W. B. Yeats - His Life and Poems

            William Butler Yeats, Ireland's greatest poet, dramatist and essayist was born into a strongly independent Irish Protestant family in Dublin on June 13,1965.He was the eldest of five children. His father was an artist and a man of very firm opinions. His influence on his young son was strong. Yeats was sensitive and artistic. He had an unhappy childhood. He says in his autobiography, "I remember little of childhood but its pain." In his early years Yeats was tutored at home by his father. When his parents moved to London, Yeats attended school there. He continued at a high school in Dublin after his parents returned. Holidays were spent in County Sligo with his grandparents. Yeats then studied painting for a while, but when some of his poems and articles were published in Irish .
             periodicals, he decided to be a writer.
             He went to London in 1887. Yeats mixed with the literary circle in London and joined a religious society. In 1889, he published his first book of poems, The Wanderings Of Oisin. Shortly afterward he fell in love with Maud Gonne, a beautiful woman and an ardent Irish nationalist. Yeats was interested in the myths and legends of ancient Ireland. In his early youth, he collected volumes of folk tales and wrote his own versions of the old legends. He also helped organize the Irish Literary Society in London and in Dublin. After some years of journalism and contributions to periodical, he became active in establishing the Irish National Theater and worked zealously for the Abbey Theater in Dublin (1904), where Lady Augusta Gregory, a playwright and a great friend of Yeats', was named co-director of the heater with him. They enjoyed working together for many years.
             Yeats became a familiar figure in Dublin. He directed the Abbey, wrote and published, and expressed honest and often unpopular opinions on various issues of the day. He desired to raise national consciousness by cultural means.