Yeats' escapism

William Butler Yeats. William Butler Yeats was the major figure in the cultural revolution which developed from the strong nationalistic movement at the end of the 19th century. He dominated the writings of a generation. He established forms and themes which came to be considered as the norms for writers of his generation. Yeats was a confessional poet - that is to say, that he wrote his poetry directly from his own experiences. He was …

…human emotion, has gone. He’s left at the bottom of the ladder, with his feet on the ground. He uses the powerful metaphor of litter - ‘old kettles, old bones, old rags’ to suggest the ugliness of human feeling. But, he must confront the reality of life and living at last - he must return to the source of all art, the world of human emotion- ‘The foul rag and boneshop of the heart’.