William Butler Yeats - Early life and work

William Butler Yeats (June 13, 1865 – January 28, 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, mystic and civil servant. Yeats was one of the driving forces behind the Irish Literary Revival and was co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. His early work tended towards romantic lushness best described by the title of his 1893 collection The Celtic Twilight, but in his 40s, inspired by his relationships with modernist poets such as Ezra Pound and his involvement in Irish nationalist politics, he moved towards a harder ...

Including:

• William Butler Yeats - Early life and work
• William Butler Yeats - The young poet
• William Butler Yeats - Maud Gonne the Irish Literary Revival and the Abbey Theatre
• William Butler Yeats - Mysticism
• William Butler Yeats - Modernism
• William Butler Yeats - Politics
• William Butler Yeats - Later life and work
• William Butler Yeats - Works
• William Butler Yeats - See Also

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Yeats was born in Sandymount, Dublin. His father, John Butler Yeats was descended from Jervis Yeats, a Williamite linen merchant who died in 1712 and whose grandson Benjamin married Mary Butler, daughter of a landed County Kildare family. At the time of his marriage, John Yeats was studying law, but soon abandoned his studies to take up a career as a portrait painter. His mother, Susan Mary Pollexfen, came from an Anglo-Irish family in County Sligo. Soon after his birth, Yeats moved to Sligo to stay with his extended family and he came to th ...

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William Butler Yeats, William Butler Yeats - Early life and work, William Butler Yeats - The young poet, William Butler Yeats - Maud Gonne the Irish Literary Revival and the Abbey Theatre, William Butler Yeats - Mysticism, William Butler Yeats - Modernism, William Butler Yeats - Politics, William Butler Yeats - Later life and work, William Butler Yeats - Works, William Butler Yeats - See Also

Read more here: » William Butler Yeats: Encyclopedia II - William Butler Yeats - Early life and work

In his later poetry and plays, Yeats wrote in a more personal vein. His subjects included his son and daughter and the experience of growing old. Yeats himself, in the poem "The Circus Animals' Desertion", published in his final collection, describes the inspiration for these late works in the lines "Now that my ladder's gone,/I must lie down where all the ladders start/In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart". In 1929, he stayed at Thoor Ballylee for the last time. Much of the remainder of his life was outside Ireland, but he did ...

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William Butler Yeats, William Butler Yeats - Early life and work, William Butler Yeats - The young poet, William Butler Yeats - Maud Gonne the Irish Literary Revival and the Abbey Theatre, William Butler Yeats - Mysticism, William Butler Yeats - Modernism, William Butler Yeats - Politics, William Butler Yeats - Later life and work, William Butler Yeats - Works, William Butler Yeats - See Also

Read more here: » William Butler Yeats: Encyclopedia II - William Butler Yeats - Later life and work

The poetry of W.B. Yeats' middle period moved away from the Celtic Twilight mood of the earlier work. His political concerns moved away from cultural politics. In his early work, Yeats' aristocratic pose led to an idealisation of the Irish peasant and a willingness to ignore poverty and suffering. However, the emergence of a revolutionary movement from the ranks of the urban Catholic lower-middle class made him reassess his attitudes. Yeats' new direct engagement with politics can be seen in the poem September 1913, with its we ...

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William Butler Yeats, William Butler Yeats - Early life and work, William Butler Yeats - The young poet, William Butler Yeats - Maud Gonne the Irish Literary Revival and the Abbey Theatre, William Butler Yeats - Mysticism, William Butler Yeats - Modernism, William Butler Yeats - Politics, William Butler Yeats - Later life and work, William Butler Yeats - Works, William Butler Yeats - See Also

Read more here: » William Butler Yeats: Encyclopedia II - William Butler Yeats - Politics

Yeats had a life-long interest in mysticism, spiritualism, and astrology. In 1885, he and friends formed the Dublin Hermetic Order. This society held its first meeting on June 16, with Yeats in the chair. The same year, the Dublin Theosophical lodge was opened with the involvement of Brahmin Mohini Chatterjee. Yeats attended his first séance the following year. Later, Yeats became heavily involved with hermeticist and theosophical beliefs, and in 1900 he became head of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which he had joined in 1890. After his marriage, he and his wife dabbled with a form of automatic writing, Mrs. Yeats con ...

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William Butler Yeats, William Butler Yeats - Early life and work, William Butler Yeats - The young poet, William Butler Yeats - Maud Gonne the Irish Literary Revival and the Abbey Theatre, William Butler Yeats - Mysticism, William Butler Yeats - Modernism, William Butler Yeats - Politics, William Butler Yeats - Later life and work, William Butler Yeats - Works, William Butler Yeats - See Also

Read more here: » William Butler Yeats: Encyclopedia II - William Butler Yeats - Mysticism

Even before he began to write poetry, Yeats had come to associate poetry with religious ideas and sentimental elements. Describing his childhood in later years, he described his "one unshakable belief" as "whatever of philosophy has been made poetry is alone... I thought... that if a powerful and benevolent spirit has shaped the destiny of this world, we can better discover that destiny from the words ...

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William Butler Yeats, William Butler Yeats - Early life and work, William Butler Yeats - The young poet, William Butler Yeats - Maud Gonne the Irish Literary Revival and the Abbey Theatre, William Butler Yeats - Mysticism, William Butler Yeats - Modernism, William Butler Yeats - Politics, William Butler Yeats - Later life and work, William Butler Yeats - Works, William Butler Yeats - See Also

Read more here: » William Butler Yeats: Encyclopedia II - William Butler Yeats - The young poet

In 1889, Yeats met Maud Gonne, a young heiress who was beginning to devote herself to the Irish nationalist movement. Gonne admired Yeats' early poem The Isle of Statues and sought out his acquaintance. Yeats developed an obsession with Gonne, and she was to have a significant effect on his poetry and his life ever after. Two years after their initial meeting, Yeats proposed to her, but was rejected. He was to propose to Gonne a total of three more times: in 1899, 1900 and 1901. With each proposal, she rejected Yeats and finally, in 1 ...

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William Butler Yeats, William Butler Yeats - Early life and work, William Butler Yeats - The young poet, William Butler Yeats - Maud Gonne the Irish Literary Revival and the Abbey Theatre, William Butler Yeats - Mysticism, William Butler Yeats - Modernism, William Butler Yeats - Politics, William Butler Yeats - Later life and work, William Butler Yeats - Works, William Butler Yeats - See Also

Read more here: » William Butler Yeats: Encyclopedia II - William Butler Yeats - Maud Gonne the Irish Literary Revival and the Abbey Theatre

In 1913, Yeats met American poet Ezra Pound. Pound traveled to London to meet the older man, whom he considered "the only poet worthy of serious study". From that year until 1916, the two men wintered in the Stone Cottage at Ashdown Forest, with Pound nominally acting as Yeats' secretary. The relationship got off to a rocky start when Pound arranged for the publication in the magazine Poetry of some of Yeats' verse with Pound's own unauthorized alterations. These changes reflected Pound's distaste for Victorian prosody. In particular, ...

See also:

William Butler Yeats, William Butler Yeats - Early life and work, William Butler Yeats - The young poet, William Butler Yeats - Maud Gonne the Irish Literary Revival and the Abbey Theatre, William Butler Yeats - Mysticism, William Butler Yeats - Modernism, William Butler Yeats - Politics, William Butler Yeats - Later life and work, William Butler Yeats - Works, William Butler Yeats - See Also

Read more here: » William Butler Yeats: Encyclopedia II - William Butler Yeats - Modernism