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Indranil Sarkar
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W.B. Yeats’ poetic career officially started in 1887 with the publication
of his first volume of poems. It heralded the seeding of a continuous
process of organic growth for a long period of 53 years. A close study
reveals that the seeds of his later mastery were distinctly discernible
even in the very beginning. “His recurrent themes are the contrast of
art and life, masks, cyclical theories of life (the symbol of the winding
stairs), and the ideal of beauty and ceremony contrasting with the
hubbub of modern life”i.However, it is his ‘Collected Poems’ (1889) which
officially marks the beginning of this evolutionary process of ‘the
making–of- a- great poet’.
Like a well written essay, Yeats’ poetic zeal shows three distinctive
phases:
(i) A beginning;
(ii) A middle and
(iii) An end.
(b)Middle period
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I.The Celtic Twilight Period: The Celtic Twilight Period contains the
earliest poems of Yeats. “Fresh from school and in my early twenties
now, I was full of thought, often very abstract thought, longing all the
while to be full of images, because I had gone to the art school instead
of a university”ii he wrote in his memoir. These poems were published
under captions—The Crossway (1889), The Rose (1898) and The Wind
among the Reeds (1899). The Ballad of Moll Magee, the traditional Irish
song; Down by the Salley Gardens etc. All these poems expressed the
poet’s mind clearly. These were a mixture of Pre-Raphaelite and
Romantic poetry. He imitated Shelley in fluidity and Keats in
Colourfulness. His heroes were Orison, Harahan, and ‘the man who
dreamed of fairy land’ etc... Sidhe, Dream Children, The Druids were
the characters of the fantasy world.” It was a delightful, delicious little
world, an Arcadia, a land of romance, where a life of reverie of
imagination and solitude could be lived. Immortal poems like The Lake
Isle of Innisfree, The Man who dreamed of fairyland, The Stolen
Children etc. feature the poetic hall-mark of the young Yeats at this
time.
His homesickness was clearly visible in the poem “The Lake Isle of
Innisfree”—
‘I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core’.
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The young poet’s heartfelt yearning and nostalgic longing for home
(Sligo in Connaught) from his London abode was marvellously reflected
in the quoted lines. The city life of London could not captivate his
poetic longings anymore.
At this period he cast off his earlier affinity for Pre-Raphaelitism. His
earlier self-introspection appeared ‘Womanish’ to him and he became
determined to grapple with contemporary problems and controversies
and face truth and reality with courage. The change in the subject
matter of his poems in this stage might be succinctly called as
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‘externality’. He no longer wandered into the wonderland of Ireland’s
heroic past but started taking notes on contemporary sorrowful and
struggling life and events of Ireland. This was reflected in the opening
poem of ‘The Seven Woods’. He wrote on the coronation of Edward VII
thus:
The Volumes of his collected poems in this period were ‘The Seven
Woods’ (1904), ‘The Green Hamlet and other poems’ (1910) and
‘Responsibilities’ (1914). Most of the poems encapsulated this process of
Transition in him.
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emotional activities. By doing so they were inviting their own death on
the one hand and increasing the sorrows and sufferings of his unfed
and unclad countrymen on the other. Poems like ’The Irish Airman
foresees his death’, and ‘Easter 1916’ are referential in this regard. His
views were found correct ultimately but he had nothing but to watch
the deaths and destruction quite helplessly. His rational opinions were
overthrown by the emotional craze of the Revolutionaries.
‘The Green Hamlet and other poems’ marked the completion of Yeats’
first metamorphosis. He came closer to life and reality.
c. Matured period: Then came the best of W.B. Yeats. His greatest
poems like ‘The Wild Swans at Coolie’ (1919), ‘Michael Robert and The
Dancer’ (1921), ‘The Tower’ (1921), ‘The Winding Stair and Other Poems’
(1933), including the words for Music perhaps, and the Crazy Zone
group of Poems were published in this period. This was the zenith of
Yeats’ poetic career. Almost all the poems in this period revealed
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superb artistic as well as thematic excellence. The poet reached the
stage of perfection. Whatever he wrote marked the excellence of his
poetic genius.
