Irish poet, dramatist and prose writer who was one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century. He received Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. In his early career as writer Yates studied William Blake's poems, Emanuel Swedenborg's writings and other visionaries, but later he began to confront reality with a new directness. Central theme in Yeats poems is Ireland, its history, folklore abd contemporary public life.

Yeats was born in Dublin (SEE ALSO OTHER WRITERS BORN IN DUBLIN: James Joyce, Brendan Behan, Samuel Beckett). His father was a lawyer turned to painter, and in 1867 the family followed him to London and settled in Bedford Park. In 1881 the family returned to Dublin, where Yeats studied the Metropolitan School of Art. He met there the poet, dramatist and painter George Russell (1867-1935), who was interested in mysticism. In 1886 Yeats formed the Dublin Lodge of the Hermetic Society and took the magical name Daemon est Deus Inversus. The occult order also attracted Alester Crowley.

As a writer Yeats make his debut in 1885, when he published his first poems in The Dublin University Review. In 1887 the family returned to Bedford Park, and Yeats devoted himself to writing. He visited Mme Blavatsky, the famous occultist, and joined the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society, but was later asked to resing. In 1889 Yeats met his great love, Maud Gonne (1866-1953), an Irish revolutionary who became a major landmark in the poets life and imagination. However, she married in 1903 Major John MacBride, and this episode inspired Yeats's poem 'No Second Troy'. MacBride was later executed by the British.

Yeats was also interested in folktales as a part of an exploration of national heritage and for the revival of Celtic identity. His study with George Russell and Douglas Hyde of Irish legends and tales was published in 1888 under the name Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry. Yeats assembled for children a less detailed version, IRIS FAIRY TALES, which appeared in 1892. (SEE ALSO Wilhelm Grimm.)

In the early 1890s Yeats reformed an Irish Literary Society, and then the National Literary Society in Dublin, which aimed to promote the New Irish Library. He met in 1897 Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory, with whom he founded the Irish Literary Theatre. Yeats worked as a director of the theatre to the end of his life, writing several plays for it.

Ezra Pound, whom Yeats met in 1912, became his fencing master and secretary in the winters of 1913 and 1914. Pound introduced Yeats to Japanese Noah drama, which inspired also his plays. In early 1917 Yeats bought Thoor Ballyle, a derelict Norman stone tower near Coole Park. After restoring it the tower became his summer home and central symbol in his later poetry. In 1917 he married Georgie Hyde-Lee - they had a son and a daughter. At the start of the Irish Civil War Yeats went to Oxford, but returned then to Dublin, becoming a Senator in the same year. As a politician Yeats defended Protestant interests and took pro-Treaty stance against Republicans. In 1932 Yeats founded the Irish Academy of Letters and in 1933 he was briefly involved with the fascist Blueshirts in Dublin.

While in Mallorca Yeats became seriously ill. He tried to meet Robert Graves who refused to see him. In his final years Yeats worked on the last version of A VISION and published THE OXFORD BOOK OF VERSE (1936) and NEW POEMS (1938). Yeats died in 1939 at the Hôtel Idéal Séjour, in Menton, France. In 1948 his coffin was taken to Druncliff in Sligo, but there is some doubt as to the authenticity of the bones.

The Wild Swans at Coole (1917) - The poem has the real-life setting of the Coole Park estate of Yeats's friend and patron Lady Augusta Gregory. The scenic effects, including the swans, also faithfully reflect the Coole Park, and the walk that is the poem's ostensible occasion is based on Yeats's familiarity with the park's grounds. The tone of the work is reflective, almost conversational, and deals with matters of youth and age, the effects of time, registering the the death of Robert Gregory, Lady Gregory's son and Mabel Beardley, sister of the English artist Aubrey Beardsley. Yeats return also to his relationship with Maud Gonne, who rejected his love.

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn - short lived but influential Western occult order. The founding of the Golden Dawn is based on a manuscript of alleged antiquity, but which may have been a forgery. The Isis-Urania Temple of the Hermetic Order was established on March 1, 1888. Yeats was initiated into the temple on March 7, 1890.

