1 of 3

Write now Article Tools

(An Extract from "W. B. Yeats and the Murder of Honour Bright"

by Patricia Hughes

ISBN 0-9550978-2-7

The Poetry of William Butler Yeats

I began to look through Yeats' biographies and papers and found them very carefully prepared and edited. Reading his poetry I tried to find references and allusions to a possible relationship with a young woman, leading to the birth of a child who is brought up by another woman as if it is her own. Though I couldn't afford the "Variorum" edition, I acquired one that showed the dates on which they were written, and set about finding out what they could tell me about the man.[1]

Before I started reading I made a note of two pieces of information about the author gleaned from my reading of his biographies. Firstly, he was widely known to have made constant revisions to his poems, even after publication, so that the given dates of authorship must inevitably be approximate. Secondly, he was adept at manipulation whilst appearing innocent, as befits someone whose life is lived in the public view, so details of his private life were often deliberately obscured. Thus when he referred to events in his poetry, many details would quite possibly have been deliberately changed to avoid recognition.

The first thing I found was a mystery girl who appeared in his poem "The Double Vision of Michael Robartes" in "The Wild Swans at Coole". It is dated March - April 1918 and talks of a dream vision of a girl whom he does not yet know. Michael Robartes is an alter-ego invented by Yeats to show what appears to be the youthful, sexual side of his being.

In the collection bearing this name, "Michael Robartes and the Dancer" written in 1918, the title poem is a conversation of pointed, affectionate banter between him and the eponymous dancer. While he praises her sexual beauty, she is dismissive and asserts that she wants to go to college. This poem, I learned, is usually thought to be a fatherly conversation between Yeats and Iseult Gonne. However I could not read it in that way. The poem has a sexual undercurrent, as if the two subjects are talking in a bedroom before or after the sexual act, though Yeats and Iseult never slept together and were never so deeply in love. Moreover the date of the poem is when Yeats was married to George for just one year, that is, one year since Iseult had turned down his offer of marriage and one year before she married someone else. Yeats and his wife were living in Oxford then, whilst Iseult was having an affair with

• 1
• 2
• 3
• ...
• 17
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Understanding the poetry of William Butler Yeats?
We want to hear your view. Write now!