William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." He was the first Irishman so honored. Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929).
Born on 13th June 1865 at the suburb of Sandymount in County Dublin, Ireland, William Butler Yeats was the first of six children of John Butler Yeats and his wife Susan Mary Pollexfen. His father began his career as a lawyer but took up painting a couple of years after William’s birth and later earned fame as a portrait painter. Two siblings of William died in infancy. Those who survived were a brother named Jack Butler Yeats, a renowned painter whose painting won the silver medal at the 1924 Summer Olympics making him Ireland’s first Olympic medallist; and two sisters, Elizabeth and Susan Mary, both of whom were involved in the Arts and Crafts movement that flourished between 1880 and 1910.
In 1867, the Yeats family moved to London. William was initially educated at home. In 1877, at the age of 11, he joined the Godolphin school, which he attended for four years. His family moved back to Dublin towards the end of 1880 and the following year William resumed his education at Dublin’s Erasmus Smith High School. Between 1884 and 1886, he attended the Metropolitan School of Art at Dublin’s Thomas Street. W B Yeats’s first publication, two brief lyrics, appeared in the Dublin University Review in 1885.
The Yeats family returned to London in 1887 and there William took up the life of a professional writer. In London, he met many other artists and writers, including George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde. In 1890, W.B. Yeats co-founded the Rhymers’ Club along with Welsh-English writer Ernest Rhys. The group, later known as the “Tragic generation”, included many prominent London-based poets of the time who met to discuss and recite their poetry. Rhymers’ Club released two anthologies of poetry in 1892 and 1894.
The first collection of poems by W.B. Yeats, The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, was published in 1889. The collection immediately won him a reputation as a significant poet. Yeats’s poetry continued to evolve as he aged with many of his strongest works coming in his later years. Perhaps his most famous and influential volume is The Tower. Published in 1928, it contains several of his most famous poems, including Sailing to Byzantium, Leda and the Swan, and Among School Children.
When Yeats was a boy, he spent a lot of time with his grandparents in Sligo, a coastal seaport in Ireland. The scenery and folklore of Sligo served as an inspiration for many of his works. Yeats’s poetry was initially influenced by P.B. Shelley and later William Blake’s works also served as an inspiration for him. Yeats was a member of The Golden Dawn, an organization devoted to the occult, metaphysics, and paranormal activities; and The Ghost Club, a paranormal investigation and research organization. Yeats’s interest in legends, myths, spiritualism and the mysterious is reflected in his works.
In 1889, Yeats met Maud Gonne, an English-born Irish revolutionary, suffragette and actress. Yeats fell deeply in love with her but she turned down at least four marriage proposals from him between 1891 and 1901; and instead married Irish nationalist Major John MacBride in 1903. Many of Yeats’s poems are inspired by Maud Gonne or mention her. He also wrote the plays The Countess Cathleen and Cathleen ni Houlihan for her. Few poets have celebrated a woman’s beauty to the extent that Yeats did in his lyric verse about Gonne.
0
0
