William Butler Yeats

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Introduction

William Butler Yeats was born on June 13 1865, in Dublin in a family shaken by religious controversy. His grandfather was a passionate supporter of Yeats Anglican Church, while his father was very skeptical towards the religion. Perhaps it is this conflict that forced Yeats until the end of days walking on a thin thread between belief and disbelief. Therefore, it woke up early interest in the occult sciences that in 1885, he founded the Dublin Hermetic Society while two years later; he joined the London Lodge of Theosophists. Also in 1885, he became acquainted with the Irish nationalist John O'Leary, flaming speeches which have opened before the people real Ireland.

Discussion

Yeats's mother's family was the Pollexfen of Sligo and was a different stock who also descended from gentry forebears, but originating in Devon. In the 1830s, Yeats's maternal grandfather, William Pollexfen, had joined a branch of the family already settled in Sligo, married a cousin, and with another cousin William Middleton founded a prosperous shipping and milling business with a profitable sideline in, among other things, ruins rights.

From his time at the high school in Dublin, Yeats had been interested in various striking and spiritual theories and ideas of spiritual life, from Indian philosophy to Baron's ideas together with his lifelong friend George Russell; he helped import theosophy to Dublin. This combination of spiritual enquiry, incorporating the anger for eastern mysticism but allowing for Darwinism, briefly magnetized a surprising range of the artistic intelligentsia. Yeats later claimed that its chief charm for him was Blavatsky's entertaining personality, with her pessimistic Russian humor, taking the form of rude ridicule of her most humorless and devoted believers. But though he fell out with the theosophists, they provided an important staging post in his journey towards the kind of occult society which most closely answered his emotional and psychological requirements. He found this more or less in the Order of the Golden Dawn (Joseph, 111).

Yeats was very inspired with the readings on different beliefs such as Occultism, Buddhism and other beliefs. His readings on such beliefs made him more concerned about the society that was primitive and European. As he read and learnt more, he started knowing more about the beliefs and eventually joined such society that was the fusion of philosophy, science and religion. It was called the Theosophical Society of London and was the only movement of its kind that had such contents in its composition. He had many conversations with the founder of the society Madame Helene Blavatsky and searched about her beliefs. He then started taking active part in that society and supported it in every manner. His search for the place that can give him peace of mind and religion was Ireland, for which he wrote poems and plays so that he can continue to contribute towards the national spirit and motivate people for its existence (Joseph, 111).

The years 1897-1898 saw a worried round of political meetings, plotting on committees, and planning ...