William
Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939)1
Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist, mystic and public figure.
Yeats was one of the driving forces behind the Irish Literary
Revival and was co-founder of the Abbey Theatre.
His early work tended towards a romantic lushness and
fantasy-like quality best described by the title of his 1893
collection The Celtic Twilight, but in his 40s, inspired by his
relationships with modernist poets such as Ezra Pound and his
active involvement in Irish nationalist politics, he moved towards
a harder, more modern style.
As well as his role as member of the board of the Abbey, Yeats
served as an Irish Senator. He took his role as a public figure
seriously and was a reasonably hard-working member of the Seanad.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923 for what the
Nobel Committee described as "his always inspired poetry, which in
a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole
nation". In 1934 he shared the Gothenburg Prize for Poetry with
Rudyard Kipling.
Yeats was born in Sandymount, Dublin. His father, John Butler
Yeats was studying law, but soon abandoned his studies to take up a
career as a portrait painter. His mother, Susan Mary Pollexfen,
came from an Anglo-Irish family in County Sligo. Soon after his
birth, Yeats moved to Sligo to stay with his extended family and he
came to think of it as his true childhood home.
Eventually, the family moved to London to enable John to further
his career. At first, the Yeats children were educated at home.
Their mother, who was homesick for Sligo, entertained them with
stories and folktales from her native county. For financial
reasons, the family returned to Dublin towards the end of 1880,
living at first in the city center and later in the suburb of
Howth.
Yeats' early poetry drew heavily on Irish myth and folklore and
drew on the diction and colouring of pre-Raphaelite verse. His
major influence in these years - and probably throughout the rest
of his career as well - was Percy Bysshe Shelley. In 1885, Yeats'
first poems, as well as an essay called "The Poetry of Sir Samuel
Ferguson", were published in the Dublin University Review. Yeats'
first significant poem was The Isle of Statues, a fantasy work that
took Edmund Spenser for its poetic model. It appeared in Dublin
University Review and was never republished. His first book
publication was the pamphlet Mosada: A Dramatic Poem (1886), which
had already appeared in the same journal.
The Yeats family had returned to London in 1887, and in 1890
Yeats co-founded the Rhymer's Club with Ernest Rhys. This was a
group of like-minded poets who met regularly and published
anthologies in 1892 and 1894.
In 1889, Yeats met Maud Gonne, a young heiress who was beginning
to devote herself to the Irish nationalist movement. Gonne admired
Yeats' early poem The Isle of Statues and sought out his
acquaintance. Yeats developed an obsessive infatuation with Gonne,
and she was to have a significant effect on his poetry and his life
ever after. Two years after their initial meeting, Yeats proposed
to her, but was rejected. He was to propose to Gonne a total of
three more times: in 1899, 1900 and 1901. With each proposal, she
rejected Yeats and finally, in 1903, married Irish nationalist John
MacBride. This same year Yeats left for an extended stay in America
on a lecture tour.
In 1896, he was introduced to Lady Augusta Gregory by their
mutual friend Edward Martyn and she encouraged Yeats' nationalism
and convinced him to continue focusing on writing drama. Although
he was influenced by French Symbolism, Yeats consciously focused on
an identifiably Irish content and this inclination was reinforced
by his involvement with a new generation of younger and emerging
Irish authors. Together with Lady Gregory and Martyn and other
writers including J M Synge, Sean O'Casey, Padraic Colum and James
Stephens, Yeats was one of those responsible for the establishment
of the literary movement known as the Irish Literary Revival
(otherwise known as the Celtic Revival).
