Research Paper on William Butler Yeats

The Irish Rebellion of 1641, his m other reading Irish folktales to him as a child, and William Blakes use of fiction influenced William butler Yeats to write The Curse of the Fire and the Shadows. Yeats is a huge part of 20th century slope and Irish literature and one of the most all-important(prenominal) writers that started the Irish Literary Revival and was responsible for starting a his own literary club cal guide The Rhymers conjunction. In addition to being a great poet Yeats was al meanss prominent in writing neat stories and plays. whiz of Yeats individual characteristics is his split sense of certain situations. He was very spiritual and all the same managed to pay heed to a skeptical sense of artistic detachment. His beliefs were late torn amidst his interest in mysticism and the inner workings of the universe to his faith in god and his spiritual being. Yeats was a man deeply seeded in the mountain some him. This being a lot of the subjects in all of his writin g, Yeats alike wrote ab come to the fore love, the mind, spirituality, mysticism, fiction, substantiveity, war, and even somewhattimes flirted with head of fascism.Being born and raised in Ireland Yeats identified with the slew and their struggles against England but he didnt agree with their passiveness and throughout lifetime he had attempted to amend the situation by semipolitical means. Although a lot of the conflict had been settled through war, like the Irish Rebellion of 1641. The Irish Rebellion was fought between the catholic Irish rebels and the English and Scottish Protestants that controlled the area. The conflict arose when some Irish Catholics attempted a coup to overthrow the English administration. Their goal was to force them to allow the Catholics their sanctioned religious rights.Although their coup failed it was the spark that started the Irish Rebellion of 1641 also known as the Irish follower wars. A war that lasted from 1641 to 1649 and was fought in Ireland itself. The Irish fought with besides about 5,000 s white-hairediers against Englands army of 19,000. Despite the axiomatic advantage the English held, the Irish had managed to kill some 3,000 English and Scottish soldiers in the first mesh of the war. Although the mainly Puritan English parliament had used yellow journalism to deceive the people of England and verbalize that hundreds of thousands were murdered by the Irish catholic scum.Though this was just a political tactic apply by parliament to steal power away from King Charles I and sully his reputation as the king of England. Parliament distrusted him so much that they feared he would use the Irish against the Puritans in the English urbane war that begun in 1642. In the midst of all the political scandal parliament had begun to recruit much soldiers for the war from both England and Scotland. Although it had already been too late because the Irish had already gained control of the area and make their own pr ovisional government in Kilkenny.At first Charles I had ordered James Butler who was the duke of Oromonde and lord lieutenant of Ireland to negotiate a treaty to end the war. Except that the parliament in capital of the United Kingdom and the new parliament in Dublin had both refused the terms of this agreement. By 1645 Charles I had been captured by Cromwell. too Ormonde was named the head of the confederacy that was the agreed upon union between the Royalists and the Puritans in Ireland. Although not everyone had agreed to be led by Ormonde. Murrough OBrien of Inchiquin an Irish Protestant that had been posted in the town of Munster.Rather than just rejecting the new estabblishment he had burned Munster to the ground on orders from Parliament, earning him the nickname Murrough of the burnings. Murrough wasnt alone in the opposition of Ormonde, a lot of the people who refused the new leaders were Irish catholic rebels that did not like the idea of working together with their old e nemies. The war had reached its climax when Colonel Michael Jones had attacked and removed Ormonde from his position at the battle of Rathmines on idealistic 2, 1649. On August 13, 1649 Oliver Cromwell had set sail to decimate the remaining rebel stronghold.Scotland native Sir Fredrick Hamilton who was somewhat of a celebrity in Ireland and England was given land in Leitrim, northwest of Ireland in 1622. Over the next 20 years he had built his castle to 18,000 acres. Manorhamilton had constantly come under attack during the Irish rebellion of 1641 and the castles defenses had managed to survive the onslaught. In 1642 in retaliation for the ORourke clans cattle raids Hamilton had attacked the nearby buildings even Sligo Abbey didnt survive the attack.After which Hamilton and his men had returned to manorhamilton although on the way it as said that Hamiltons men had snuff it lost and were offered help from from a guide on a white horse and instead he led them off a cliff. This legen d ended up being the subject for the short story The Curse of the Fire and the Shadows by William B. Yeats. The work of William Butler Yeats is a direct reflection of his life, his inspiration, and his families influence. Yeats was born in Dublin on June 13, 1865. His father, John Butler Yeats, was a barrister who came from a long lineage of land owners tracing all the way back to the 18th century.His mother, Susan Pollexfen had come from a fairly wealthy merchant family. His father was a supporter of nationalism and the nationalist movement in the country. Initially wanting to be lawyer, John Butler was studying law at the time of his wedlock but abandoned the study and moved to England in 1876 when Yeats was only 2 so he could engender a painter. Yeats was brought up in an extremely aristocratic family and this had a big impact on his life and his writing. Yeats childhood was marked by events like the momentum of nationalism and a lot of societies shift from universality to Puri tanism.His father also decided to renounce their familys Christian faith and instead of reading and interest rationalists like John Stuart he read the works of William Blake and Walt Whitman. This was one of the first times Yeats had been exposed to English poetry as a child. On January 26 1876, William Yeats was sent to the Godolphin primary school where he canvass for the next quad years and unexpectedly performed poorly in both math and english. In 1880 imputable to financial problems, the family returned to Dublin and Yeats enrolled into Erasmus Smith High instruct. Then in 1883 he attended the Metropolitan School of Art.While attending college Yeats published his first two works that ulterior appeared in the Dublin University Review. It was subsequently(prenominal) in his college career that Yeats had made the decision to move on from his artistic career and further his abilities as an author. Since then he started writing poems on various