The relationship between W.B.Yeats and Maud Gonne is one of the most
sensational incidents in the literary history of the World. Yeats met
Maud Gonne while as an art student at his early twenties when the
Aristocratic Revolutionary Activist & feminist Maud Gonne was sent
with an invitation to join the Irish Literary Society. The Young Yeats
fell in love with the girl without knowing that she was already married
and mother of a boy. In course of various toils and turmoil (both
political and personal) the two became closer with one another. Yeats
proposed Maud Gonne at least seven times (a world record indeed!)
before the final rejection by the lady. The historic love story of the
poet was so sensational that it had given a new meaning to the Word
‘Maudgonning’ which originally meant ‘agitating for a cause in a
reckless flamboyant fashion’. The new meaning was ‘to pursue one’s
love infinitely. It is said that ‘Willie kept proposing; Maud kept
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refusing’ till his Maud obsession seemed to ebb, nearly 30 years after
they met first. However, nobody ever blamed the lady for her
decision in this regard. Maud Gonne’s refusal was to keep the poetic
activity of the poet alive. She knew the basic difference between their
temperaments and could guess the tragic consequence of their formal
marriage. She understood that although Yeats was intrinsically a
nationalist, he had a deeper desire to live simply which she had not.
d. Last poems and plays: All the literary activities of the poet in
between 1936 and 1939 belonged to the period known as ‘Last poems and
plays’.
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The style also changed side by side with the thematic change. The
Green Hamlet and other poems (1910), Responsibilities (1914) and The
Wild Swans at Coolie(1917) are really mysterious, beautiful and ever
delightful to men’s eyes.The style of these poems was easy and
sluggish, overlaid with clotty metaphors and epithets, due of course, to
the influence of Spenser, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson & the Pre-
Raphaelites. It was extremely coloured, but the colours were faint,
shadowy and misty in accord with the indefinite, pensive and nostalgic
tone.
His frustration in love, his bitter experiences in Politics and the Abbey
Theatre, his entanglements in public controversies, all combined to
destroy his illusions and make the tune & trend of his realistic and
transitional phase harsh and heartless. His dreams were gone and he
had come to grips with life and reality. The change began with the
seven Woods (1904), and matured in The Responsibilities (1914).But, here
the world got his ironic commentary on contemporary affairs as well as
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life. His interest shifts to the 18th Century patriots and their illustrious
acts.
Style changed again. At this time the soap-bubble colour vanished, the
music of the fairy land died away. We behold only, earthly and clear,
the bare outlines of cold clear Rock and Gateway Rock and thorn. His
verse grew severe, definite and harsh, but at the same time gained in
vigour and intensity. Here, we come across with a compact,
unembellished language and rhythms of mostly Wordsworthian
simplicity, e.g.
A Coat
In walking naked.
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The poem proclaims as such that the new art will no longer give a go
by to realities.His best, bright and most complex poetry was written
when he was on the right side of 50. He moved further near to life and
actuality and his poetry exhibited a keen consciousness of outside
reality. The Easter Rebellion, The Civil War, The Commotion in Ireland
& Europe, Contemporary personalities, heroes & martyrs like Pearse,
Connolly, and MacBride all find increasing mention in his poetry as
contrary to legendary figures in his early poems. He, thus, succeeded
in building up poetic myths out of contemporary politics and
happenings. His personality shone with suppressing beauty and power
through new and live contact with humanity and the teeming men of
the world. He became clear-headed and clear-eyed and so the poems of
this period born of his pen and pains were so tremendously vital and
vigorous. His 1920 poem, ‘The Second Coming’ contained some of
literature's most potent images of the twentieth century.
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Old Willie in 1933 at 68.
Photo by Pirie MacDonald. U.S. Library of Congress.
W.B.Yeats died at the Hôtel Idéal Séjour, in Menton, France, on 28
January 1939. He was buried after a discreet and private funeral at
Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. His epitaph was taken from the last lines of
"Under Ben Bulben", one of his final poems:
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wide range and varied themes Yeats’ is always very difficult to grasp.
T.S.Eliot called him ‘the greatest poet of the 20th century’.
i
. From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company,
Amsterdam, 1969.(the excerpt is from the autobiography/biography written at the time of the award
and first published in the book seriesLes Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel
Lectures.
ii
—from his memoir Four Years (1887-1891) (1921).
iii
. O'Neill, 58
iv.The poetry of W.B.Yeats by Bhabatosh Chatterjee
v.Yeats: The Man and the Masks by Richard Ellmann
vi.Eight Modern Writers by J.M.Stewart
vii.W.B.Yeats by B.Rajan
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