《w.b.yeats》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《w.b.yeats（23页珍藏版）》请在金锄头文库上搜索。
1、W. B. Yeats,Life,William Butler Yeats (13 June 1865 28 January 1939) was an Irish poet and Dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was
2、a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years .,Abbey Theatre,on Old Abbey Street and on December 27th 1904,. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for what the N
3、obel Committee described as “inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.“ He was the first Irishman so honored. Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such wor
4、ks include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929).,Yeats and the Irish myth and Folklore,One of the major contributions to modern Irish literature in English was the rediscovery of the old Irish Legends. This can be traced back to the 1500s and seems fresh, unexplored and virt
5、ually inexhaustible “the most plentiful treasure of legend in Europe”. (Yeats: Letters,308) The Ireland depicted in the old texts, full of beauty and epic heroism, appeared extremely attractive; the contrast in fact made that earlier period seem far more noble and idealistic than it really was.,Pers
6、onal encounter with Legends,I write the poem “The madness of King Goll” for boys and girls of twenty but Im always thinking of myself at that age the age I was when my father painted me as King Goll, tearing the strings out of a harp, being insane with youth, but looking very desirable alas no women
7、 noticed it at the time with dreamy eyes and a great mass of black hair. It hangs in our drawing-room now a pathetic memory of a really dreadful time.- Yeats: Letters, p.705,Yeats and Irish Renaissance,The earliest and noblest part of ancient Irish literature was national, but not nationalist. It wa
8、s fully Irish, written out of the heart of her own people. It was but little influenced by other literature; and in it, at least, we can forget our quarrels of party and quarrels of religion. It is not so easy to forget about quarrels when we read the literature which followed the invasion of Irelan
9、d by the English That literature may be said to be nationalist as well as national. It was forced to conceive Ireland as a whole and as set over against England.- Stopford Brooke: The Need and Use of Getting Irish Literature into the English Tongue, (London, 1893)pp. 11-12,Style,Yeats is generally c
10、onsidered to be one of the twentieth centurys key English language poets. He can be considered a Symbolist poet in that he used allusive imagery and symbolic structures throughout his career. Yeats chose words and assembled them so that in addition to a particular meaning they suggest other abstract
11、 thoughts that may seem more significant and resonant. His use of symbols is usually something physical which is used both to be itself and to suggest other, perhaps immaterial, timeless qualities.,While Yeats early poetry drew heavily on Irish myth and folklore, his later work was engaged with more
12、 contemporary issues, and his style underwent a dramatic transformation. His work can be divided into three general periods. The early poems are lushly pre-Raphaelite in tone, self-consciously ornate, and, at times, according to unsympathetic critics, stilted. Yeats began by writing epic poems such
13、as The Isle of Statues and The Wanderings of Oisin.,Yeats later work found new imaginative inspiration in the mystical system he began to work out for himself under the influence of spiritualism. In many ways, this poetry is a return to the vision of his earlier work. The opposition between the worl
14、dly-minded man of the sword and the spiritually-minded man of God, the theme of The Wanderings of Oisin, is reproduced in A Dialogue Between Self and Soul.,While Yeats early poetry drew heavily on Irish myth and folklore, his later work was engaged with more contemporary issues, and his style underw
15、ent a dramatic transformation. His work can be divided into three general periods. The early poems are lushly pre-Raphaelite in tone, self-consciously ornate, and, at times, according to unsympathetic critics, stilted. Yeats began by writing epic poems such as The Isle of Statues and The Wanderings
16、of Oisin.,The Lake Isle of Innisfree,The “Lake Isle of Innisfree“ is a poem written by Yeats in 1888. The poem was published first in the National Observer in 1890 and reprinted The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics in 1892. One of Yeats earlier poems, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree“ was an attempt to create a form of poetry that was Irish in origin rather than one that adhered to the standards set by English poets and critics. The poem, unlike many others from the era, does not contain direct references to mysticism and the occult.,
