifice (in fact, by 1922, Yeats would be elected a senator in the new Republic of Ireland). Even though his poetry in later years would contain elements of Modernism, such as in the poem “The Second Coming” (1921), Yeats never abandoned the mystical and symbolic in his poetry, becoming a modern poet who disliked Modernism and refused to give up traditional elements (Albrecht; Longley). In his life, Yeats had the same tendency to be caught between (or among) movements. Although he was an Anglo-Irish Protestant born in Dublin, who was expected to support the English presence in Ireland, Yeats became an Irish Nationalist: partly out of patriotism, and partly because he fell in love with the actress Maud Gonne, a beautiful Nationalist. Yeats proposed to Gonne at least four times, and his (bitter) reaction to her rejection of him can be found in many poems, including some of those written after he married Georgiana Hyde-Lees, with whom he had two children. The poem “When You Are Old” (1895) is an early example of his obsession with Gonne. Besides writing poetry, Yeats was one of the founders of the Irish (now Abbey) Theater, for which he wrote many plays. When he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, it was mostly for his plays, which the Nobel organization noted in 1969 is doubly ironic: not only are his poems more famous now, but also “Yeats is one of the few writers whose greatest works were written after the award of the Nobel Prize” (Frenz).
Consider while reading:

1. In “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” which elements of the poem are Romantic in nature?
2. The poem “When You Are Old” is often quoted out of context, focusing on how the narrator “loved the pilgrim soul” of the woman. Considering the bitterness that Yeats felt towards Maud Gonne (the inspiration for the woman), how is the poem less than flattering to her? In what ways does the poem scold her for rejecting him?
3. In “The Second Coming,” who or what is about to be born (there is one obvious answer, but there are at least a few other options)?

Written by Laura Getty