William Yeats:
A Mystical Poet

Zach King
Mrs. Shealey
Period 4- English 4
23 April 2012

Zach King
Mrs. Shealey
Period 4- English 4
23 April 2012
William Yeats: A Mystical Poet
Thesis: William Yeats was a 20th century Irish poet who loved the magical things of life.
I. Time period A. World War I B. Irish Revolution
II. Life A. Early B. Later
III. Works A. “Sailing to Byzantium” B. “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death”

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Zach King
Mrs. Shealey
Period 4- English 4
23 April 2012 William Yeats: A Mystical Poet
Magic and the supernatural come together to meet in William Butler Yeats’ poetry. Yeats was one of the front-runners in poems that had to deal with the occult and unnatural. He is considered one of the greatest English writers. William Yeats was a 20th century Irish poet who loved the magical things of life.
At the time of William Butler Yeats, the First World War broke out. At first, the war was caused by the creation of Germany that changed the balance of power in Europe. The people that were the cause of the first attacks of the war were the Continental Powers. The fighting in the war came mostly from trenches that were dug on the boarders. Throughout the war technology kept advancing and World War I was the first war that used airplanes in combat. Along with the new use of airplanes in the war, the first tanks were being invented and built by the people in France and Great Britain. The use of sending spies into enemies’ home countries made it easier to get insider information about the military plans for the war. The war ended and the Allies troops came out as the winners. In 1919, the German officials were given the Treaty of Versailles to admit their defeat in the war. At the end of all the battles and fighting there was almost 10 million people dead world wide from the war (“World”[1-8]). King 2
Around the same time as World War I, the Irish Revolution was going on between Ireland and Great Britain. Ireland was controlled by its neighboring country Great Britain for over hundreds of years. The Irish people wanted its independence from Great Britain for once. The Revolution started and Ireland was split into two different groups of people. There was the Nationalist, who fought for the freedom of Ireland. On the other side, there was the Unionist, who wanted to stay loyal to Great Britain. A group of Nationalist planned to get Dublin back from Britain control and claim independence. The plan failed miserably and the British executed fifteen leaders of the Nationalist party. In 1919 Ireland claimed its independence and made Eamon de Velera its first president of their new government. Britain finally gave the Irish people the independence they fought for in 1920 with the Government of Ireland bill (“History” [1]).
With all these things happening William Butler Yeats was born on June 13, 1865 in Dublin, Ireland. His father was a portrait painter and his mother was the daughter of a very wealthy merchant. His family moved to London when he was only 2 years old (“Yeats”[1]). While he was younger he lived in Sligo, Ireland with other family members (Felstiner [1]). Yeats never went to school until he was eleven years old (Draper 4096). His few choices of religion were being Catholic or the folklore of old Ireland (Ussher 68). From there he became very interested in folklore and supernatural legend. Yeats got to the chance to move back to Ireland when his parents moved back to Dublin from London in 1880. Once back in Dublin, he went to the Metropolitan School of Art (“Yeats” [1]). He was very King 3 timid and not very athletic as well as being a poor student (Draper 4096). His love of the mystical and occult was a main focus of his studies as a teenager (Ruby, Vol. 2 210). He joined the Theosophical Society after meeting its leader Madam Blavatsky in 1887 (“W.B.” [1]). Also in 1887 Yeats became a full time writer. His first published work was in The Dublin University Review (“Yeats” [1]).
The interest of the occult followed him to his adult years. Yeats’ favorite themes were sex and death for his poems. Yeats got married to Georgie Hyde- Lees when he was pretty young (Pearce [1-2]). Although he was married with two children with his wife, he loved to have other girlfriends in his life (Matthew [1]). He is the founder of the Abby Theatre in Dublin and built it in 1903 (“Dublin’s [1]). Yeats was anti-Britain while Ireland was fighting for independence (Eder [1]). He was soon elected to be the senator for the Irish Free State (Matthews [1]). In 1923 he won he Nobel Prize for his work in literature (Draper 4096). In 1928,because of a decline in his heath, Yeats had to leave the Senate. He died on the 28th of January in 1939 (Ruby, Vol.1 76). He was not able to get buried in Ireland, so his family buried him in France (“Yeats” [3]).
Yeats wrote a great poem is his lifetime called, “Sailing to Byzantium”. “Sailing to Byzantium” was one of Yeats’ greatest philosophical tales that he had ever written (Ussher 81). The theme of the poem is that everything gets slower and weaker over time. In the poem the person is trying to sail somewhere that time and death do not exist. The person wants to take his wisdom with him and completely bypass death. The poem shows that real objects of nature are King 4 becoming less and less, yet man made things keep becoming more abundant. In the poem, it keeps trying to address the fact that death can be beaten. The poem’s style is ottava rima. It is said to be one of Yeats’ best out of his entire lifetime. It shows the fight against age while trying to gain wisdom. Yeats tried to combine the spiritual and natural world together to make a place of art (Ruby, Vol.2 209-211).
Along with “Sailing to Byzantium,” Yeats put together another great poem called “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.” The speaker in the poem is a pilot for Britain. The opening line of the poem is the pilot saying that he knows he will die. The pilot says he does not care for the people he fights for or against. It is ironic that the only people that the speaker cares about are the people he is fighting against in Kiltartan, Ireland. Since he does not care about the fighting he flies because he thinks it is fun. The poem’s rhyme scheme is abab and its four stanzas long that each contains sixteen lines. Yeats wrote the poem in remembrance of his friend. The poem’s main conflict is the struggle between life and death. Yeats wanted his friend to know that he needed to stop wasting his age. The poem tells of someone that does not fight for any of the regular reason of war (Ruby, Vol.1 76-80).
William Yeats showed the world his own blend of the supernatural and real life with his works. His poems are forever left for the new generations to read and learn from. He had a unique style that was far different from others. William

