Yeats was very involved in managing the Abbey Theater and during that time wrote ten extremely popular plays, it was his poetry which was to bring him lasting fame. Most of the the plays presented there were written by Yeats, Lady Gregory, and later by a third director, John M. Eventually money was raised to renovate Dublin's Abbey Theater and on 27 December 1904 it opened and became the company's permanent home. As a result of these successful productions, the Irish National Theatre Society was founded and Yeats was selected as its president. In 1899 Yeats became heavily interested in the theater, and along with the Lady Augusta Gregory and Edward Martyn, staged the first of three annual productions in Dublin. Maud was a political activist and a die-hard Republican, and frequently pushed Yeats to reconsider his own allegiances. Maud was also involved in occult explorations: she believed the two of them had experienced previous incarnations together, that they often met on the astral plane in dreams, and that they had shared a mutual vision in which they telepathically consummated a marriage on the astral plane. During the long course of their friendship Yeats proposed marriage to Maud four times but she was not interested, claiming to be unwilling to risk losing their friendship if the marriage did not work out. Unbeknowst to Yeats at that time, she was also very involved with a (married) right-wing French politician/journalist and had two children with him. Maud was a fiery orator and passionately involved in the cause of obtaining Ireland's freedom from England. ![]() Yeats was introduced to Maud Gonne through John O'Leary in 1889 and their friendship was to last throughout his life. Yeats's involvement in both the Irish political movement and the mystical world of the occult was reinforced rather intensely through his ongoing, very significant relationship with Maud Gonne. Yeats was one of several notable poets who found inspiration in the writings of Jakob Böhme. He was later to write to John O'Leary that "the mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.". It was within the Golden Dawn that Yeats made some of his closest friends, and the momentous influence it had on both his life and his writings cannot be overstated. He initially became a member of the Theosophical Society which was founded by Madame Helena Blavatsky,, but in 1890 left that group to join the even more esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn, a secret society that practiced ruitual magic and in which he remained an active member for thirty-two years, eventually attaining the highest level of occult mastery. It was during this same period of time, while Yeats was a student at the Metropolitan School of Art, that he became friends with George William Russell (lwhose literary nom de plume was "AE") and began what became a life-long exploration of eastern philosophy. It was also through this group of men that Yeats was first introduced to John O'Leary, a Fenian and former literary editor of the radical Irish People, whom Yeats later credited with convincing him to focus his writings on Irish folklore and legends. ![]() Oldham, editor of the Dublin University Review and a staunch protestant nationalist. His first poem to be published appeared in the Dublin University Review in March 1885, and Yeats (along with his father) became a regular member of the group of intellectuals who met at the Contemporary Club and were organized by C.H. When Yeats was sixteen his father moved the family from London back to Dublin, where Yeats graduated from high school and then attended the Metropolitan School of Art. Literary, Spiritual, and Political Influences It was at Sligo that William began his life-long love and fascination with both the land itself and the historical lore that permeated the Irish countryside. William and his younger siblings grew up both in London, with their parents, and in Sligo with their Pollexfen grandparents (where they spent all of their holidays). His mother's family were ship owners and prosperous merchants, who frequently were called upon to provide financial assistance whenever the family found itself in dire straits. Both his paternal grandfather and great-grandfather had been Church of Ireland clergymen his father had diverged from family tradition to become a barrister but later abandoned that career to move to London and study art. William Butler Yeats was born 13 June 1865 at Donnybrook, County Dublin, Ireland, the eldest son of John Butler Yeats and his wife, Susan Mary Pollexfen, and baptised 12 July of the same year at the Donnybrook parish church in Dublin.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |