2. Before the Trip
On Thursday the 14th of November, our English teachers brought all
TY’s to the W.B. Yeats Exhibition to learn more about the life and work
of the poet. The exhibition was on in the National Library in Dublin.
Earlier on in the week Ms. O’Reilly showed us a brief summary of Yeats’
life, so we’d have some background information before going to the
exhibition.
I thought this was really helpful because I knew nothing about Yeats’
life beforehand. When it came to the exhibition, I knew the basic
points and so I found myself learning about Yeats’ life and poetry in
more detail than if I’d gone without knowing anything.
3. The Exhibition
When we walked into the exhibition the first thing we saw was an enclosed
area in the centre of the room which showed various poems of Yeats on a
screen. There was also a voiceover that read whichever poem was on the
screen out loud. I thought that this contributed to the atmosphere, as you
could hear the voice in the background whilst walking around the rest of the
exhibition. To the right of this had information on Yeats’ family and early
life, for example there were old school reports. I found these interesting, and
I learned from them that Yeats did well in English, was ok at maths and was
good at languages. The exhibition was well laid out because it resembled a
timeline of WB Yeats’ life. This really helped to understand it more clearly as
it was in order and wasn’t all over the place!
4. I really enjoyed the WB Yeats Exhibition. I thought the area with the
poems being read out was good, but I especially liked the little rooms
around the exhibit. There was a library and a room all about the occult,
which Yeats was both fascinated and inspired by. There was also a room
which showed what the Abbey Theatre used to be like, which Yeats
established with Lady Gregory. My favourite was the Abbey Theatre room.
It was quite realistic and I liked how they put in crates, old posters and
replicas of the ropes that were used for the backdrop/props of plays.
The overall atmosphere of the exhibition was contemplative and tranquil.
It was very quiet, which made it easy to read about Yeats’ life and poetry.
The lighting was also quite dim, which added greatly to the atmosphere.
5. The Life of W.B. Yeats
I learnt a lot about Yeats from the trip and
from what we learned in class before this. His
father was called John Butler Yeats, and his
mother Susan Pollexfen. Susan was from Sligo
and so the Yeats family spent holidays there
every year, and even lived there for a while.
There were 6 children in the family and Yeats
was the eldest, born in 1865. William’s brother,
Jack Butler Yeats was an artist. We saw some of
his works on the same day as the WB Yeats
exhibition in the National Gallery. My
favourite of his was ‘The Liffey Swim.’
Yeats was fascinated by the occult which became an influence in his
writings, along with Irish history/tales and nature. An example of one of
his nature poems is ‘The Wild Swans at Coole.’
“The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky ”
6. In 1889 William met Maud Gonne. He fell in love with her, and she became
his muse. This can be seen in ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’ which
Yeats wrote after his first proposal to Maud.
“I have spread my dreams under your feet
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”
He proposed several times, but she rejected and ended up marrying Major
John McBride.
Yeats founded the ‘Rhymers Club’ in London in 1890, which was a club for
poets. In 1904, he established the Abbey Theatre with Lady Gregory. Yeats
wrote many plays as well as poems, for example The Land of the Heart’s
Desire and Calvary. Some of his plays were shown in the Abbey Theatre.
7. WB Yeats was interested in Irish Politics. He wrote various political poems
about events such like the 1913 Lockout and the Easter Rising. He strongly
supported the workers on strike during the Lockout. ‘Easter 1916’ is one of
his political poems.
“All changed, changed utterly,
A terrible beauty is born.”
At the age of 52, Yeats married 25 year old Georgie Hyde-Lees. They were
both very interested in the occult. They had two children, Anne and
Michael.
In 1923, Yeats won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Yeats died on the 28th of January, 1939 in the South of France.
I really enjoyed the exhibition about WB Yeats and I’m glad to have learnt
about him. My favourite poem of his is ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of
Heaven’ which I studied for my junior cert. I like this poem because it’s
very loving and selfless, and I liked how this year I’ve learned about Maud
Gonne being Yeats’ inspiration for it.
