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Easy about william butler yeats
Irish nationalism 19th century
Easy about william butler yeats
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No poet in our day has written more about his family and friends than Yeats, and no one has been more successful in enlarging them to heroic proportions.'
INTRODUCTION
I will begin this essay with a brief history of the life of William Butler Yeats in order to secure an understanding of the social and historical context from which he created his works. I will then go on to explain the broad development of Yeats's poetic form, style and technique showing in particular how his works can be separated into two separate periods providing a brief account of the influences in each period on his themes, context and subtexts. I will then discuss these points while, commenting on a small group of poems' in particular
I will provide a detailed analysis drawing appropriate generalizations
BRIEF HISTORY
William Butler Yeats was born in Dublin on the 13 June 1865, living his life through the changeover from the Victorian to Modernist era. At the age of two William and his family followed his father, a Pre-Raphaelite painter to London where he lived from the age of two until he was sixteen. This was a difficult time for his family particularly his mother who longed for her home country of Ireland, consequently through her stories and songs as well as holidays, William was instilled with a very strong sense of Irish patriotism. William returned to Ireland in 1881 where he enrolled in the Dublin based, Metropolitan School of Art. Over the next five years he developed a fascination with literature as well as the occult and supernatural, William first published poems in 1885 in The Dublin University Review and formed the Dublin Lodge of the Hermetic society in 1886. In 1887 his family returned to London where a displaced Yeats became more focused on literature then ever. For the next few years William was primarily focused on identifying and expanding Irish heritage. He collaborated on Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry with George Russell and Douglas Hyde and injected Celtic influence into his works such as The Wonderings of Oisin and Other Poems. William eventually returned to Ireland permanently in 1896. Over the next decade he pursued various literary exploits including his involvement in the Irish literary revival and co-founding of the Abbey Theatre. Beside his roles as an Irish poet, playwright and mystic, William became involved in politics assuming the position of senator which developed his acclaim in the political sphere.
John Keats’s illness caused him to write about his unfulfillment as a writer. In an analysis of Keats’s works, Cody Brotter states that Keats’s poems are “conscious of itself as the poem[s] of a poet.” The poems are written in the context of Keats tragically short and painful life. In his ...
William Yeats is deliberated to be among the best bards in the 20th era. He was an Anglo-Irish protestant, the group that had control over the every life aspect of Ireland for almost the whole of the seventeenth era. Associates of this group deliberated themselves to be the English menfolk but sired in Ireland. However, Yeats was a loyal affirmer of his Irish ethnicity, and in all his deeds, he had to respect it. Even after living in America for almost fourteen years, he still had a home back in Ireland, and most of his poems maintained an Irish culture, legends and heroes. Therefore, Yeats gained a significant praise for writing some of the most exemplary poetry in modern history
Keats’ poetry explores many issues and themes, accompanied by language and technique that clearly demonstrates the romantic era. His poems ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘Bright Star’ examine themes such as mortality and idealism of love. Mortality were common themes that were presented in these poems as Keats’ has used his imagination in order to touch each of the five senses. He also explores the idea that the nightingale’s song allows Keats to travel in a world of beauty. Keats draws from mythology and christianity to further develop these ideas. Keats’ wrote ‘Ode To A Nightingale’ as an immortal bird’s song that enabled him to escape reality and live only to admire the beauty of nature around him. ‘Bright Star’ also discusses the immortal as Keats shows a sense of yearning to be like a star in it’s steadfast abilities. The visual representation reveal these ideas as each image reflects Keats’ obsession with nature and how through this mindset he was able
From the beginning of his literary career Yeats, like many authors in this age of a dawning awareness of modern psychology and concept of the sub-conscious, had been fascinated with the concept of an divided self or anti-self or a self which is covered by a mask or "pose." In these early John Sherman stories, the the dreamy, unsophisticated John Sherman is tempted by the elegant, citified, and High Church Rev. William Howard. In the Rosa Alchemica stories of 1897, we are introduced to two characters who will remain staples of Yeats's oeuvre: the pious, conventional John Aherne who is "educated" and tempted by the mysterious Michael Robartes, with his secrets of the "Order of the Alchemical Rose." In On Baile's Strand (1904) the instinctive, active warrior Cuchulain struggles against the wiles of the crafty, domesticated ruler Conchubar.
In these lines from "All Things can Tempt Me" (40, 1-5), Yeats defines the limitations of the poet concerning his role in present time. These "temptations" (his love for the woman, Maude Gonne, and his desire to advance the Irish Cultural Nationalist movement) provide Yeats with the foundation upon which he identifies his own limitations. In his love poetry, he not only expresses his love for Gonne, he uses his verse to influence her feelings, attempting to gain her love and understanding. In regard to the Nationalists, he incorporates traditional Irish characters, such as Fergus and the Druids, to create an Irish mythology and thereby foster a national Irish identity. After the division of the Cultural Nationalists, Yeats feels left behind by the movement and disillusioned with their violent, "foolish" methods. He is also repeatedly rejected by Gonne. These efforts to instigate change through poetry both fail, bringing the function of the poet and his poetry into question. If these unfruitful poems tempt him from his ?craft of verse,? then what is the true nature verse and why is it a ?toil? for the poet? Also, if Yeats cannot use poetry to influence the world around him, then what is his role as a poet?
