William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist and mystic.
Yeats' early poetry drew heavily on myth and legend, however his later work engages with more contemporary issues. He was born in Dublin on June 13, 1865. He became heavily involved with hermeticist and theosophical beliefs, and in 1900 he became head of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
Yeats won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1923.
His poem, "The Second Coming" is one of the most potent sources of imagery about the 20th century. For instance,
- Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
- Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
- The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
- The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
- The best lack all conviction, while the worst
- Are full of passionate intensity.
Also, the concluding lines
- And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
- Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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