Cassandra Lewis

Would William Butler Yeats be revered as he is today if it weren’t for his muse?

Yeats was infatuated with the activist and writer Maud Gonne. She lectured all over the world to gain support for Ireland’s separatist movement against the English colonizers. But when Maud Gonne is remembered, she’s remembered for being an actress and for being Yeats’s unattainable love interest.

Of course, I’m grateful his poetry exists. (It’s the only poetry I actually enjoy reading). I wonder if he would have found another woman to write about if he hadn’t known Maud. But even if this were the case, he might not have developed his interest in politics either. It’s difficult to imagine William Butler Yeats being remembered only as the son of John Yeats and as a dabbler in occult spirituality.

I recently discovered The Autobiography of Maud Gonne: A Servant of the Queen and I’ve been searching for any possible way to answer or at least a way to live with this question.

Here’s a revealing excerpt, a dialogue between Maud Gonne and William Butler Yeats:

“You don’t take care of yourself as Kathleen does, so she looks younger than you; your face is worn and thin; but you will always be beautiful, more beautiful than anyone I have known. You can’t help that. Oh Maud, why don’t you marry me and give up this tragic struggle and live a peaceful life? I could make such a beautiful life for you among artists and writers who would understand you.”

“Willie, are you not tired of asking that question? How often have I told you to thank the gods that I will not marry you. You would not be happy with me.”

“I am not happy without you.”

“Oh yes, you are, because you make beautiful poetry out of what you call your unhappiness and you are happy in that. Marriage would be such a dull affair. Poets should never marry. The world should thank me for not marrying you” (318-319).

So there it is. If Maud Gonne had given into Yeats, his poetry would have become boring or he would no longer have the need to write it. The end of romanticism would have ended much sooner and we would have been stuck in the bizarre modern era for even longer than absolutely necessary–if it ever was.

I’m not suggesting Yeats’s poetry should be devalued. I’m interested in remembering the influences that created him, especially Maud Gonne. Her writing didn’t make history’s cut the way Yeats’s writing did. She was demoted from being an activist and a writer to the position of a muse, an ornamental temptation, a fantasy.

I will remember her as a writer. She deserves credit for her active role in making Yeats and his poetry. The world should thank her.