ENG20440 Irish Literature in English W. B. Yeats: Creativity and Desire Dr Lucy Collins

A poet writes always of his personal life, in his finest work out of its tragedy, whatever it be, remorse, lost love, or mere loneliness; he never speaks directly as to someone at the breakfast table, there is always a phantasmagoria W. B. Yeats, ‘A General Introduction for My Work,’ Essays and Introductions. London: Macmillan, 1961, p. 509.

Yeats Chronology 1865 Yeats born in Sandymount, Co. Dublin Yeats family move between London, Dublin and Sligo; Yeats schooled in Hammersmith 1884 Yeats enrolled in the Metropolitan School of Art, where he meets George Russell 1885 First poems published 1886 ‘Mosada’ appears in the Dublin Univ. Review 1889 First book, The Wanderings of Oisin, published; meets Maud Gonne for the first time

1908 Eight volumes of Yeats’s Collected Works in Verse and Prose published by Shakespeare Head 1910 The Green Helmet and Other Poems published 1912 Involved in Abbey Theatre business; writing poems of Responsibilities (1914) 1913 Begins collaborative work with Ezra Pound; influence of modernism on Yeats’s work 1916 Writes ‘Easter 1916’ in response to the Easter Rising in Dublin 1917 Purchases Thoor Ballylee in Co. Sligo; marries Georgina Hyde Lees

Early 20 th century a time of major change in Irish literary and artistic production: a re-making of earlier nationalist artforms Yeats pivotal to many of these developments, including the foundation of the Abbey Theatre and support for Cuala Press Growing up in a family of artists Yeats was conscious of the role of creativity at times of political and cultural change

The land of Ireland, we both felt, was powerfully alive and invisibly peopled, and whenever we grew despondent over the weakness of the national movement, we went to it for comfort. If only we could make contact with the hidden forces of the land it would give us strength for the freeing of Ireland. Maud Gonne, ‘Yeats and Ireland’, Scattering Branches: Tributes to the Memory of W. B. Yeats, ed. Stephen Gwynn. London: Macmillan, 1940.

The Song of Wandering Aengus I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor I went to blow the fire a-flame, But something rustled on the floor, And some one called me by my name: It had become a glimmering girl With apple blossom in her hair Who called me by my name and ran And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering Through hollow lands and hilly lands, I will find out where she has gone, And kiss her lips and take her hands; And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are done, The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun.

The Song of Wandering Aengus: Stanza 1 I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout.

I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout.

I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout.

I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout.

Upon a House shaken by the Land Agitation How should the world be luckier if this house, Where passion and precision have been one Time out of mind, became too ruinous To breed the lidless eye that loves the sun? And the sweet laughing eagle thoughts that grow Where wings have memory of wings, and all That comes of the best knit to the best? Although Mean roof-trees were the sturdier for its fall, How should their luck run high enough to reach The gifts that govern men, and after these To gradual Time’s last gift, a written speech Wrought of high laughter, loveliness and ease?

Yeats makes poetry out of the fact that he is a proud, sensitive, cultivated Irishman. He hardly has to make poetry – except the rhymes, which don’t matter; he just lets his heart talk… One can not but pay reverence to a poet, who, after having written poetry for many years, can still be read with the same critical alertness that one would give to the best of the younger poets Marianne Moore, review of The Wild Swans at Coole, Poetry (Chicago), October 1918: 42-3.

The Wild Swans at Coole The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry, Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky; Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine and fifty swans. The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me Since I first made my count; I saw, before I had well finished, All suddenly mount And scatter wheeling in great broken rings Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures, And now my heart is sore. All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight, The first time on this shore, The bell-beat of their wings above my head, Trod with a lighter tread. Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold Companionable streams or climb the air; Their hearts have not grown old; Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water Mysterious, beautiful; Among what rushes will they build, By what lake’s edge or pool Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day To find they have flown away?

Conclusion  Private and public worlds are entwined for Yeats, making his experience central to his understanding of modern Ireland  Particular landscapes and places are used repeatedly for real and symbolic effect; they accumulate meaning as Yeats’s career progresses  Yeats’s poetry is shaped by the energies of opposition – between solitude and intimacy, action and reflection