The Feminine in William Butler Yeats Poetry Essay -- Poems Women femi

The Feminine in William Butler Yeats PoetryWilliam Butler Yeats had a long history of involvement with women. He was deeply affected by all types of women from love interests with Mrs. Olivia Shakespear, Maud Gonne and her adopted daughter Iseult, to a partnership and friendship with brothel keeper Gregory, to marriage with Georgie Hyde-Lees, and finally the birth of his own daughter Anne Yeats. These relationships are reflected in his poetry on many different and multi-layered levels. The mentions of women in his work gives the readers some historical content as well as show the development of his feminine idea. As different as his many relationships with women were, so was his reflection of them in his writing. Yeats took peck he knew and transformed them into theatrical roles and patterns of order (Unterecker 12). In this case, it is important to notice Yeatss use of biography within his poetry. In 1889, Yeats was introduced to Maud Gonne who became a central part of hi s life and study theme in his work. She was an adamant Irish nationalist and a beautiful woman to Yeats. He pursued her much of his life, only to be rejected repeatedly by her. In 1894 he met Mrs. Olivia Shakespear whom he regarded as a confidant, despite their short affair. Yeats found friendship and maternal caring in Lady Gregory. She became for him an image of aristocratic courtesy (Untereker 14). Yeats spent time at her estate, Coole Park, and traveled often with Lady Gregory and her son Robert. He became director of Abbey Theatre with Lady Gregory in 1906. In 1911 he met George Hyde-Lees and due to the encouragement of Mrs. Shakespear and Lady Gregory he proposes. Yeats married Georgia Hyde-Lees and on February 24, 1919 their daughter Anne was bo... ...ess. untried York Cambridge University Press, 1996.Jeffares, Norman A. A New Commentary on the Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats. Stanford, CA Stanford University Press, 1984.Keane, Patrick J. Yeats, Joyce, Ireland, and the Myth of the Devouring Female. MO University of Missouri Press, 1988.Kline, Gloria C. The Last Courtly Lover Yeats and the Idea of Woman. Ann Arbor, MI UMI Research Press, 1983.Stubbings, Diane. Anglo-Irish Modernism and the Maternal From Yeats to Joyce. New York Palgrave, 2000.Unterecker, John. A Readers Guide to William Butler Yeats. Syracuse, NY Syracuse University Press, 1996.Whitaker, Thomas R. Swan and Shadow Yeatss Dialogue with History. Durham, NC University of North Carolina Press, 1964.Yeats, W.B. The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats. Ed. Richard J. Finneran. New York Simon & Schuster, 1996.