Kiss me, I’m Irish

This is the week of the Irish, as St. Patrick’s Day arrives on Thursday and greets everyone with a sea of people wearing green. Granted, I am only a teeny tiny percent Irish, so I don’t typically make a big celebration of the day. However, even I enjoy delving into the culture a little bit. So, to honor the great nation of Ireland, this week’s edition of Dead Poets Society will be focusing on two of the best Irish poets and writers of all time.

First up is probably the most renowned and remembered poet from Ireland—William Butler Yeats, or W.B. Yeats for short. Born in 1865 in Dublin, the Irish-born poet is considered one of the greatest poets of the 20^th century. He was very traditional in the types of poetic forms he used and typically stuck to very romantic topics. His poetry is actually quite beautiful. Take a look at one called ‘The Living Beauty’:

“I’ll say and maybe dream I have drawn content—
Seeing that time has frozen up the blood,
The wick of youth being burned and the oil spent—
From beauty that is cast out of a mould
In bronze, or that in dazzling marble appears,
Appears, but when we have gone is gone again,
Being more indifferent to our solitude
Than ‘twere an apparition. O heart, we are old,
The living beauty is for younger men,
We cannot pay its tribute of wild tears.”

But there is one weird thing about Yeats, and that is that he had quite an unusual interest in occultism. He actually joined a secret society called the Golden Dawn that practiced ritual magic and had a series of ten different levels you could be inducted into, although the three highest were only attainable by the magi, who were thought to have a connection with the supernatural. Yeats remained an active member of the Golden Dawn for 32 years, even as he continued to write romantic poetry.

Our next featured Irishman not just a poet, but also a playwright, novelist, and essayist, or none other than the famous Oscar Wilde. He is probably best known for his plays and was quite a popular playwright throughout the 1880s. Two of his most notable works are the play The Importance of Being Earnest and his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. He was a gifted writer, a talent he inherited from both his mother and father. This is an excerpt from a poem titled ‘A Vision’ that I found particularly interesting in its language.

“Two crowned Kings, and One that stood alone
With no green weight of laurels round his head,
But with sad eyes as one uncomforted,
And wearied with man’s never-ceasing moan
For sins no bleating victim can atone,
And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed.”

Unfortunately, Wilde was homosexual in a time when having that orientation meant imprisonment. After prosecuting the Marquess of Queensberry, his father’s lover, for libel, evidence was uncovered that indicated his orientation. He was sentenced to jail for “gross indecency” with men and died at the age of 46 in a prison. The last poem he ever wrote was a long poem titled ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol,’ which detailed the harsh reality of prison life. While Wilde’s life was filled with hardship at its end, he is still celebrated for the great writer he was.

And that concludes this week’s Dead Poets Society! I hope you enjoyed this look into Ireland’s most interesting and famous writers; I certainly learned some very fascinating things about them in my reading, especially Yeats’ involvement with the occult. Of course, both men also wrote some stunning poems that I was glad to feature on the blog. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, and as always, happy reading!