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Yeats is and always be considered one of the greatest English writers of the 20th century.

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Works Cited
Draper, P. James. “ William Butler Yeats.” World Literature Criticism. Vol. 6. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992. 4095-4097.Print.
“Dublin’s Renowned Abby Theatre to Pull Up Stakes.” Globe & Mail 10 Dec. 2005: R2. Custom Newspapers (InfoTrac-Gale). Web. 29 Jan. 2012. Print.
Eder, Richard. “W.B. YEATSBOOKS/ Nonfiction.” International Herald Tribune 10 Dec. 2003: 18. Custom Newspapers (InfoTrac-Gale). Web. 29 Jan. 2012. Print.
Felstiner, John. “ History vs. Nature, For Yeats, The Natural World is the Symbol of His Times.” The Weekly Standard 22 Sept. 2008. General OneFile. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. Print.
“History, The Irish Revolution.” Countriesquest.com. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. Web. Print.<http://www.countriesquest.com/europe/ireland/history/the_irish_revolutionhtm>.
Matthews, Charles. “W.B. Yeats’ Glorious and Sad Final years.” Record 4 Jan. 2004. EO3. Custom Newspapers (InfoTrac-Gale). Web. 29 Jan. 2012. Print.
Pearce, Michele. “Yeats and the Women Who Loved Him.” American Theatre Feb. 1997.7. General OneFile. Web. 29 Jan. 2012.Print.
Ruby, K. Mary, ed. “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.” Poetry for Students. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998. 76-82. Print. King 7
Ruby, K. Mary, ed. “ Sailing to Byzantium.” Poetry for Students. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998. 207-213. Print.
Ussher, Arland. Three Great Irishmen: Shaw, Yeats, Joyce. New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1953.
“W.B. Yeats: A Life v1: The Apprentice Mage.” The Atlantic Nov.1997. 155-160 General OneFile. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. Print.
“World War 1.” Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age War and Reconstruction. Ed. John Merriman and Jay Winter. Vol. 5. Detroit: Charles Scribner’s Son, 2006. 2751-2766. Gale World History In Content. Web. 12 Mar. 2012.Print.
“Yeats, William Butler.” Encyclopedia Britannaica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online School Edition. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2012. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. Print. <http://school.eb.com/eb/article-9077890>.