SEE ALSO OTHER WRITES INTERESTED IN ALTERNATE REALITIES: Arthur Conan Doyle, Aleister Crowley

For further reading: Yeats, the Man and the Masks by Richard Ellman (1948); Swan and Shadow by Thomas Whitaker (1964); Yeats by Denis Donaghue (1976); Yeats at Work by Curtis Bradford (1978); New Commentary on the Poems of W.B. Yeats by A. Norman Jeffares (1984) W.B. Yeats by A. Norman Jeffares (1988); Stone Cottage by James Longenbach (1998)

SELECTED WORKS:

• THE ISLAND OF STATUTES, 1885
• MOSADA, 1886
• FAIRY AND FOLK TALES OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY, 1888 (with George Russell and Douglas Hyde)
• THE WANDERINGS OF OISIN AND OTHER POEMS, 1889
• JOHN SHERMAN AND DHOYA, 1891
• IRIS FAIRY TALES, 1892
• THE COUNTESS KATHLEEN AND OTHER LEGENDS AND LYRICS, 1892
• THE CELTIC TWILIGHT, 1893
• ed.: THE WORKS OF WILLIAMN BLAKE, 1893 (with Edwin J. Ellis)
• THE LAND OF THE HEARTS DESIRE, 1894
• POEMS, 1895
• THE SECRET ROSE, 1897
• WHERE THERE IS NOTHING, 1897
• THE TABLES OF THE LAW; THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI, 1897
• THE SPECLED BIRD, 1897-1901
• THE WIND AMONG THE REEDS, 1899
• THE SHADOWY WATERS, 1900
• CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN, 1902
• IDEAS OF GOOD AND EVIL, 1903
• ON BAILE' STRAND, 1903
• THE HOUR GLASS, 1903
• IN THE SEVEN WOODS, 1903
• THE KINGS TRESHOLD, 1904
• STORIES OF RED HANRAHAN, 1905 - (with Lady Augusta Gregory)
• THE GOLDEN HELMET, 1908 (with Lady Gregory)
• introduction to R. Tagore's Gitanjali: Song Offering, 1910
• THE GREEN HELMET AND OTHER POEMS, 1910
• THE TRAVELING MAN, 1910
• PLAYS FOR THE IRISH THEATRE, 1911
• THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN, 1912
• REVERIES OVER CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH, 1914
• RESPONSIBILITIES, 1914
• SAILING TO BYZANTIUM, THE SECOND COMING,1916
• AT THE HAWK'S WELL, 1916
• PER AMICA SILENTIA LUNAE, 1917
• THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE, 1917
• EASTER, 1916
• THE CUTTING OF AN AGATE, 1918
• PER AMICA SILENTIA LUNAE, 1918
• THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE, 1919
• FOUR PLAYS FOR DANCERS, 1920
• MICHAEL ROBARTES AND THE DANCER, 1921
• THE TREMBLING OF THE VEIL, 1922
• A VISION, 1925 (rev. 1937)
• THE TOWER, 1928
• STORIES OF MICHAEL ROBARTES AND HIS FRIENDS, 1932
• THE WINDING STAIR, 1933
• COLLECTED POEMS, 1933
• COLLECTED PLAYS, 1934
• THE WORDS UPON THE WINDOW PANE, 1934
• WHEELS AND BUTTERFLIES, 1934
• DRAMATIS PERSONAE, 1935
• PARNELL'S FUNERAL AND OTHER POEMS, 1935
• THE OXFORD BOOK OF VERSE, 1936
• TEN PRINCIPAL UPANISHADS, 1937
• ESSAYS 1931-36, 1937
• NEW POEMS, 1938
• LAST POEMS AND TWO PLAYS, 1939
• ON THE BOILER, 1939
• LETTERS ON POETRY FROM W.B. YEATS TO DOROTHY WELLESLEY, 1940
• DIARMUID AND GRANIA, 1951 (with George Moore)
• COLLECTED PLAYS, 1953
• W.B. YEATS AND T. STURGE MOORE: THEIR CORRESPONDENCE, 1953
• SOME LETTERS OF W.B. YEATS TO JOHN O´LEARY AND HIS SISTER, 1953
• LETTERS OF W.B. YEATS TO KATHERINE TYNAN, 1953
• THE LETTERS OF W.B. YEATS, 1954
• AUTOBIOGRAPHIES, 1955
• POEMS, 1957
• MYTHOLOGIES, 1959
• THE SENATE SPEECHES, 1960
• ESSAYS AND INTRODUCTIONS, 1961
• EXPLORATIONS, 1962
• PLAYS, 1966
• AH, SWEET DANCER, 1970
• UNCOLLECTED PROSE, 1970, 1975
• MEMOIRS, 1972
• THE CORRESPONDENCE OF ROBERT BRIDGES AND W.B. YEATS, 1977
• THE POEMS: A NEW EDITION, 1984
• PURGATORY, 1985
• THE COLLECTED LETTERS OF W.B. YEATS, 1986 (vol. I)
• THE HERNE'S EGG, 1991
• THE GONNE-YEATS LETTERS, 1992