Ideas of Good and Evil (1903) is a collection of wide-ranging essays by Irish poet W.B. Yeats. Writing on such subjects as the art of poetry, politics, and the occult, Yeats proves himself to be not only a master of verse and drama, but an immensely talented essayist and thorough scholar.
“What is ‘Popular Poetry’?” reflects on a changing Irish literary landscape which has, over the course of Yeats’ career, established its own place in world literature apart from, and perhaps surpassing, its English counterpart. Juxtaposing “the poetry of the coteries, which presupposes the written tradition” and “the true poetry of the people, which presupposes the unwritten tradition, ” Yeats argues that the spirit of Irish poetry depends on its unfaltering connection to the itinerant bards and storytellers whose gift for musicality and memory kept language alive for a widely illiterate people. In “Magic, ” Yeats, a longtime member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, discusses his belief in the occult. Musing on the power of symbol to evoke memories, as well as the revelation of his past lives, Yeats provides personal anecdotes and secondhand accounts of magical occurrences and experiences, exposing a world secrets and hidden meaning for believers and the uninitiated alike. “The Philosophy of Shelley’s Poetry” is an academic essay in which Yeats argues that Shelley’s poems far surpass the radical ideologies of such figures as William Godwin. Ideas of Good and Evil showcases the diverse intellectual and spiritual interests of W.B. Yeats, an icon of Irish literature and one of the twentieth century’s leading poetic voices.
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W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) was an Irish poet. Born in Sandymount, Yeats was raised between Sligo, England, and Dublin by John Butler Yeats, a prominent painter, and Susan Mary Pollexfen, the daughter of a wealthy merchant family. He began writing poetry around the age of seventeen, influenced by the Romantics and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, but soon turned to Irish folklore and the mystical writings of William Blake for inspiration. As a young man he joined and founded several occult societies, including the Dublin Hermetic Order and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, participating in séances and rituals as well as acting as a recruiter. While these interests continued throughout Yeats’ life, the poet dedicated much of his middle years to the struggle for Irish independence. In 1904, alongside John Millington Synge, Florence Farr, the Fay brothers, and Annie Horniman, Yeats founded the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, which opened with his play Cathleen ni Houlihan and Lady Gregory’s Spreading the News and remains Ireland’s premier venue for the dramatic arts to this day. Although he was an Irish Nationalist, and despite his work toward establishing a distinctly Irish movement in the arts, Yeats—as is evident in his poem “Easter, 1916”—struggled to identify his idealism with the sectarian violence that emerged with the Easter Rising in 1916. Following the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, however, Yeats was appointed to the role of Senator and served two terms in the position. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, and continued to write and publish poetry, philosophical and occult writings, and plays until his death in 1939.
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