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WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS (1865-1939) - Coggle Diagram
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS (1865-1939)
LIFE
born from an Irish middle-class artistic family
He spent his childhood in London and the summer in Sligo (rural west Ireland) where he heard about the old Celtic romances
got involved in the nationalist cause and developed the idea of a distinctive
Irish literature
the actress and patriot Maud Gonne didn't return his love, so he married
Lady Gregory
, Irish nationalist and dramatist. They founded the Abbey Theatre in Dublin
In 1917 he bought the medieval tower-house Thoor Ballylee (County Galway)
In 1917 he married the young
Georgie Hyde-Lees
, who shared his interest in the occult. Her 'automatic writing' (dictated by supernatural communicators) was then developed by Yeats
In 1922 he became a senator of the Irish free state
In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature
he died in France but was buried in Sligo
WORKS
3 PERIODS
MIDDLE PERIOD
modern and flexible style, use of symbols to evoke universal myths
In the seven woods
(1903)
The green helmet and other poems
(1910)
The wild swans at Coole
(1917)
Responsibilties: Poems and a play
(1914)
LATER PERIOD
passionate intensity of maturity
EARLY PERIOD
reproduction of the languid Romantic atmospheres and of the mood of the Decadent artists
The Rose
(1893)
The lake isle of Innisfree
in London, a fountain reminds the poet Lough Gill near Sligo
The wind among the reeds
(1899)
THE ROLE OF THE ARTIST
the creation of a new culture based on Ireland's past
essays
The Celtic twilight
he created his tragic vision of history from a bestial floor, to great heights of spiritual achievement, to apocalyptic anarchy
OCCULTISM
he joined
the Theosophical Society
(a mystical society)
he learnt magic and esoteric symbols
he developed the idea of the
gyre
a vortex which grows and dwindles, like a double vortex, in terms of which Yeats described the mind's evolution
The mind evolves by circling toward the wide end of a gyre until 'the centre cannot hold' (
The second coming
) and the revelation takes place. Then, the mind shifts to a new centre
SYMBOLS AND STYLE
EMOTIONAL SYMBOLS
evoking emotions
INTELLECTUAL SYMBOLS
evoking ideas
GREAT MEMORY
since symbols can shape the individual and the collective consciousness, symbols offer a revelation and embody the truths
antithesis, oxymoron, paradox, frequent enjambement
a single sentence long as a whole stanza
sensory vocabulary, dynamic syntax
conflict and resolution of opposites
POEMS
Easter 1916
celebrates the Irish leaders executed or imprisoned during the Easter Rising
'terrible beauty' - oxymoron reflecting Yeats' divided mind
beauty of the drive for independence
terrible as the price of death and the violence of blind patriotism
The Second Coming
inspired by Christ's words predicting a 'second coming'
Yeats' concept of history based on the
gyre
describes the coming of a new world order of terror and war
describes the
Great memory
as the universal subconscious where the memories of the human race are preserved
Sailing to Byzantium
from the worries for age and illness to the disillusionment with the 1922 Irish Civil War.
Byzantium as the symbol of art perfection