Philosophical, Mythical and Esoteric Syncretism in the Poems of W. B. Yeats

Pages:299-300
Sarita Dahiya (Assistant Professor, D.H. Lawrence College of Education, Jhajjar)

In the Dictionary of Irish Literature under the entry of W.B. Yeats, the introductory paragraph runs as follows: ‘Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939), a foremost poet of the English-speaking world, founder of the Abbey Theatre, dramatist, spokesman for the Irish Literary Revival, essayist, autobiographer, occultist, member of the Irish Free State Senate, and winner of the 1923 Nobel Prize for literature’.1 Looking over the large crowd at the first meeting of the Rhymers’ Club in 1890, William Butler Yeats dryly observed, “The one thing certain is that we are too many.” While he included himself in their number, all the assembled knew he was first among them. So he remained the rest of his life, and after, as one of the most acclaimed literary figures in the last hundred years and certainly the best known of Irish poets. Playwright and man of the theater, folklorist, scholar, adept in many a mysterious realm as well, Yeats had a gift for making music out of ordinary speech and an uncanny knack for finding striking metaphors and coining memorable phrases.