W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) was very influenced by the French symbolist movement and he is often regarded as the most important symbolist poet of the twentieth century. Yeats felt 'metaphors are not profound enough to be moving,' so his poems heavily incorporate symbols as a...
“The Wild Swans at Coole” is a poem of equal parts reticence and disclosure. Though the substances are the same, a logic of proportion fails; reticence is disclosure. The poem is about mortality, transience, disillusionment, and loss; more literally, it is about beautiful trees and...
William Butler Yeats, “When You are Old”, is a three-stanza poem, that consists of a constant rhyming scheme. Yeats uses of metaphors paired sometimes with sets of poetic imagery. He exercises them well in the poem. They are significant, detailed, and well understood. Yeats illustrates...
Blake and Yeats Vision of the Apocalypse William Blake and William Butler Yeats both reflected on the apocalypse and the second coming of Christ in their art and poetry. Yeats takes a darker look at the second coming, comparing the Christian age he was in...
Module B- Critical Study of Texts (Yeats: Wild Swans at Coole & Among School Children) Q: Great texts take the pain of existence and try to make sense of it Made-to-order essay as fast as you need it Each essay is customized to cater to...
The Irish Literary Revival has been about promoting a National consciousness, leaving the recurring English stereotypes of Ireland behind, and striving for new beginnings with a free Irish State. Ireland had oftentimes been subjected to two tropes. The first was the loathsome “Stage-Irishman”, depicted as...
In “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death,” William Butler Yeats’ poem, he focuses on man’s inner nature. He touches on many thoughts that must race through one’s mind at the point when they realize that their death is unavoidable. Main idea of this this poem...
Contrary to the optimistic nature of the title, “Easter 1916”, Yeats’ poem speaks of death, sacrifice, rebellion and politics. It is not often that Yeats deals with the subject of the Irish Independence movement. The only other expressly political poem he wrote was “September 1913”,...
Although the world has evolved in many ways since Yeats was around, his poetry remains significant in the modern era. By simply scrolling through social media, flipping through T.V channels or listening to the radio, we are constantly reminded that we live in a chaotic...
In “To the Rose upon the Rood of Time,” the speaker asks the Rose to come near him while he sings of old Irish tales, such as Cuchulain’s fighting the sea, the Druid and Fergus, and the Rose’s own sadness. He again invites the Rose...
W.B. Yeats is considered one of the greatest Irish writers due to his eloquent, ‘otherworldly’ early poetry and many of his later dramas and works for which he received the Nobel Prize. Often associated with the Irish Literary Revival, Yeats’ early work can be looked...
September of 1913 was the height of one of the most important trade union disputes in Irish history and the poem “September 1913” is based around this. Yeats was, at the time, a great supporter of the lower classes and attacks middle-class businessmen and Capitalism...
Ireland has, through the arts and its cultural heritage, often been perceived as a fantasy country; fantasy in the sense that it is often depicted in a simplified, romanticized fashion. This can be seen in William Butler Yeats’s and Lady Gregory’s rendition of Ireland as...
William Butler Yeats, the esteemed twentieth-century poet, was in love with the Irish nationalist Maud Gonne; his poem “The Two Trees” was originally written for her. Gonne was very devoted to rather uncompromising ideologies, but in this poem Yeats coaxes her to perceive the world...
In 1919, the year “The Second Coming” was written, World War I, one of the deadliest wars in history, had just ended and Ireland was in the throes of a war to fight British control. Tensions between Catholics and Protestants and those of different socioeconomic...
In “Running to Paradise,” W.B. Yeats recounts the conditions present when the speaker in this poem embarks on journey to Paradise and his personal observation from his journey. “Running to Paradise” illustrates the theme of ensuring that successes are always judged relatively. It is only...
Literary composition was a fueling element in the Irish nationalist movement of the early twentieth century. William Butler Yeats undoubtedly placed himself as a leader in the Irish Literary Revival. While Yeats’s nationalism was not as drastic as some revolutionaries whom he was, perhaps unenthusiastically,...
“I am writing a woman out of legend. I am thinking how new it is – this story. How hard it will be to tell” (Eavan Boland). Much of twentieth-century Irish literature engages in issues relating to gender. Although stereotypical representations of men and women...
The iniquitous nature of unrequited love plays man the subservient jester to his indifferent queen. In his poem “The Cap and Bells” W. B. Yeats seeks to convey the message that unrequited love causes a man to give and give of himself until he has...
William Butler Yeats articulates a variety of opinions concerning the arts in his poem Lapis Lazuli. As the poem begins the speaker appears to refute a definition of artistic purpose, but as the poem closes the speaker’s words illuminate a different reality, in which artistic...
When writers use quotations, allusions, or traditions, they are referring to a piece of work or an event that has occurred prior to the moment of their writing. They use the past to help shape the work that they are crafting in the present. T.S....
William Butler Yeats’ Sailing to Byzantium (1926) is one of the more remarkable poems from The Tower, a celebrated collection of poems published in 1929. The poem is remarkable partly because of its highly suggestive and ambiguous language, which lends itself to a variety of...
In many of William Butler Yeats’s works, he creates a seemingly inescapable gyre or cycle that history and human lives follow. In The Second Coming, Yeats examines the cycle of history in which every two thousand years, a new messiah arrives. In An Irish Airman...
The message of “Leda and the Swan” is often interpreted in drastically different ways due to the ambiguity of the text. Much of this ambiguity can be attributed to intentional contradiction by the author, William Butler Yeats. This contradiction emphasizes the nature of sexism, for...
William Butler Yeats, a well-known Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner, is celebrated for his moving and thought-provoking poetry. His works often touch on themes like love, nature, and the human condition. “April Midnight,” though not as famous as some of his other poems, is...
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
“Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.”
“What can be explained is not poetry.”
Date
13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939
Activity
Irish poet, dramatist, and prose writer William Butler Yeats was the preeminent writer of the Irish literary renaissance at the turn of the 20th century. He was also an important figure in European literary Modernism in the 1920s and ’30s.
Works
“A Vision”, “At the Hawk’s Well”, “Easter 1916”, “Four Plays for Dancers”, “Leda and the Swan”, “Sailing to Byzantium”, “The Celtic Twilight”, “The Countess Cathleen”, “The Green Helmet”, “The Herne’s Egg”, “The Second Coming”, “The Tower”
Themes
The themes of Yeat's poetry cover such wide ranging areas as love, politics, old-age art, aristocracy, violence and prophecy, history myth, courtesy hatred, innocence, anarchy and nostalgia. Additionally, n his early writings, William Butler Yeats evoked a legendary and supernatural Ireland, more pagan than Christian. He hoped to instill pride in the Irish past and support Irish nationalism.
Style
Yeats is considered one of the key twentieth-century English-language poets. He was a Symbolist 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. Unlike the modernists who experimented with free verse, Yeats was a master of the traditional forms.
Legacy
One of Ireland's famous literary sons and its foremost poet, William Butler Yeats was a hugely influential figure in 19th Century Ireland. Yeats helped establish Dublin's Abbey Theatre and won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He impacted culture, society, and literature by influencing every poet writing in English today.
Quotes
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
“Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.”
