William Butler Yeats was born in 1865 and died in 1939. Between those years, this Irishman accomplished a lot as a renowned poet. He was a founder and key writer for the Irish Literary Revival group along with friends J.M. Synge, Sean O’Casey, and Padraig Colum. His country’s Catholicism influenced William, though not embracing Catholicism he thought heavily on mysticism, spirituality, studied the Kabbalah (Ortodox Judaism), and more. William was a thinker from an early age as he read the mature works of Shakespeare and others. Yeats’ love for poetry gave him a unique voice for the protest of the Nationalistic policies of Ireland at the time. Yeats typically wrote poems about the Irish mythology, beauty of life (see The Wild Swans at Coole), other life topics, war (An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, Easter 1916), religion (The Second Coming), and his children. He was fascinated by shapes and uses a recurring motif in his poems, that of a gyre or spiral. Yeats also wrote plays, which was rewarded in 1923 with the Nobel Prize.

In 1989, Yeats met Maud Gonne, the woman he pined away for so long. She continuously denied him and married another man 1903. Maud fought for women’s rights and other politically charged movements, which Yeats took part in as well since she did. One such event they attended together was protests at the Queen’s Jubilee. Yeats even joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood for her. He was even arrested at one point. Maud starred in one of Yeats’ plays, “Cathleen Ni Houlihan”. Their relationship was tumultuous since she turned away Yeats’ marriage proposals on the basis he was not nationalist enough and not a Roman Catholic. His love for her influenced him to write many poems about her or poems that alluded to her. The most famous poem by Yeats about Maud was “No Second Troy”.

Yeats met a woman, Lady Augusta Gregory, and they became involved together with The Irish Literary Theatre, founded in 1899 in Dublin by the two. 5 years later it became known as the Abbey Theatre. Yeats popularity, though already high, increased since they Abbey Theatre went on to tour through the U.S., which sparked interest for Yeats in the Western Hemisphere. In 1911 Yeats met his soon to be wife, Georgie Hyde Lees, where they married in 1917. They had two children: Anne (born 1921) and Michael (1921), which Yeats wrote poems about as well. The Easter Uprising in 1916, as mentioned earlier, was influential for Yeats since many of his friends participated in the event. The Easter Uprising was a rebellion against British occupation in Ireland where the headquarters was in Dublin. This uprising marked the first time masses of Irish overtly supported the rebels. The leaders were executed after a secret trial. One of his proudest accomplishments was winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. Arguably, however, Yeats has written his most influential works after his award. In his later years, Yeats was an influential figurehead for he was even elected on to the Irish Senate and served 6 years. At 73, on January 28, 1939 he died.

The “Second Coming” by Yeats displays his use of beautiful language and imagery.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Yeats uses his infamous gyre motif, here signifying the cycle of life that goes round and round. In this poem the life cycle is ripped at the core of the centre of the gyre, unleashing the second coming. Later in the poem, Yeats describes the Second Coming being the devil in the form of a Sphinx. The upcoming turmoil is described the above passage, as evident by the “anarchy’ loosed from the gyre, onto the world. Furthermore, Yeats says those who lack conviction are the best of them, since they are ignorant to the upcoming terror while those who are passionate are well aware of what’s coming. The poem embodies Yeats’ keen ability to write about the occult. While this is religious in nature, Yeats’ poems touch on such mystical supernatural forces, and his usage of allusion to the Sphinx trudging through the desert lends some added eeriness to the topic.

The poem “Easter 1916” discusses those revolutionaries that led the rebellion and ponders the aftermath.

Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart.

O when may it suffice?

That is Heaven's part, our part

To murmur name upon name,

As a mother names her child

When sleep at last has come

On limbs that had run wild.

What is it but nightfall?

No, no, not night but death;

Was it needless death after all?

For England may keep faith

For all that is done and said.

We know their dream; enough

To know they dreamed and are dead;

And what if excess of love

Bewildered them till they died?

I write it out in a verse -

MacDonagh and MacBride

And Connolly and Pearse

Now and in time to be,

Wherever green is worn,

Are changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

Yeats wonders if their deaths are significantly marked for they dreamed for a dream, which they died for. Yeats talks about murmuring their names, as he does in the latter lines of this passage, for remembrance. In the omitted first half of the poem, Yeats talks of these people as his friends for they were. But his friends died for their cause and wherever green is worn, they shall be remembered. The terrible beauty born refers to the increased move for independence. Though not successful, the English realized they could not occupy Ireland much longer. The 4 names Yeats cites are the 4 leaders of the rebellion. MacBride was Maud’s husband whom she married in 1903.

Works Cited

William Butler Yeats. Date accessed: 01 May 2007.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1923/yeats-bio.html

William Butler Yeats. Date Accessed: 02 May 2007.

http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/

The Easter Uprising. Date Accessed: 03 May 2007.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/easter_uprising.htm

The Second Coming. Date Accessed: 01 May 2007.

http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/780/

Maude Gonne. Date Accessed: 01 May 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maud_Gonne

Easter, 1916. Date Accessed: 01 May 2007.

http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/779/