William Butler Yeats - Biography, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Filmography (Read)

William Butler Yeats - biography, date of birth, place of birth, filmography, clips, screenwriter.

June 13, 1865, Sandymount, Ireland - January 28, 1939, Roquebrune - Cap Martin, France, also transliterated as Yeats, Yeats, Yeates - Irish English-speaking poet and playwright.

The poet's father, John Butler Yeats, received his law degree, but when his son was two years old, he decisively broke with the lawyer world and went to London to study painting. He became a portrait painter. William's younger brother is the famous Irish artist Jack Butler Yates. In 1880, the Yeats returned to Ireland and settled in the Dublin suburb. In Dublin, William Yates graduated from high school and, with the approval of his father, entered the art school.

William Yates began writing poetry early and his talent was noticed quite quickly. Poets who favored his early work include William Henley, Gerard Hopkins, William Morris and Oscar Wilde.

In 1885, Yeats met John O'Leary, a member of the Irish Fenian secret society, who had returned to Dublin after years of imprisonment and exile. Influenced by a new acquaintance, Yeats begins to write poetry and articles in a patriotic vein, numerous images of Old Irish Celtic culture appear in his poetics.

Yeats also showed an early interest in the occult. While still in art school, he met George Russell, later a famous poet and occultist, who wrote under the pseudonym A.E. They and several other people founded the Hermetic Society for the Study of Magic and Eastern Religions under the chairmanship of Yeats. In the mid-1880s, he briefly joined the Theosophical Society, but soon became disillusioned with it.

On January 30, 1889, Yeats met Maud Gonn, who became his love for a long time. She was an active participant in the Irish independence movement, and involved Yeats in political struggles. Yates did not abandon his passion for occult disciplines, so in 1890 he joined the Order of the Golden Dawn, founded shortly before by his friend MacGregor Mathers.

In 1899, Yeats's poetry collection "The Wind in the Reeds" was published, according to critics, the main achievement of the early stage of his work. The imagery of Yeats' poetry at this time is full of characters from Celtic mythology and folklore. Yeats gains a reputation as a singer of "Celtic Twilight", a time of decline in the national culture of Ireland, seeking strength only in the revival of a forgotten heritage of the past.

The early twentieth century saw Yeats' increased interest in theater. He takes an active part in the work of the first Irish national theater "Theater of the Abbey", of which he will soon become a long-term director. Yeats writes several plays, the style of which was influenced by the Japanese Noh Theater. At the same time, Yeats met the then budding modernist poet Ezra Pound, who had a certain influence on Yeats' style.

In the spring of 1917, Yeats bought his famous "tower", which is mentioned many times in his later work as a symbol of traditional values ??and spiritual development. This is a manor house with an abandoned Norman watchtower located in County Galway, Ireland. He puts a lot of effort into making his family nest out of this dilapidated structure. After all, in the fall of the same 1917, he finally gets married. The marriage with twenty-five-year-old Georgie Hyde-Lees was successful, the couple had two children: a son and a daughter.

In 1923, Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Yates does not abandon his passion for the occult. In 1925, the fruit of his many years of reflections on the topic was published - the book "Vision", in which he connects the stages of development of the human spirit with the phases of the moon. In a more mature age, Yeats is experiencing a rebirth as a poet, and publishes two collections of poetry, which are the pinnacle of his creative development - the Tower (1928) and The Spiral Staircase (1933).

Yeats' early works are imbued with motives of Celtic folklore and are characterized by a neo-romantic style, the influence of the occult is noticeable.

His first significant work is "The Island of Statues", a fantastic poem that was never reprinted during the life of the author and was not included in the collection of poetry, as it was too long, according to the author.

His first collection of poems, The Wanderings of Oisin, came out in 1889.

That same year, his book on Irish folklore, Fairy Tales and Folktales, was published, with notes compiled by Yeats from his own research in western Ireland.

During this period, the author was especially fond of poetic dramas, the result was the drama "The Countess Kathleen" (1892) written in verse.

The collection "In the Seven Woods" (1903) includes poems written mainly on themes from the Irish epic. It is noteworthy that starting with this collection, there is a transition from pompous forms to a more conversational style.

Yates changes poetics after World War I and the Irish Civil War; in his later lyrics there are tragic historiosophical and cultural images, the style becomes noticeably more complicated.

Inspired by spiritualism, Yeats writes the book Vision (1925), in which he interprets historical and psychological moments from a mystical point of view.

Yates wrote in a symbolist style, using indirect symbols and symbolistic structures. The words Yates uses, in addition to their special meaning, also represent abstract thoughts that seem to be more important. His use of symbols is always physical in nature, which represents both direct and other, non-material, timeless concepts. At a time when modernists used free versification, Yeats adhered to traditional forms. To this middle period of his creativity belong "Responsibilities" and "The Green Helmet".

William Butler Yeats is a 1923 Nobel Prize winner in Literature.

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Author: Jane Watson