Note: The banner above does not indicate approval by this website's owner.

W.B. Yeats Biography

William Butler Yeats was born in Dublin, Ireland, on June 13, 1865, the son of a well- known Irish painter and and religious skeptic, John Butler Yeats. He spent his childhood in County Silgo, where his parents were raised, and in London. He returned to Dublin at the age of fifteen to continue his education and study painting, but quickly discovered he preferred poetry. Born into the Anglo-Irish landowning class, Yeats became involved with the Celtic Revival, a movement against the cultural influences of English rule in Ireland during the Victorian period, which looked to promote the spirit of Ireland's native heritage. Though Yeats never learned Gaelic himself, his writing at the turn of the century drew mainly from sources in Irish mythology and folklore. Also a potent influence on his poetry was the Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne, whom he met in 1889, a woman famous for her passionate nationalist politics and her beauty. Though she married another man in 1903 and grew apart from Yeats (and Yeats himself was eventually married to another woman, Georgie Hyde Lees), she remained a powerful figure in his poetry.
Yeats was deeply involved in politics in Ireland, and in the twenties, despite Irish independence from England, his poems reflected a negativity towards the political situation in his country and the rest of Europe. His work after 1910 was strongly becoming more modern in its concision and imagery, but Yeats never abandoned his strict adherence to traditional verse forms. He had a life-long interest in mysticism and the supernatural, which was disapproved of by some readers, but he remained unrestricted in advancing his eccentric philosophy, and his poetry continued to grow more influential as he grew older. Elected a senator of the Irish Free Republic in 1922, he is remembered as an important cultural leader, as a major playwright, and as one of the very greatest poets--in any language--of the century. W.B. Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923 and died January 28th, 1939 in South France.

The Folly of Being Comforted

One that is ever kind said yesterday:
"Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey,
And little shadows come about her eyes;
Time can bt make it easier to be wise
Though now it seems impossible, and so
All that you need is patience."
Heart cries, "No,
I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain.
Time can but make her beauty over again:
Because of that great nobleness of hers
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,
Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways
When all the wild Summer was in her gaze."
Heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head,
You'd know the folly of being comforted.

Never Give All the Heart

Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Nor leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove me to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

Yeats Essay

William Butler Yeats wrote hundreds of poems that deal with everyday life experiences, love, and politics. Most of his poems include life lessons, his views on what to expect from life presented in story form, that are derived from his writings on everyday experiences. These life lessons, though written decades ago, are still relevant in today's society. Three poems that include life lessons are "Never Give All Heart," "The Folly of Being Comforted," and "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death." These poems tell of different situations in life.
The love aspect of life is displayed through "Never Give All Heart." Yeats' perspective, in this poem, on the subject could result from his experience with divorce. He now might be afraid to love, which would account for this fear portrayed in the poem. In the last two lines of the poem, Yeats appears to use himself as an example as a warning to readers when he writes "He that made this knows all the cost, / For he gave all his heart and lost." This poem explains that one should not give his whole self to another person due to the fact that this other person will soon be gone.
Comforting is another everyday situation dealt with in "The Folly of Being Comforted." When one comforts another, it appears as a simple act of kindness. William Yeats tells of an old gentleman who has an old wife who is beginning to show her age. A friend tries to comfort the old man by explaining that although things may look bad now, they are really turning out for the better. Yeats disagrees with this friend's advice and believes that if one comforts another, the comforter is only lying to the other because things will not make the situation any better.
The last poem, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death," may not seem relevant to everyday life, but it is when it comes out of its literal meaning. The poem tells of an Irish airman whose goal in life is to fly a plane. This airman does not care how or where he flies, he simply wants to fly to make himself content. This relates to everyday life by expressing the importance of being content with one's self. William Yeats conveys a message of doing the things that will bring someone happiness no matter what it takes.
The poetry of William Butler Yeats can be helpful to some readers if they become overwhelmed by the world and think that no one else has been through the hard times that they have. The poems "Never Give All the Heart," "The Folly of Being Comforted," and "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" all contain life lessons in their meanings that support people on their journeys through everyday life.

Works Cited

Eiermann, Katharena. "William Butler Yeats." n. pag. Online. Internet. 10

Mar. 1999. Available http://members.aol.com/KatharenaE/private/Pweek/Yeats/yeats.html

Wasson, Tyler. Nobel Prize Winners. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1987.

"William Butler Yeats." Bartleby Library. n. pag. Online. Internet. 11

Mar. 1999. Available http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/yeats/

"William Butler Yeats." Poems from the Planet Earth. n. pag. Online.

Internet. 10 Mar 1999. Available
http://redfrog.norconnect.no/~poems/poets/william_butler_yeats 1