William Butler Yeats Research Paper

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.” This quote from William Butler Yeats expresses how one’s heritage and background can affect a person’s way of life. Also true of this is how one’s heritage can affect one’s work, as it did with Yeats and his poetry. Some of his more popular works are things like The Celtic Twilight, To Ireland in the Coming Times, or A Prayer to My Daughter. However, where he born elsewhere, everything from the title to the content would be different, and in fact most of these works more than likely wouldn’t exist.
For example, one of Yeats’ stories are titled, The Celtic Twilight: Faerie and Folklore. This title alone is a good example of Yeats’ heritage …show more content…
While faeries too, can be mischievous, their mischief can have much higher consequences than the friendly fairies. Faeries are also fond of stealing, often things with great sentiment or even children. “For example, faeries steal children and keep them as slaves or pets” (Prabhat). Faeries are much more dangerous than fairies, and facing one can lead to unforgiving consequences. A well-known example a faerie would be a banshee, “a spirit from Irish folklore in the form of a wailing woman who appears to, or is heard by members of a family as a sign that one of them is about to die” (banshee).
If Yeats were born elsewhere, such as America, he would be more likely to find the spelling of “Fairy” more common than “Faerie”. This alone would have made his writing different than from what we know today, as he would be writing about two separate beings. In America, it is believed that all fairies are simple tricksters that are mischievous in nature. However, as shown earlier, that is not the case as fairies and faeries are depicted earlier as separate entities and therefore would create very different writings. This is a prime example of how Yeats’ background effected his