In William Butler Yeats poem “Leda and the Swan”, he uses the fourteen lines of the traditional sonnet form in a radical, modernist style. He calls up a series of unforgettable, bizarre images of an immediate physical event using abstract descriptions in brief language. Through structure and language Yeats is able to paint a powerful sexual image to his readers without directly giving the meaning of the poem.
It has been acknowledged by many scholars that Yeats' study of Blake greatly influenced his poetic expression. This gives rise to the widely held assertion that Yeats is indebted to Blake. While I concur with this assertion, I feel that the perhaps greater debt is Blake's.
Though written only two years after the first version of "The Shadowy Waters", W.B. Yeats' poem "Adam's Curse" can be seen as an example of a dramatic transformation of Yeats' poetic works: a movement away from the rich mythology of Ireland's Celtic past and towards a more accessible poesy focused on the external world. Despite this turn in focus towards the world around him, Yeats retains his interest in symbolism, and one aspect of his change in style is internalization of the symbolic scheme that underlies his poetry. Whereas more mythological works like "The Shadowy Waters" betray a spiritual syncretism not unlike that of the Golden Dawn, "Adam's Curse" and its more realistic fellows offer a view of the world in which symbolic systems are submerged, creating an undercurrent of meaning which lends depth to the outward circumstances, but which is itself not immediately accessible to the lay or academic reader. In a metaphorical sense, then, Yeats seems in these later poems to achieve a doubling of audience, an equivocation which addresses the initiate and the lay reader simultaneously.
“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.” -William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) is one of many men who have experienced the pains of life and gave them new voice on the world stage for the benefits of others but W.B. Yeats was not like any ordinary writer. On his shoulders was the responsibility to tell the history of an abused puppet plagued with war, suffering, and foreign meddling. Yeats is thought to be one of the most influential poets and playwrights of the 20th century. Analyzing his trail across history you will see a literary movement bursting with the revival of Irish culture.
The poem September 1913 focuses on the time where the Irish Independence was at its highest. Yeats repeats the phrase “romantic Ireland” a lot in this poem as it refers to the sacrifice of the materialistic things for independence and freedom. To further emphasize the importance and greatness of the revolution, Yeats pointed out the names of heroic individuals who gave their lives to fight for the cause. Yeats did not give any detail about the Irish heroes but he does state that “they have gone about the world like wind” (11). The heroes were so famous; their names could be heard and talked about all over the world. In this poem, Yeats does not go directly in to detail about the historical events that happened but fo...
Yeats and Eliot are two chief modernist poet of the English Language. Both were Nobel Laureates. Both were critics of Literature and Culture expressing similar disquietude with Western civilization. Both, prompted by the Russian revolution perhaps, or the violence and horror of the First World War, pictured a Europe that was ailing, that was literally falling apart, devoid of the ontological sense of rational purpose that fuelled post-Enlightenment Europe and America(1). All these similar experience makes their poetry more valuable to compare and to contrast since their thoughts were similar yet one called himself Classicist(Eliot) who wrote objectively and the other considered himself "the last Romantic" because of his subjective writing and his interest in mysticism and the spiritual. For better understanding of these two poets it is necessary to mention some facts and backgrounds on them which influenced them to incorporate similar (to some extent) historical motif in their poetry.
Keats, John. “Letters: To George and Thomas Keats.” The Norton Anthology: English Literature. Ninth Edition. Stephen Greenblatt, eds. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 967-968. Print.
death of a fellow poet, Auden may be lamenting the ultimate futility of Yeats’ life and art
At many places Yeats tries to blend the natural with the supernatural to achieve some desired goals. Edward Said refers to the same fact when he says that Yeats used Irish ‘backwardness as a source for radically disturbing, disruptive return to spiritual ideals lost in an overdeveloped modern Europe’(Cult.and Imp. 274).As a freedom-loving human being, he felt disgusted with the social reality of his time. Injustice and exploitation at the hands of foreign colonial power presented a heart-rending scenario to his inner-self. As a politician he was well-aware about helplessness of his fellow Irish men. However, through his poetic potentialities he tried to raise the banner of resistance through various means. The world of fairies for him was not only limited to mythical interpretation,rather, he used it symbolically to highlight the picture of independent
Yeats with all his work and sense of artistic style he became involved in the literary life of London. He was friends with William Morris and W.E. Henley and was a cofounder of thee Rhymers’ Club. Some of the members of this club actually included some of his friends like Lionel Johnson and Arthur Symons. In 1889 when Yeats met Maud Gonne an Irish woman who was beautiful, enthusiastic, and brilliant he was in love with her by the time he wrote “the troubling of my life began” “Without this romantic torment, “Willie would never have become Yeats the poet that we know today. Equal to Ireland itself Maud Gonne became and remained the major wellspring of Yeats’s poetic endeavor” (Steven Payne) It was an unrequited love meaning no matter how much he loved her it was a hopeless venture. It is true that she did admire him and looked up to him but did not love him. Yeats latter joined the Irish nationalist cause he joined partly because of his conviction, but mostly because of his love for Maud. Yeats made a play called” The Countess Cathleen” it was performed in Dublin in 1902, to which Maud played the title role. It was actually during this time period that Yeats started to come under the influence of John O’Leary, a charismatic leader of the Fenians, they were a secret society of Irish nationalist.