A Catholic's Restospective on W.B. Yeats







The greatest Irish poet of the past centuries, William Butler Yeats was a complex character, even for Ireland.


He was born into the Protestant Aristocratic culture of southern Ireland who are known as the Anglo-Irish. He wrote some of the greatest poetry of the twentieth century in English, and was a conservative Irish Nationalist, and a sometime Irish politician. He's quite frankly tied with Gerard Manley Hopkins for my favorite English speaking poets, ever. His prose style has influenced me greatly both in my own writing and my imagination.


 Like most Anglo-Irish he didn't care for  Catholicism that much, which was the majority religion of the rank and file of Irish men and women. Yet he admired and loved the legends and folklore of the Irish people some of which predated Christianity but was never officially condemned by the Church in Ireland to my knowledge, and if you ask a Catholic Irish peasant, I'm sure they would have seen their pre-Christian myths as completely congruent with their Christian faith, such as their belief in faeries.


Perhaps I've just touched upon W.B. Yeats greatest contribution to Catholic Ireland,( and as a Catholic American I have to be thankful due to the immense Irish Influence on the American Catholic Church). that is to give us an artist's take on the Folklore of Ireland which is much better than a rationalistic or scholarly approach, because Yeats attaches great value to Folk Traditions and I think rightly so, because if you don't have Folk tales to tell your descendants, then their appears to be  less magic and wonder in the world, which is simply not true, the world is a magically and wondrous place. For Yeats once said "The World is full of magic, things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper." which is true think of dreams for example you don't know how the work, and scientists can't figure it out it is magic in the highest sense imaginable. It is medieval magic ie "means accomplishment out of all proportion to the means employed" it is wholly mysterious to scientists, it is harkens to what Plato called the realm of ideas which in Christianity exist in the mind of God. It is truly beautiful art despite its commonality.




Alas, Yeats may have had a cultural bias against Catholicism, but I think it is clear from a Catholic's point of view in the 21st century  that Yeats was much more congruent with Catholic Ireland than it seemed when he was alive for he gave us true beauty which we know comes from Heaven. He was a brilliant poet an imaginative and romantic soul and most importantly a decent man.




helpful links






https://www.biography.com/people/william-butler-yeats-9538857


https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-butler-yeats



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The True Purpose of This Blog

                                                                                The name of this blog  is High Culture Quest because I want to share    my love of classical literature both  fiction, and non. I want to show that literature is essential to all   cultures particularly in the western/European tradition, which is where all ill be drawing my focus on. I will deal with everything from religious works to Historical Fiction. I  also will be arguing how Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels deserved to be considered works of high art and are very valuable to our culture. I hope to accomplish this as well as continue to develop my writing style as well as to help people understand literature in a concrete way. I also just want to s...
Read more

Thoughts on Being A New Englander

This chilly Advent I have been very thankful for the cold weather. Yes I love cold weather, the pain it gives one is far more easy to deal for me then the irritation of sweat. New Englanders are not always like this that's why so many of them fly to Florida for the winter. That tells a lot of what kind of New Englander I am in one sentence: An Italian American Catholic, who loves Monarchy, Order and Liberty. Most of these terms are not unfound in the history of this great province, we did have a King, the Anglicans here largely supported the Throne and loved Order, and the Puritans loved Liberty (at least according to the American founding mythos). All these things are hard to reconcile for Southerners who see my province as largely liberal and secular, which is true now to some degree, but if you look at the history its rather mixed, certainly as a Catholic I don't revere the memory of the Puritan founders, but if you ignore the Puritan element here there is a l...
Read more