William Butler Yeats Essay -- essays research papers

William Butler Yeats.William Butler Yeats was the major figure in the cultural renewal which developed from the strong nationalistic movement at the end of the nineteenth 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 poetry 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 frustration and disillusionment. The tension in the midst of this ideal, and the reality is the basis of much of his writing. One central theme of his to begin with poetry is the parent period 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, by dint of the rebirth and regeneration of an ancient Irish culture, based on myth and legend. Instead, he found that the chemical reaction of the newly emerging Irish Catholic affectionateness class to their work, varied between indifference and outrage. On the angiotensin-converting enzyme hand, their indifference was displayed by their refusal to fund a g tout ensembleery for the Hugh Lane collection of Art, and on the other hand, they rioted in outrage at Synges Playboy of the westward World.The tension between Yeats ideal, and the reality is developed in the Fisherman and folk 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 angerate rage against the Irish Catholic middle class. He perceives them as Philistines, whose values are monetary and religious, not creative personic. His disdain for their petty money grubbing - dry the marrow from the boneand their narrow egotistical pietyPrayer t o shivering prayeris set in contrast to his admiration for the heroes of old.Yet they were of a different kind.These patriots had loved 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 mercenary(a) age has no place for such men of courage 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 twenty-four hours with ... ...Blind Man stole the bread were Heart mysteries -that is, having their origins in forgiving 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 progressively absorbed him, not the living of life.Character isolated by a deedTo engross the present and dominate memory.These images were masterful - under the Ringmasters control. And they grew in pristine mind -increasingly they w ere the product of his intellect, not his emotions. But now they have gone - theyve ramshackle him, or perhaps he has deserted them, seeing them in all their artificiality. So he is left with no option but to pay back to what he has avoided - the world of feeling, of emotion. His ladder out of that tangled world of world emotion, has gone. Hes left at the bottom of the ladder, with his feet on the ground. He uses the powerful simile of litter - old kettles, old bones, old ragsto suggest the ugliness of human feeling. But, he must confront the reality of life and living at uttermost - he must return to the source of all art, the world of human emotion- The foul rag and boneshop of the heart.