Yeats and Irish Cultural Revivals

Question 1

Irish Cultural and Literary Revivals: dates, description, and key figures

Answer 1

• 1893-1922
• developing Gaelic Irish Cultural Nationalism
• William Butler Yeats
• Douglas Hude
• Lady Augusta Gregory
• John Millington Stynge
• George Moore
• George Russell

Question 2

Standard Irish writer characteristics

Answer 2

• up until recently, included only white, male, Anglo-Irish writers
• identified as Irish but understood they were part of a “contested group”
• skipped over the idea of Gaelic and moved back towards the Celts (Celtic = pre colonial Ireland)

Question 3

“What is a Nation?”

Answer 3

• Ernest Renan, 1882
• nationhood as an invention, and nations are unstable/can collapse down
• traced break-ups of classic medieval empires
• ‘national tradition’: legitimization of a social group, constructs instruments of state power, and sets an idea of ordering people/places firmly in the imagination

Question 3

William B. Yeats: years of activity, overall importance

Answer 3

• 1865-1939
• “Father of modern poetry in English”
• incredibly influential, would give feedback to other Irish writers
• three phases: Early, Middle, and Late
• Early: starting out
• Middle: politics, history, cultural revival
• Late: looking back on legacy and opining on what’s happening in Europe
• key leader of Easter Rising
• helped found Irish National Theatre and Irish National Theatre Society

Question 4

Terence Brown and culture

Answer 4

• the “essential spiritual life of a people subsists in its culture”
• “language” plays an important role in the

Question 5

Yeats’ background

Answer 5

• born in Dublin, huge Sligo influence from his mother and maternal grandmother (would tell him fairy stories), Cork and Galway (Lady Greogry), and London (provided English experience)
• Anglo-Irish, Protestant, never really learned Irish language
• originally wanted to be an artist, his brother Jack B. Yeats was an important painter
• interested in spiritual world
• won Nobel Prize for literature in 1923 after Ireland got independence
• died 1939, was buried in Sligo upon request

Question 6

Easter Rising influence

Answer 6

• “What is the connection between art and politics?” - aka can artists/writers be held responsible for revolutionary acts
• Yeats’ words may have inspired people to join in Easter Rising: “Did that play of mine send out // Certain men the English shot”
• “On the Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland”
• was losing faith in Ireland by 1916, then became a senator when Ireland was a free state

Question 7

“The Celtic Twilight”

Answer 7

• 1893
• “Celtic”, not “Gaelic”, as Celts span over Northern Europe, forming connections with other groups across the continent
• drew on experiences in London with Madame Lavatsky, like seances
• mixed together with historical content, created a more flexible idea of Irishness

Question 8

Yeats and “Urban” vs. “Rural” worlds

Answer 8

• urban: Britain, negative, industry, modern, prostitution, crime, dirty
• rural: positive, real Irishness, tradition, heritage/culture, spiritual and intellectual refuge, ideal safe from immorality

Question 9

“The Lake Isle of Innisfree:

Answer 9

• lyrical style, meant to be set to music and performed at a ceremony
• references Greek/Latin literature (classics) while providing an Irish flavor
• Innisfree, “free island”, is a real isle/lake in Sligo… this poem is VERY anthologized (children here learn by heart)
• someone resides in an urban space, yearns for the country, internalized the place within themself to retreat to
• references Thoreau’s “Walden”, which also celebrates nature and encourages communing with nature

Question 10

“The Stolen Child”

Answer 10

• Irish faerie world, specifically changelings: would abduct children and replace them with a fairy
• favored little boys, who were often kept in dresses to ‘protect’ them
• changelings were a way to make sense of child disability and infant mortality
• “us”: faerie horde abducts child and leaves the human world behind, one of death/pain/suffering
• spirits are always here with us, at certain times portals will open

Question 11

The Abbey Theatre

Answer 11

• opened in 1904 as a formal place for the Irish National Theatre to stay
• headed by Edward Martyn, WB Yeats, and Lady Augusta Gregory (who REALLY had the driving force/money)
• Lady Gregory was from Galway, also same social class, was a translator and collector of Irish folklore
• site of revolution and protests, was a politicized space

Question 12

Cathleen Ni Houlihan

Answer 12

• Gregory and Yeats (1904), although Gregory’s name was dropped off
• set in County Mayo, 1798, right before the French arrive to help fight the British
• militia are trying to enlist, and an old woman arrives at a young man’s door (about to marry and receive dowry), and asks for help getting the four green fields back (four provinces)
• personification of Mother Ireland (Maud Gonne), tropes of Ireland as a female in distress, male sacrifice
• man is convinced by “young girl with the walk of a queen”, yet again Ireland personified

Question 13

September 1913

Answer 13

• looking at uprisings around the turn of the 20th century, wondering where the “heroes have gone”
• Yeats was disparaging people for losing the drive to revolt

Question 14

Easter Rising

Answer 14

• right after Easter in 1916, when a small group of insurrectionaries took over part of Dublin city
• Yeats gained hope again, calling revolution both terrible and beautiful
• original call to arms was called off, then back on (confused militia… so not overly successful but gave people hope)
• domino effect –> what happens now can change the course of history for Ireland, Britain, and colonialism