William Butler Yeats Essay -- essays research papers

William Butler Yeats.William Butler Yeats was the major figure in the cultural revolution which developed from the strong nationalistic movement at the end of the 19th century. He dominated the writings of a generation. He established forms and themes which came to be considered as the norms for writers of his generation. Yeats was a confessional poet - that is to say, that he wrote his verse line directly from his own experiences. He was an idealist, with a purpose. This was to create Art for his own people - the Irish. But in so doing, he experienced considerable thwarting and disillusionment. The tension among this ideal, and the reality is the basis of much of his writing. One central theme of his earlier poetry is the contrast between the aims he, and others, such as lady Gregory, had for their movement, and the reality. He had hoped to provide an alternative to nationalism fuelled mainly by hatred for Britain, through the rebirth and regeneration of an ancient Irish cultu re, based on novel and legend. Instead, he found that the response of the newly emerging Irish Catholic middle class to their work, varied between sluggishness and outrage. On the one hand, their indifference was displayed by their refusal to fund a g whollyery for the Hugh Lane collection of Art, and on the other hand, they rioted in outrage at Synges Playboy of the Western World.The tension between Yeats ideal, and the reality is developed in the Fisherman and September 1913. Both these poems deal with Yeats attempts to bring Art to the people of Ireland, and the negative response of Irish society.September 1913.Here, Yeats directs his aroused rage against the Irish Catholic middle class. He perceives them as Philistines, whose values are monetary and religious, not artificeric. His scorn for their petty money grubbing - dry the warmness from the boneand their narrow selfish pietyPrayer to shivering prayeris set in contrast to his admiration for the heroes of old.Yet they wer e of a different kind.These patriots had love Ireland with a passion which consumed them, and for which no sacrifice was too great.For whom the hangmans rope was spun.But the present materialistic age has no place for such men of bravery and idealism. Their age is past. Its With OLeary in the grave.Self sacrifice and patriotism are dead. Consequently, he dismisses the Ireland of his day with ... ...Blind Man stole the bread were Heart mysteries -that is, having their origins in human emotions, he sacrificed the man to the artistPlayers and painted stage took all my love,And not those things that they were emblems of". The joy of creation increasingly absorbed him, not the living of life.Character isolated by a form of addressTo engross the present and dominate memory.These images were masterful - under the Ringmasters control. And they grew in pure mind -increasingly they were the product of his intellect, not his emotions. But now they have gone - theyve deserted him, or pe rhaps he has deserted them, seeing them in all their artificiality. So he is left with no option but to return to what he has avoided - the world of feeling, of emotion. His work out of that tangled world of human emotion, has gone. Hes left at the bottom of the ladder, with his feet on the ground. He uses the powerful metaphor of litter - old kettles, old bones, old ragsto extract the ugliness of human feeling. But, he must confront the reality of life and living at last - he must return to the source of all art, the world of human emotion- The foul rag and boneshop of the heart.