Knowra W. B. Yeats W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) was an Irish poet and playwright whose work helped shape modern literature. He received the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Irish Literary Revival : A late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century movement that renewed interest in Irish literature, language, folklore, and history. Yeats became a leading organizer and writer in this cultural revival.
Romanticism : An artistic and intellectual movement emphasizing imagination, emotion, nature, and individual experience. Yeats’s early poetry inherited Romantic lyricism before his style became more modern.
The Tower : A 1928 poetry collection by W. B. Yeats, including “Sailing to Byzantium” and “Among School Children.” Its poems exemplify the mature voice and symbolic architecture of Yeats’s later work.
Georgie Hyde-Lees : An English artist and medium who married Yeats and participated in the automatic writing behind his esoteric system. Her sessions with Yeats helped generate the ideas collected in A Vision.
Abbey Theatre : Ireland’s national theatre in Dublin, founded in 1904 by W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, and their collaborators. Yeats co-founded the theatre to give Irish drama a permanent home and audience.
Anglo-Irish literature : Literature produced in Ireland by writers from the historically English-descended Protestant community. Yeats’s Protestant Anglo-Irish background informed his position within Irish cultural life.
Symbolism : A literary and artistic movement that uses images and symbols to suggest meanings beyond their literal sense. Yeats used recurring symbols to connect personal experience with myth and spiritual ideas.
The Second Coming : A 1919 poem by W. B. Yeats depicting a violent historical transition through apocalyptic imagery. Its falcon, widening gyre, and rough beast condense Yeats’s historical vision.
John Millington Synge : An Irish playwright whose works include The Playboy of the Western World and Riders to the Sea. Synge was a fellow Abbey Theatre playwright whose work shaped modern Irish drama.
A Vision : A book by Yeats presenting an esoteric system of history and personality developed through automatic writing. Its gyres became a framework Yeats used to interpret historical cycles and individual character.
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