William Butler Yeats

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William Butler Yeats

- An Irish poet, dramatist, and prose writer
- Known for having intellectual and often obsucure poetry works
- Quoted to be “one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century”
- Even Received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923 o What was most recognizable about that fact is that he is famous for his lyrical poetic works that came after the prize

- Yeats war born in 1865 in Dublin

Yeats's childhood was broad in education and personal experiences. Yeats became a youth full of emotional contradictions. Spiritually, educationally, and personally, Yeats seemed to pull himself in different directions, unable to decide on a clear path. These internal contradictions would come to shape the writer and man that he would one day become. o Father was a lawyer turned painter o Art was no stranger in his family o But his religious views were

His spiritual outlook played significant role in his life and his works. Born into a Protestant family, with a paternal grandfather and great-grandfather having been Anglican clergymen, religion was a constant presence in his childhood. Yeats began to abandon the religion of his Rationalist upbringing and made a new religion out of poetic tradition (Kunitz, 1560).
"You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is? He says, some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements."
- In his youth he was very interested in the occult
- stemming from his fascination with Irish folk stories and tales
- Became increasingly interested Mysticism o Specifically, Reincarnation, communication with the dead, mediums, supernatural systems, and oriental mysticism
 Much of his work was influenced by these factors
 “The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write”
- 1886 Formed the Dublin Lodge of the...

... middle of paper ...

...e witnessed this serene scene at Coole Park
- The swans emphasize a fixed flow in the inconsistencies of time o “passion or conquest”
 Question whether the swans take off for the passion of flight or simply for the spirit of adventure
- Yeats makes the swans seem other worldly, existing inside his state of nostalgia
- In the final lines, he expresses doubt for the first time o He seems to expect to find that the swans will have flown away one day and he will be left without the feelings of delight that they sinstill in him
 Other ‘men’s eyes’ will enjoy their beauty
• Meaning that time will go on and some one else will simply take his place o The poem ends with a question which suggests that the poet is pondering not only what will happen in the future but also how he will feel then
- This poem is filled with detailed imagery and an introspective steady theme of nostalgia

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