One of the enduring
achievements of the Revival was the setting up of the
Abbey Theatre. In 1899
Yeats, Lady Gregory, Martyn and George Moore founded the Irish
Literary Theatre. This survived for about two years but was not
successful. However, working together with two Irish brothers with
theatrical experience named William and Frank Fay and Yeats' unpaid
secretary Annie Elizabeth Fredericka Horniman (a wealthy
Englishwoman) the group established the Irish National Theatre
Society. This group of founders was also able, along with J M
Synge, to acquire property in Dublin and open the Abbey Theatre on
December 27, 1904. Two of Yeats' plays were featured on the opening
night. Yeats continued to be involved with the Abbey up to his
death, both as a member of the board and as a prolific
playwright.
In 1902, Yeats helped set up the Dun Emer Press to publish work
by writers associated with the Revival. This became the Cuala Press
in 1904. From then until its closure in 1946, the press, which was
run by the poet's sisters, produced over 70 titles, 48 of them
books by Yeats himself.
Yeats spent the summer of 1917
with Maud Gonne, and proposed to Gonne's daughter, Iseult, but was
rejected. In September, he proposed to Georgie Hyde-Lees, was
accepted, and the two were married on 20 October. Around this time
he also bought Ballylee Castle, near Coole Park, and promptly
renamed it
Thoor
Ballylee. This tower served as his summer home for much of the
rest of his life.
Yeats was appointed to the Irish Senate (Seanad Éireann) in 1922
and one of his main achievements as a Senator was to chair the
coinage committee that was charged with selecting a set of designs
for the first coinage for the Irish Free State. He also spoke
against proposed anti-divorce legislation in 1925. His own
characterisation of himself as a public figure is captured in the
line "A sixty-year-old smiling public man" in the 1927 poem
"Amongst School Children". He retired from the Seanad in 1928
because of ill health.
In 1929, he stayed at Thoor Ballylee for the last time. Much of
the remainder of his life was outside Ireland, but he did lease a
house in the Dublin suburb of Rathfarnham from 1932. He wrote
prolifically through the final years of his life, publishing
poetry, plays and prose. In 1938, he attended the Abbey for the
last time to see the premier of his play Purgatory.
After suffering from a variety of illnesses for a number of
years, Yeats died at the Hôtel Idéal Séjour, in Menton, France on
28 January 1939. Soon afterward, Yeats was first buried at
Roquebrune, until, in accordance with his final wish, his body was
moved to Drumcliff in September, 1948, on the corvette Irish
Macha.
His epitaph, which is the final line from one of his last poems,
"Under Ben Bulben" is:
"Cast a cold eye
on life, on death;
horseman, pass by!"
Of this location, Yeats said, "the place that has really
influenced my life most is Sligo."
1 This information was obtained from
Wikipedia.
Follow
this
link for the complete article and
this link for a complete Bibliography of Yeats' work.
The Cache
The container is a small tab-lock box, painted black. It is only
big enough to hold small trade items.
When placed the cache contained a log book, pencil, sharpener,
some small trade items and a FTF prize.
PLEASE ONLY TRADE UP OR
EVEN.
TBs MOVE BETWEEN CACHES
AND REMAIN THE PROPERTY OF THE PERSON THAT RELEASED THEM. I DO NOT
COUNT THEM AS TRADE ITEMS.
IF YOU WISH TO TAKE
SOMETHING FROM THIS CACHE PLEASE DON'T LEAVE A TB IN IT'S PLACE.
THANK YOU.
Getting There
Drumcliff is located approx 8km
North of Sligo on the main Sligo - Letterkenny road
(N15).
( Click the map on the right for a larger
image)
The best parking spot is the coach park at N54o
19.546 W008o 29.613 but it closes at 6pm. An alternative
is the smaller car park at N54o 19.575 W008o
29.709 .
The cache is located along the signposted riverside walk which
is just beyond the cemetary from the coach car park. Its approx 5
mins walk from the coach park. The track is a little rough in
places but shouldn't require boots.
GPS reception is a bit dodgy exactly at the cache spot so the
hint may be required to find it.
Local Points of Interest
(click photo for full size
image)
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Yeats' Grave |
Cloths of Heaven |
Round Tower |
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