Poet, Playwright, Politician and Nobel Prize Winner
 William Butler Yeats was a widely renowned Irish Poet.
 He lived mainly in London but spent his summers in Sligo.
 Yeats was passionate about Irish Heritage, Mythology and
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Folklore.
He died at the age of 73 in 1939.
He co-founded the Abbey Theatre for the purpose of
performing Irish and Celtic plays.
It was originally know as the Irish Literacy Theatre.
Yeats was a huge advocate for Modern Art in Ireland.
From an early age he was fascinated by both Irish Legends
and occult.
Yeats was the first Irish poet to be awarded the Nobel Prize
in Literature.
He also served as an Irish Senator for two years.
Yeats was born in Sandymount County Dublin. When
he was 2 his family moved to London and stayed there
until he was 16. His father John Butler Yeats was
educated as an attorney but abandoned law to become
a portrait painter. His mother Susan Mary Pollexfen
introduced him to all aspects of Irish Heritage and set
him on the road to becoming a poet. Yeats’ family was
highly artistic his brother Jack was a well known Irish
Painter while his sister Elizabeth and Susan Mary
known by the family as Lollie and Lily became
involved in the Arts and Crafts Movement
1865
Yeats was born on 18 June.
1917
Yeats married George Hyde Lees.
1876
His family moved to England.
1919
Their daughter Anne was born.
1877
Yeats was sent to Primary School. 1921
Their son Michael was born.
1881
He went to Secondary School.
1922
Yeats’ father died.
1884 Yeats joined art school.
1922
Appointed to the first Irish
Senate
1885
He published his first poem.
1923
Gets his Nobel Prize.
1887
Yeats’ family returned to
London.
1924 A coinage committee appoints
him as its Chairman
1889 Yeats met Maud Gonne.
1925
1890 Establishes the Rhymer’s Club.
1928 He retired from the senate
1899 Co-founded the Irish Literacy
Theatre (The Abbey Theatre)
1934
1904 The Theatre Opened
1939 Passes away on 28 January.
1904 He founded the Cuala Press
1948 His body is brought back to Sligo.
1911
2014 Joseph Greevy does an amazing
PowerPoint on Yeats.
The Theatre goes on Tour.
Gets re-elected to the senate.
Yeats underwent a Steinach
operation.
 Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire
 Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained
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him through temporary periods of joy.
All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.
There are no strangers here only friends you haven’t met.
In dreams begin responsibility.
The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.
Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the
people.
The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk
they’re sober.
One should no lose one’s temper unless one is certain of getting
more and more angry to the end.
If suffering brings wisdom I would wish to be less wise.
 This melancholy London – I sometimes imagine that the
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souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets
perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.
Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.
How can we know the dancer from the dance.
But was there ever dog who praised his fleas.
I am of a healthy long lived race, and our minds improve
with age.
Talent perceives differences; genius, unity.
Those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not
love.
Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
The Rose of Battle
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
The Rose-Tree
Adam's Curse
Sailing to Byzantium
Blood and the Moon
September 1913
The Circus Animals' Desertion
Song of the Old Mother
Down by the Salley Gardens
The Scholars
A Drunken Man's Praise of Sobriety
The Second Coming
Easter, 1916
The Song of the Happy Shepherd
Ego Dominus Tuus
The Stolen Child
In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Swift's Epitaph
Markiewicz
Lake Isle of Innisfree
To the Rose upon the Rood of Time"
On being asked for a War Poem
The Tower
Politics
Under Ben Bulben
A Prayer for My Daughter
The Wanderings of Oisin
Remorse for Intemperate Speech
The Wild Swans at Coole
 Yeats was dyslexic and struggled a lot in school
 Yeats’ father prophesised that Jack would be a
famous Irish Poet. Ooops!
 Yeats the cult member!! Yes Yeats and his wife were
part of what is known now days as a cult.
 A massive advocate for Irish heritage Yeats never
learnt the Irish Language.
 Proposed to Maud Gonne on numerous occasion
but also propose to her daughter Isuelt when he
was in his fifties and she in her teens.
I know that I shall meet my fate,
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.