William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)Temat: Ireland
ireland's greatest poet and nobel prize winner helped to shape his country's national identity with the folkoristic blaah blah blah
Ireland's greatest poet, William Butler Yeats, was born in the seaside Dublin suburb of Sandymount in 1865. Yeats was the eldest son of the painter, John Butler Yeats, described as a man "addicted to failure in spite of real artistic talent", and Susan Mary Pollexfen, of a prominent Sligo family. As much by financial necessity as anything else, the Yeats children spent their summers in Sligo in the West of Ireland at the home of their maternal grandmother. For both William and his brother Jack Yeats, a well-known artist, Sligo would remain a spiritual home which they would draw upon for inspiration. Bored with the dull tasks that school set him, W.B. Yeats was what we may call a backward student, and throughout his schooldays he hovered around the bottom of the class. When fifteen, he began art studies at Erasmus Smith School in Dublin where he studied for three years. It is during this time that Yeats, along with his friend George Russell, developed a keen interest in the occult. It was literature, however, and not painting, that proved to be his ultimate calling. He published his first major collection, Crossways, in 1889 and this was followed by The Rose in 1893. Undoubtedly, his most famous poem from this early period is "The Stolen Child". Here is the opening verse: Where dips the rocky highland Come away, O human child! In these last four lines alone we can get a sense of the poem's mystical quality, its folkloristic backdrop, its naturalistic setting and, perhaps most of all, its melancholic tone. In keeping with the Decadent era of the late nineteenth century, much of Yeats' early works are melancholic, but they retain a mysterious quality by drawing upon both folklore and legend, of which melancholy was a vibrant ingredient: Down by the Salley Gardens Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; In a field by the river my love and I did stand, Yeats was initially dragged into Ireland's nationalist question through his unrequited love for the revolutionary Maud Gonne, and his early work coincided with the nationalist debate which took place in Ireland at the end of the last century. Sharing many similarities with Poland's literary scene, much of the debate centred on the questions of Art and Nationhood. Literature as a tool of nationalist struggle can serve two functions: either as rhetorical propaganda or as the assertion of a nation's identity. Though the matter is a complex one, it is fair to say that Yeats favoured the latter alternative and pursued an art that was independent of propaganda. With such aims in mind, he co-founded with his friend and patron, Lady Augusta Gregory, the Irish Literary Theatre in 1899, which aimed at creating a distinct Irish dramatic literature, promoting in the process the playwright J.M. Synge, who is a comparable figure to Poland's Stanisław Wyspiański. The Irish Literary Theatre was later renamed The Abbey and remains one of Ireland's foremost theatres. Though his early poetry seems far removed from nationalist struggle, the fact that it drew upon Ireland's myths and legends and incorporated geographical settings represented a poetry that rejuvenated ideas of Ireland's rich culture and heroic past. Despite the political and literary background of Yeats' poetry, his early poems easily break free of political issues and remain just as fresh today as they did when they were first published. Again in the next poem we have a love theme, though here it is spoken of in a domestic context. Whereas it is often said that marriage kills romance, here we see the female protagonist retaining her mystique. To An Isle in the Water Shy one, shy one She carries in the dishes She carries in the candles And shy as a rabbit The career of W.B. Yeats was long and varied, and one in which his poetic power seemed to grow with the passing of each year, although some of his later poems are considerably more challenging than his early works. Having said this, though, The Last Confession, the final poem written shortly before the poet's death, retains the simple beauty of his early works. Here the female protagonist confesses in a jubilant manner her life's corporeal delights. It's not clear here whether she's confessing to a priest or not, but it is clear that she does not consider a passionate life to have been a life misspent. A Last Confession What lively lad had pleasured me Flinging from his arms I laughed I gave what other women gave And give his own and take his own Yeats was a prolific writer and he was writing poetry and revising his works to the very end of his life. The few poems selected here represent but a small aspect of his body of work. One of the most revered writers of his time, Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923 and continues to fascinate and attract legions of new readers. This is hardly surprising, though. His poems are unsurpassable in their beauty. Glossary prominent – very important (znamienity, szacowny) Artykuł pochodzi ze strony www.woe.edu.pl |
