William Butler Yeats
A Symbolist Poet
By Bipul K Debnath
William Butler Yeats, one of the greatest poets in the English language of the 20th century, was a pillar of both Irish and British literary establishments. The Nobel laureate is one of the most read poets not only around the world but in Bangladesh as well.
Yeats is a Symbolist poet as he used allusive imagery and symbolic structures throughout his works. His use of symbols is usually something physical, which in itself is a suggestion of other, perhaps immaterial, timeless qualities.
Of Anglo-Irish descent, Yeats was born on June 13, 1865 at Sandymount in County Dublin, Ireland. His mother, Susan Mary Pollexfen, came of a wealthy merchant family that owned a milling and shipping business in Sligo. His father, John Butler Yeats, was a descendant of Jervis Yeats, a Williamite soldier, linen merchant, and well-known painter.
Although Yeats early works drew heavily on Shelley, Edmund Spenser, and on the diction and colouring of pre-Raphaelite verse, he soon turned to Irish mythology and folklore and the writings of William Blake. In later life, Yeats paid tribute to Blake by describing him as one of the great artificers of God who uttered great truths to a little clan. In 1891, Yeats published John Sherman and Dhoya, one a novella, the other a story.
In his later years, he served as an Irish senator for two terms. Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and, along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and others, founded the Abbey Theatre, where he served as chief during its early years.
In December 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature _ the first Irishman to be so honoured _ for what the Nobel Committee described as inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.
Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after receiving the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929). His important collections of poetry started with The Green Helmet (1910) and Responsibilities (1914).
Yeats also wrote the introduction for the English translation of Rabindranath Tagores Gitanjali, which was published by the India Society in 1912.
On a visit to Britain in 1912, Rabindranath met with many literary figures, including Ezra Pound, the American expatriate poet who was good friends with Yeats. A meeting with Yeats on July 7 proved the most fruitful. The Bengali poet had shown his works to the English painter William Rothenstein, who then eagerly passed them on to Yeats. The Irish poet reportedly burst into a torrent of praise on reading the poems: If someone were to say he could improve this piece of writing, that person did not understand literature.
Yeats agreed to write an introduction to the collection of over 100 inspirational poems, which won Rabindranath the Nobel Prize the following year. Yeats was by then well established in the London literary scene, and he relentlessly promoted Rabindranath in the circles where he wielded influence.
Unlike other modernists who experimented with free verse, Yeats was a master of the traditional form. His most read and loved poem, The Second Coming, is evidence of that. The poem, penned in 1920, contains some of literatures most potent images of the 20th century. Here, he leaves open the possibility that each soul holds within the opportunity to be re-born, as no existing rough beast can slouch forth to be simply born:
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
His plays usually treat Irish legends; they also reflect his fascination with mysticism and spiritualism. The Countess Cathleen (1892), The Land of Hearts Desire (1894), Cathleen ni Houlihan (1902), The Kings Threshold (1904), and Deirdre (1907) are among the most popular.
His mystical interestsalso inspired by a study of Hinduism under the theosophist Mohini Chatterjee, and the occultformed much of the basis of his late poetry. However, some critics, such as W H Auden, criticised this aspect of his work _ Auden called it the deplorable spectacle of a grown man occupied with the mumbo-jumbo of magic and the nonsense of India.
Yeats died on January 28, 1939 in Menton, France and was buried after a discreet and private funeral at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin.
Yeats had often discussed his death, and his express wish was that he be buried quickly in France with a minimum of fuss. According to a friend, his actual words were: If I die, bury me up there (at Roquebrune) and then in a years time when the newspapers have forgotten me, dig me up and plant me in Sligo. In September 1948, Yeats body was moved to Drumcliff, County Sligo. His epitaph is taken from the last lines of Under Ben Bulben, one of his final poems:
Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Horseman, pass by!
The writer is a Masters (English) student at
Dhaka College.
Photos and reference: Internet
