Lake Isle of Innisfreeby William Butler Yeats

William Butler YeatsAuthor’s Background

William Butler Yeats 

was an Irish poet, dramatist and mystic. He was awarded

the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.

William Butler Yeats

June 13, 1865Sandymount, County Dublin,

Ireland

William Butler Yeats

Father – John Yeats: a descendant of Jervis Yeats

Mother – Susan Mary Pollexfen: came from a wealthy Anglo-Irish family who owned a prosperous milling and shipping business

William Butler Yeats

SLIGOcounty town in Ireland

William Butler YeatsJack - a highly regarded painter

Elizabeth and Susan Mary – involved in the Arts and Crafts Movement (international design movement that originated in England)

William Butler Yeats

January 26, 1877Godolphin Primary School

“Only Fair”

William Butler Yeats

Had difficulty with Mathematics and Languages

Tone Deaf

Was fascinated by Biology and Zoology

William Butler Yeats

1885He started writing poetry

William Butler Yeats1889

Maud Gonne

a 23-year-old poet, feminist, actress, and

revolutionary

William Butler Yeats

"it seems to me that she [Gonne] brought into my life those days—for as yet I saw only what lay upon the surface—the middle of the tint, a sound as of a Burmese gong, an

over-powering tumult that had yet many pleasant secondary notes."

William Butler Yeats

1891he visited Gonne in Ireland

proposed a marriage

REJECTED

William Butler Yeats

1916Final proposal to Gonne

REJECTED

William Butler YeatsSeptember,

1916

Georgie Hyde Lees

October 20 – They got married

William Butler Yeats1934 – he underwent the Steinach operation (vasectomy) at 69 years old

1939 – he died at the Hôtel Idéal Séjour, in Menton, France (January 28)

William Butler Yeats

“If I die bury me up there [at Roquebrune] and then in a

year's time when the newspapers have forgotten

me, dig me up and plant me in Sligo'."

The Poem

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, 

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; 

Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee, 

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

The Poem

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, 

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a-glimmer, and

noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's

wings.

The Poem

I will arise and go now, for always night and day 

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; 

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, 

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Lake Isle of Innisfree

first published in his second collectionThe Rose

was published first in the National Observer in England

was an attempt to create a form of poetry that was Irish in origin

Literary Approach

Historical – BiographicalApproach

Lake Isle of Innisfree

He was prompted to write the poem in London

exiled from the rural beauty he captures so brilliantly in the

poem

Lake Isle of Innisfree

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

he wished to imitate Thoreauby living…

on Innisfree – an uninhabited island in Lough Gill

Lake Isle of Innisfree

the speaker’s longing for the peace and tranquility of Innisfree

return to the island of Innisfree because of the peace and quiet it

affords

lulled by the "lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore."

Lake Isle of Innisfree

Innisfree as a Utopia

Lake Isle of Innisfree

UTOPIA

INNISFREE

MAUD GONNE

Thank You for Listening

CHESTER M. DEREQUITO