by William Butler Yeats

Authors Background

William Butler Yeats

was an Irish poet, dramatist and mystic. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.

William Butler Yeats

June 13, 1865 Sandymount, County Dublin, Ireland

William Butler Yeats

Father John Yeats: a descendant of Jervis Yeats Mother Susan Mary Pollexfen: came from a wealthy Anglo-Irish family who owned a prosperous milling and shipping business

William Butler Yeats

SLIGO county town in Ireland

William Butler Yeats

Jack - a highly regarded painter Elizabeth and Susan Mary involved in the Arts and Crafts Movement (international design movement that originated in England)

William Butler Yeats

January 26, 1877 Godolphin Primary School

Only Fair

William Butler Yeats

Had difficulty with Mathematics and Languages Tone Deaf Was fascinated by Biology and Zoology

William Butler Yeats

1885 He started writing poetry

William Butler Yeats

1889

Maud Gonne
a 23-year-old poet, feminist, actress, and revolutionary

William Butler Yeats

"it seems to me that she [Gonne] brought into my life those daysfor as yet I saw only what lay upon the surfacethe middle of the tint, a sound as of a Burmese gong, an over-powering tumult that had yet many pleasant secondary notes."

William Butler Yeats

1891 he visited Gonne in Ireland proposed a marriage REJECTED

William Butler Yeats

1916 Final proposal to Gonne

REJECTED

William Butler Yeats

September, 1916 Georgie Hyde Lees October 20 They got married

William Butler Yeats

1934 he underwent the Steinach operation (vasectomy) at 69 years old
1939 he died at the Htel Idal Sjour, in Menton, France (January 28)

William Butler Yeats

If I die bury me up there [at Roquebrune] and then in a year's time when the newspapers have forgotten me, dig me up and plant me in Sligo'."

The Poem
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

The Poem
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings.

The Poem
I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Lake Isle of Innisfree

first published in his second collection The Rose was published first in the National Observer in England was an attempt to create a form of poetry that was Irish in origin

Literary Approach
Historical Biographical Approach

Lake Isle of Innisfree

He was prompted to write the poem in London exiled from the rural beauty he captures so brilliantly in the poem

Lake Isle of Innisfree

Walden by Henry David Thoreau he wished to imitate Thoreau by living on Innisfree an uninhabited island in Lough Gill

Lake Isle of Innisfree

the speakers longing for the peace and tranquility of Innisfree return to the island of Innisfree because of the peace and quiet it affords lulled by the "lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore."

Lake Isle of Innisfree

Innisfree as a Utopia

Lake Isle of Innisfree

UTOPIA

INNISFREE

MAUD GONNE

CHESTER M. DEREQUITO