Biography: William Butler Yeats

Irish poet, playwright, and nobel prize winner, William Butler Yeats, was born in Dublin in 1865. His father was a lawyer/artist and his mother came from a wealthy family from County Sligo (“William Butler Yeats” 1). Although he spent his childhood split between Dublin and London, Yeats considered his Irish heritage as an important element of his identity, which is evident in his poetry (Markey 36). During his college years, he attended the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin. The most impactful part of his education was meeting other writers and authors like George Bernard Shaw, William Earnest Henley, and Oscar Wilde who served as an inspiration and encouragement to him (Frank 1). Shortly after his university years, he met Maud Gonne, who he loved and viewed as his muse, although she refused to marry him (“Biography” 1). 

W. B. Yeats is considered the most significant contributor to the Irish literary renaissance. In 1894 he met Lady Augusta Gregory, with whom he founded the Irish Literary Theatre in Dublin, which was later named the National Theatre of Ireland. This theater became home to the leading Irish playwrights and actors (“William Butler Yeats” 1). The plays at this theater celebrated Irish folklore and ended up sparking a literary movement within Ireland. Ann Markey explains, “Irish folklore can underpin a literary renaissance by providing imaginative inspiration for a modern, rational, materialistic world crying out for rejuvenation by an ancient spirituality... led to the development of a distinctly Irish drama (36).”

In addition to being a major player in the Irish literary renaissance, Yeats was also considered an Irish Nationalist. He lived during a time of great turmoil in Ireland. Parts of Ireland were still loyal to British rule, while some factions wanted to break off and become their own nation. This turmoil and uncertainty about the future is definitely evident in Yeats’ “The Second Coming.” “Yeats devoted himself to literature and drama, believing that poems and plays would engender a national unity capable of transfiguring the Irish nation” (“William Butler Yeats” 1). 

Another significant factor in W. B. Yeats’ life was religion. He rejected Catholicism, the majority religion in Ireland, and instead embraced a religion that was all his own. In 1925, he wrote A Vision, which describes his religion - a complicated mix of “the occult, spiritualism fairy life and fairy tales, paganism, magic, seances, psychic phenomena, Eastern religion, Blavatsky, mysticism, and William Blake” (Frank 1). A huge part of his philosophy was that history is cyclical, which is major theme in his poem “The Second Coming.” 

Yeats ended up marrying Georgie Hyde Lees in 1917. They had two children - Anne and Michael. He also was elected to the Irish senate in 1922 and served for six years (“William Butler Yeats” 2). He was awarded a nobel prize for his literature in 1923. Interestingly, he produced his greatest work later in his life, between the ages of fifty and seventy-three, which is very rare for a poet. He died in 1939 at the age of seventy-three. His gravestone is inscribed with the epitaph “Cast a cold Eye, On Life, On Death, Horseman pass by!” (“William Butler Yeats” 3).