William Butler Yeats

1. William Butler Yeats Poetry Project

2. Biography • William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was born in Dublin into an Irish Protestant family. His father, John Butler Yeats, a clergyman's son, was a lawyer turned to an Irish Pre-Raphaelite painter. Yeats's mother, Susan Pollexfen, came from a wealthy family - the Pollexfens had a prosperous milling and shipping business. His early years Yeats spent in London and Sligo, where his mother had grown and which he later depicted in his poems. Reincarnation, communication with the dead, mediums, supernatural systems and Oriental mysticism fascinated Yeats through his life. • As a writer Yeats made his debut in 1885, when he published his first poems in The Dublin University Review. In 1887 the family returned to Bedford Park, and Yeats devoted himself to writing. In 1889 Yeats met his great love, Maud Gonne (1866-1953), an actress and Irish revolutionary who became a major landmark in the poets life and imagination. Yeats worshipped Maud, whom he wrote many poems. She was married in 1903 to Major John MacBride, and this episode inspired Yeats's poem 'No Second Troy'. "Why, what could she have done being what she is? / Was there another Troy for her to burn." MacBride was later executed by the British.

3. Easter 1916 • I have met them at close of dayComing with vivid facesFrom counter or desk among greyEighteenth-century houses.I have passed with a nod of the headOr polite meaningless words,Or have lingered awhile and saidPolite meaningless words,And thought before I had doneOf a mocking tale or a gibeTo please a companionAround the fire at the club,Being certain that they and IBut lived where motley is worn:All changed, changed utterly:A terrible beauty is born.That woman's days were spentIn ignorant good-will,Her nights in argumentUntil her voice grew shrill.What voice more sweet than hersWhen, young and beautiful,She rode to harriers?This man had kept a schoolAnd rode our winged horse;This other his helper and friendWas coming into his force;He might have won fame in the end,So sensitive his nature seemed,So daring and sweet his thought.This other man I had dreamedA drunken, vainglorious lout.He had done most bitter wrongTo some who are near my heart,Yet I number him in the song;He, too, has resigned his partIn the casual comedy;He, too, has been changed in his turn,Transformed utterly:A terrible beauty is born.Hearts with one purpose aloneThrough summer and winter seemEnchanted to a stoneTo trouble the living stream.The horse that comes from the road.The rider, the birds that rangeFrom cloud to tumbling cloud,Minute by minute they change;A shadow of cloud on the streamChanges minute by minute;A horse-hoof slides on the brim,And a horse plashes within it;The long-legged moor-hens dive,And hens to moor-cocks call;Minute by minute they live:The stone's in the midst of all.Too long a sacrificeCan make a stone of the heart.O when may it suffice?That is Heaven's part, our partTo murmur name upon name,As a mother names her childWhen sleep at last has comeOn limbs that had run wild.What is it but nightfall?No, no, not night but death;Was it needless death after all?For England may keep faithFor all that is done and said.We know their dream; enoughTo know they dreamed and are dead;And what if excess of loveBewildered them till they died?I write it out in a verse -MacDonagh and MacBrideAnd Connolly and PearseNow and in time to be,Wherever green is worn,Are changed, changed utterly:A terrible beauty is born.

4. First and Second Stanza • Yeats, althought a commited nationalist, was generally opposed to using violence to secure Irish independence, this lead him to many confrontations with the leaders of the Irish nationalist movement. However, after the rising and the execution of the leaders by the British. The deaths shock him as much as it did the ordinary Irish people and led him to work throught his feelings on the situation. The line ‘’A terrible beauty is borm’’ at the end of each stanza is Yeats disant of the killings as he believed the Irish Republican movement was done. • The poem begins with Yeats describing the relationship he and the leaders of the Rising had ‘’ I have passed ... To please a companion’’. Yeats and the leaders had a rocky relationship at best and only ever made small talk with each other. • In the second stanza, the narrator(Yeats) proceeds to describe in greater detail the key figures involved in the Easter uprising, describing them without actually listing their names. The female revolutionary described at the opening of the stanza is Countess Markievicz, who was well-known to Yeats and a long-time friend. The man who "kept a school / And rode our winged horse" is a reference to Patrick Pearse, and the lines about Pearse's "helper and friend" allude to Thomas MacDonagh. In Yeats's description of the three, his torn feelings about the Easter uprising are most keenly communicated. He contrasts the "shrill" voice of Countess Markievicz as a revolutionary, with his remembrance of her uncomparably "sweet" voice when she was a young woman; and he contrasts the haughty public personae of Pearse against his impression of his "sensitive" nature, describing how "daring and sweet" his ideals were even though he and MacDonagh had to resort to "force".

5. Third and Fourth Stanza • In the third stanza the narration goes into the third person as the narrator talks about many different images. The images( ‘clouds’ ‘horses’ ‘birds’) help Yeats convey the theme of change as all has change with the death of the Rising’s leaders. Only one image doesn’t follow this theme and that is the image of stone(‘The stone's in the midst of all’). Among the imagery of change (‘Changes minute by minute;’ ‘Minute by minute they change;’) the symbol of the stone is used to highlight the determination of the Rising’s leaders through the constant changing of public opinion on Irish independence. • The fourth stanza is in the first person narrative like the first two stanzas. Yeats again uses the image of a stony heart to show the determination of the Irish republicans cause (‘Can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice? That is Heaven's part, our part To murmur name upon name…’) • In the second half of the last stanza, the narrator wonders aloud whether the sacrifices were indeed warranted: "Was it needless death after all?" , contemplating the possibility that the British might still allow the Home Rule Act 1914 to come into force without the uprising. However, Yeats made the point that what's done was done. All that is important is to remember the revolutionaries' dream and carry on: "We know their dream; enough/ To know they dreamed and are dead." There is no point arguing over whether these revolutionaries should or shouldn't have acted so rashly for their cause as they did: "And what if excess of love/ bewildered them till they died?“. • In the end, the narrator resigns to commemorating the names of those fallen revolutionary figures, viz. Thomas MacDonagh, John MacBride, James Connolly and Patrick Pearse, as eternal heroes of the Irish Republican movement (symbolised by the colour green), with Yeats adapting the final refrain to reflect the price these people paid to change the course of Irish history:

6. Interesting Fact • The structure of the poem represents the date of the 1916 Rising. There sixteen lines in the first and third stanza(1916), twenty- four in the second and fourth stanza(April 24th) and four stanzas in the poem(April is the fourth month of the year).

7. Hate Poem I hate learning languages And eating bacon for dinner, My stubborn family, And my arrogant friends, Burger King, a rip off of McDonalds, And all the hipsters in the that hang out in Nandos. I hate Soccer, ‘Huh, Some Sport’ And U.C.I cinemas, thank God their out of business, And it’s suck ups I hate most of all, just like my little sister. John Power

8. Love Poem Love is Red, Red for danger, Love is pink, Pink for St. Valentine, Love is harsh , Harsh to Heart, Love is important, Important for your family,