Yeats American Dream

William Butler Yeats was born in Dublin on June 13, 1865. He is considered “one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century.”(William Butler Yeats Bio.). His family brought him into the world as an Irish-Protestant. Both of his parents had influenced who he would become in the future. His father, as a painter, inspired him to think more about art. His mother made him more interested in folklore and storytelling. With both of these factors in mind, we are able to see a sense of imagination within Yeats’ work. He creates poems that convey the idea that you can escape reality into your own secluded place, however, the reality is still there, waiting for you to come back. Many of Yeats’ poems and ideas show this idea of imagination and how “beauty and ceremony [contrast] with the hubbub of modern life” (William Butler Yeats - Biographical). A poem that easily can convey Yeats’ idea of a boring reality is “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”. In this poem, the speaker shows how Innisfree is his escape from his own reality. Innisfree is based of Yeats’ childhood hometown and “the mountains, lakes and lore of the place…”. (A Journey) inspired him to create the

The dreams in this poem show happiness and conveys the idea that dreams are safe and that even the poorest of people are able to escape their terrible lives. Yeats wants to show that poor people have dreams too. Those dreams they have allow them to be someone they want to be, to do things for others that they cannot normally do. Another great poem that best exemplifies a world different than that of our current one, is one of Yeats’ popular poem, “The Second Coming”. In the first stanza of the poem, Yeats speaks of how all innocence is lost in the world, and that currently the world is a terrible place. However, he begins to mention something that will revive the world in it’s current