themes and plays. His initial w orks were deeply influenced with the creations of great poet Percy B. Shelley, and later shifted towards pre-Raphaelite verse and Irish myth and traditions. In his maturing years, Yeats came to appreciate the writing of William Blake. A year later his family decided to make the move back to capital of the United Kingdom.Yeats openly opposed the age of science and often surd more on the view astronomy. Yeats interest in mysticism, spiritualism, astrology and occultism drew criticism from his colleagues who dismissed it as a lack of intellectuality. His first serious work, The Isle of Statutes, was a fantasy poem and was published in Dublin University Review. In 1886, he published a pamphlet Mosada A Dramatic Poem followed by The Wanderings of Orisin and Other Poems, published in 1889. By 1890 Yeats was already an important part of the literary and artistic scenes in London. He even founded his own club called The Rhymers Club.Its members nicknamed the tragic generation included writ ers Lionel Johnson, Ernest Dawson, John Davidson, and Arthur Simmons. It was ar. corresponding every other English poet of the time Yeats had experienced unrequited love. Her name was Maud Gonne, she was a poet and strong feminist who like Yeats, was very involved with the ideal of nationalism. Yeats had proposed to her and was rejected because of his lack participation in nationalist activism. Yeats coercion with Maud Gonne had almost been unnatural, Ross quotes from Yeats memoirs I had never thought to see in a living womanhood so great beauty.It belonged to famous pictures, to poetry, to some legendary past. A complexion like the blossom of apples, and yet vista and body had the beauty of lineaments which Blake calls the highest beauty because it changes least from youth to age, and a stature so great that she seemed of a divine race (3). Yeats was madly in love and extremely obsessed. He had believed in Blakes standards so strongly that they become his own and in his eyes Maud Gonne had met them all. For this reason she was the subject of his affection and his art and she knew this well.This being yet another reason she had denied Yeats marriage proposals over and over again. She knew herself to be his muse and nothing more, she was his living inspiration. From 1902 to 1908 Yeats had become involved with the theater, as a result he had written less poetry during this time. During this period he also began to remake himself. This process would last for the next 37 years by and by which Yeats wrote Myself I mustiness Remake. A poem about his 37 year long experience of his own revitalization what it meant to him. In 1917 Yeats married Georgie Hyde-Lees and released The Swans at Coole, a collection of his poetry.Yeats and his wife had two children, Ann Butler Yeats and William Michael Yeats. As roaring a poet and writer Yeats had become at this time he had yet to achieve any political success. Politics being an interest of his and combining his fame and artistic abilities as a writer together would call for made him very popular with the public. Yet it wasnt until 1922 when the Irish Free State was established that he had been elect as a senator, and re- pick out for a second term in 1925. Soon after he had been elected a hand arose on divorce that Yeats had viewed as a confrontation between Catholics and Puritans.When the catholics had flat out refused divorce all together and decided to outlaw divorce Yeats had released a series of speeches attacking the goverment and the clergy. Yeats give tongue to that for Puritans marriage isnt a religious sacrement but the proof of the love a man and a woman have for eachother and that it would seem sacrilegious if the church were to force two people who hate eachother to live together. The debate has described as one of Yeats greatest public moments and marked his movement from pluralism to direct religious confrontation. One of the most important writers to Yeats was a man named Wi lliam Blake.Encouraged by his father Yeats had begun to read the works of Blake around age 15. In 1889, Yeats had studied and learned so much about Blake that he got together with his fathers shoplifter and poet, Edwin Ellis in editing the 3 works of Blake, Poetic, Symbolic, and Critical. In the revised edition they had also included a 172 page memoir of Blakes life, an explanation of his symbolic system, and their interpretations of the poems. Ross also writes Yeats recollects that early in their acquaintance Ellis handed him a scrap of notepaper on which he had written an interpretation of To the Jews, the preface to the second chapter of Jerusalem.The four quarters of London represented Blakes four great mythological personages, the Zoas, and also the four elements(3). Yeats believed that these lines were the key to understanding and interpreting Blakes philosophical system and makes the connection between his system and that of Swedenborg or of Boehme. So it was with this proo f that Yeats bad determined Ellis interpretation was real and that was all they needed to begin their work on the prophetic works of Blake. Ross writes on the relationship between Yeats and William Blake No writer meant more to Yeats, early, middle, and late.Blake provided Yeats with nothing less that a sacred literature in which he could renew himself and in relationship to which he could orient himself as a poet and thinker (2). Yeats considered Blake to be the only protect he knew and in his opinion his writing grew more interesting and also more cloud with each passing year. Also there was no writer that Yeats quoted more, not even Percy Shelley. In addition, patch criticizing a lecture by Yeats, Ross states Yeats devotion to Blake never waned, even as he shed other habiliments of the 1890s, including, to some extent, Shelley (2).As this crucial an influence as Shelley is known to be this quote further cements the idea of how important Blake was to Yeats through his entire car eer, from beginning to end. Toward the end of Yeats life mainly after the Wall pass crash and the great depression had begun. Critics began to arise and ask questions about whether or not a popular society could survive a great economic depression. It was during this time that Yeats had begun to associate with fascist ideals and even explicit admiration for Benito Mussolini.Yeats had begun to think that in the aftermath of the depression Europe would be reconstructed through totalistic rule. Then in 1933 at the age of 68 Yeats had grown very sick and had to receive a Steinbach rejuvenation surgery a year later. Even after this he had continued writing and released four verse plays, a poetry book called A Full Moon in March, and the final edict of A Vision. His last poems were published after his death in 1939 but arrangements couldnt be made for his funeral until after World War II, at which point his body was taken to Sligo, where he was buried.