13 June: William Butler Yeats

Today is the birth anniversary of William Butler Yeats. Here are 10 things you might not know about him:

1. He was born in Dublin, the oldest of six children of John Butler Yeats and his wife Susan Mary. Two of the siblings died. The surviving siblings were all creative: his sisters, Elizabeth and Susan Mary were involved in the Arts and Crafts movement and his brother Jack Butler Yeats won a silver medal at the 1924 Summer Olympics for a painting, making him Ireland’s first Olympic medallist.
2. The family moved to London, then back to Dublin, then back to London again. After the second move to London William became a professional writer, mixing with the likes of George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde. He and a friend called Ernest Rhys set up a society for poets called the Rhymers’ Club, who'd meet to read their poetry to each other and discuss it. The group published two anthologies.
3. Yeats's first collection of poems was The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, published in 1889. Perhaps the best known is The Tower. Published in 1928, which includes the poems Sailing to Byzantium, Leda and the Swan, and Among School Children.
4. Yeats's work was influenced by the Irish folklore tales his mother told him as a child, and Greek mythology. Growing up, he spent time staying with his grandparents in Sligo. They told him more folk tales from the local area and the scenery, too, was inspiring. He was also fascinated by the occult and the unknown, and that, too, is reflected in his work.
5. Another huge inspiration was a woman called Maude Gonne, who he met in 1889. She was an English-born Irish revolutionary, suffragette and actress. He proposed marriage to her several times. She turned him down and married somebody else, Irish nationalist Major John MacBride in 1903. The marriage wasn't a success, however, and they decided to separate in 1904, but weren't granted a divorce. Maude rekindled her friendship with Yeats and used to visit him in London. Finally, in 1908, she slept with him, in Paris. However, this wasn't the start of a beautiful romance. She wrote to him soon after pointing out that the best writers were those who abstained from sex, and the friendship ended.
6. Yeats had one last go at getting Maud to marry him in 1916, after her husband was executed for his part in the Easter Rising, although by then she was addicted to chloroform and it may have been, by then, a sense of duty which made him propose, with him actually hoping she would refuse. She did, at which point Yeats proposed to her 21 year old daughter Iseult instead. He was over 50 at the time. She rejected him as well. After this, he gave up on Maud and married Georgie Hyde-Lees in October 1917. He had two children with her and even though he had several affairs, it was a successful marriage. Even so, he may have had cold feet at first and Georgie had to resort to unusual measures to reassure him during their honeymoon, that he'd done the right thing. She wrote, “With the bird all is well at heart. Your action was right for both.” She told him this was automatic writing, channelled from the spirit world. He was convinced and his interest in automatic writing grew from there. He and Georgie went to on produce thousands of pages of automatic script.
7. Yeats was a member of the secret ritual magic society the Golden Dawn, and rose through its ranks to reach the innermost order. He was also a member of paranormal research organisation The Ghost Club. He believed that world history revolved around 2,000-year cycles he called “gyres,” which he said was something the spirits had told him. He may even have chosen his wedding date because Golden Dawn had done an astrological chart for him which suggested October 1917 was the best time for him to marry.
8. WB Yeats was the first Irishman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923 “for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation”.
9. He was a politician as well as a poet. In 1922 when the Irish Free State was set up, he became a member of the first Irish Senate. He spoke out in favour of divorce and against censorship. He served as a senator for six years and also chaired the committee which designed coins for the Irish Free State.
10. He died in France on 28 January 1939 at the age of 74. His wish was to be buried quickly and quietly in France, but for his body to be dug up several years later and re-buried in Sligo. His tombstone bears the words “Cast a cold eye/On life, on death./Horseman pass by!” which are from one of his poems. However, it's possible that in actual fact, his body is still in France as the great niece of a man called Alfred Hollis, who was buried on the same day as Yeats, raised concerns that there could have been a mix up resulting in the wrong body being taken to Ireland.

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