This is part of our project for english class on William Butler Yeats. The project talks about the political beliefs and views + background info on Yeats and Maud, the views of Ireland from Yeats through his poems, and Irish folklore. They are putting a major stress on folklore because it is what keeps all tradition and Irish spirit alive and going.

Yeatswas born in a town near Dublin on June 13th 1865. His father was John Butler Yeats, a noted portrait painter. At the time Ireland was a poor country, the British were ruling them. (Most of the Irish people immigrated to the US) It was unfair for the Irish and Yeats felt that he needed to change this. He started to write poems trying to psyche up, in a sense, the Irish people. His first published book contained the Wanderings of Oisin. He founded the Irish Literary THeater in 1899, he became the director of the Abbey Theater in 1904.

At around 1889 he met Maud Gonne a beautiful woman at the time. He was so in love with her that the loved her even after he was married. She married John MacBride in 1916. That really got Yeats ticked off even though he too got married to Maud but it was only in a spiritual sense.

The first poem that he wrote for her was 'The Arrow'<