William Butler Yeats Research Paper

William Butler Yeats is known as one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. He was born in Dublin from a family of an unsuccessful painter. He tried to learn arts in Dublin, but ended up finding his talent in poetry writing. Yeats belonged to the Protestant, Anglo-Irish minority. Although most individuals from this minority viewed themselves as English people who happened to have been born in Ireland, Yeats clings to his Irish nationality. “Yeats became interested in the theater in the late 1890’s after he met Lady Agusta Gregory, and he found the Irish National Theater with her in 1899” (Sullivan). The love of his Irish roots can be seen in Yeats’ poems and plays by featuring Irish legends and heroes in most of his creations. “As

In the first line of the poem, the word “gyre”(1) is Yeats’ term for a cycle of history. As a gyre turns wider and wider while keeping it shape, which is round, it implies that despite the fact that everything such as technology, knowledge, and way of living keep improving from time to time, history keeps on repeating itself, and humans will never learn from their mistakes they have done in the past. Just think about it this way, each and every of us must have ever lied in any point of our lives. And through that period of time until the present, all of us must have lied at least once, even though we know that lying is a form of sin. This is just a simple example to make it clear what Yeats is trying to picture in his choice of word. In addition, the word ‘anarchy” (4) relates to one of the Bible story about Noah in the book of Genesis. God felt how evil and morally wrong humankind behaved and decided to wipe humanity from the earth. However, there is one noble man among all the people at that time named Noah. God has favored him and instructed him to make an ark to save himself and his family from the flood God has planned that would destroy every living thing on earth. 'Anarchy' in our modern world, would refer to human beings, who are rude and cruel towards other living things and even towards themselves. To illustrate that, dolphin slaughter in Denmark. Mankind brutally killed

As what is written in the book of Revelation, there will be seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls/vials, which are the three succeeding arrangement of judgments from God at the end of the world. But in this poem, Yeats solely focuses on the seven seals. “A shape with lion body and the head of a man” (14) represents as the four horsemen of the apocalypse. These four horsemen represent the first four of the seven seals. The first seal is the spirit of conquest. This spirit attempts to set up a one-world government with the Antichrist in summon aiming to dominate the world under the authority of Antichrist. The second horseman is riding a red horse, which is taking peace away from the world. This also called as the spirit of war. War is a typical reaction to the animosity that goes with a soul of triumph as seen originating from the first seal. Furthermore, the third seal is the spirit of famine causes a catastrophic food shortage. While some are desperate wanting foods to eat, others are living in luxuries and wasting food at the same time. There will always be a social gap between the poor and the rich. The fourth seal is the spirit of death. This spirit has the power to take people's lives. It is riding a pale horse, which the color itself attributed to a person near death. In todays world the fourth seal can be referring to plague, and the most dangerous