William Butler Yeats Trivia

1. Yeats was in love with an Irish nationalist who inspired the poem "No Second Troy". Who was this woman?

From Quiz W.B. Yeats and His Times

Answer: Maud Gonne

Yeats was deeply involved in the question of Irish independence from Britain. Gonne was a fanatical Irish revolutionary and was one of the original founders of Sinn Fein. She was also quite beautiful and a talented actress of her day. It appears that Yeats' love was never fully requited. In "No Second Troy", Yeats indicates "that she filled my days with misery" and he questioned whether, given her "high and solitary and most stern" way, she could be any different than what she was: "Why was there another Troy for her to burn?" She must have been an extraordinary woman to be compared to Helen of Troy.

From Quiz Poetry Of William Butler Yeats

Answer: These Are The Clouds

In the seventh line of this poem, "And therefore, friend, if your great race were run", Yeats refers to his friend Lady Gregory. She and Yeats first met on a visit to Lady Gregory's neighbour Edward Martyn. The friendship between the three led to the founding of the Irish Literary Theatre in 1899.

From Quiz The poetry of W.B. Yeats

Answer: The Second Coming

'Things Fall Apart' was the title of Achebe's work.

From Quiz William Butler Yeats

Answer: Dublin

One of the foremost figures in Irish literature during the late 19th and early 20th century, William Butler Yeats was born in Dublin on 13 June 1865. He came from an Anglo-Irish family, and developed a fascination with Irish legends as a youth. They featured prominently in his 19th century work, and remain as background to his more realistic later work. In 1889 Yeats published his first collection of poems, 'The Wanderings of Oisín and Other Poems'. The title poem is an epic narrative of a conversation between Oisín and Saint Patrick, in which the aging Fenian warrior and Ireland's greatest poet, reflects on his life, and the struggle to maintain the ancient faith in the face of Christianity.

From Quiz W.B. Yeats and His Times

Answer: Easter, 1916

The Easter Uprising occurred on April 24, 1916 with an attack on the Dublin General Post Office and other strategic points by Irish nationalists. It was crushed by April 29 and led to the summary execution by British forces of 15 leaders. Among those executed were Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, James Connolly and John MacBride, all of whom Yeats knew. Although supportive of Irish independence, Yeats was ambivalent about the violence used (he was a member of the Anglo-Irish elite, after all), believing that the long struggle had turned "hearts with one purpose" into a "stone to trouble the living stream." The martyrdom of his friends had, however, turned most of Ireland against the British; thus "a terrible beauty [was] born."

From Quiz The poetry of W.B. Yeats

Answer: terrible beauty

This served as the end of several stanzas of that poem.

From Quiz Poetry Of William Butler Yeats

Answer: Under Ben Bulben

The final passage of this poem is cut on Yeats' gravestone. It reads: "Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!"

From Quiz The poetry of W.B. Yeats

Answer: A.I.

'Come Away oh Human Child, with a Fairy Hand in Hand' is on Professor Hobby's office door, as well as a quote by Dr. Know.

From Quiz William Butler Yeats

Answer: Cuchulain

Cú Chulainn was a legendary Irish hero and demigod who featured in Manx and Scottish, as well as Irish, mythology. According to the Ulster Cycle myths, he gained his nickname, the Hound of Ulster, as a child when he killed the watch dog of Chulainn, and offered to guard the smith's house until a replacement dog could be bred and trained. The tales of his prowess in battle are many, and do not always agree with each other. He became a symbol of the Irish Nationalist movement. Yeats wrote prefaces for 'Cuchulain of Muirthemne', a 1904 compilation of Irish mythology produced by his friend Lady Gregory. Cuchulain also appeared in a number of Yeats' other writings, including the plays 'On Baile's Strand' (1904), 'The Green Helmet' (1910), 'At the Hawk's Well' (1917), 'The Only Jealousy of Emer' (1919) and 'The Death of Cuchulain' (1939), and the poems 'Cuchulain's Fight with the Sea' (1892) and 'Cuchulain Comforted' (1939).

From Quiz The poetry of W.B. Yeats

Answer: Under Ben Bulben

'Cast a cold eye On Life, on death Horseman, pass by!'

From Quiz William Butler Yeats

Answer: Abbey

In 1897, Yeats, Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn produced a manifesto for the establishment of an Irish Literary Theatre, and a group dedicated to that task was set up with the assistance of George Moore in 1899. They produced a number of plays, but collapsed in 1901 due to lack of funding. Another group, the Irish National Theatre Society, was organised, and they managed to acquire a property which opened as The Abbey Theatre in December of 1904. Yeats's one-act plays 'On Baile's Strand' and 'Cathleen ni Houlihan' were featured on the opening night of the Abbey, and he remained involved with the theatre until his death, both as a contributing playwright and as a member of the board.

From Quiz W.B. Yeats and His Times

Answer: Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen

Some of those "ingenious things gone" were "Phidias' famous ivories" of classical Athens and "all the golden grasshoppers and bees" of Egypt's pharaohs. But Yeats understood that even his generation had its "pretty toys" which were also doomed for the ash heap of history. That one day, "A law indifferent to blame or praise, bribe or threat, Habits that made old wrong melt down as were wax in sun's rays, Public opinion ripening for so long we thought it would outlive all future days," would be gone, too.

From Quiz Poetry Of William Butler Yeats

Answer: Leda and The Swan

This poem is based on the Greek myth in which Leda was ravished by Zeus in the form of a swan. As a result of this coupling, the twins Helen and Pollux were born. This poem recalls the Trojan War that rose from Helen's beauty, and the murder of Agamemnon by his wife.

From Quiz The poetry of W.B. Yeats

Answer: A 19th century political revolutionary

Parnell's work led to land and political reforms. After a nasty divorce case where he was named as the lover of Kitty O'Shea, he was forced to resign. He died in O'Shea's arms only a few months after marrying her.

From Quiz The poetry of W.B. Yeats

Answer: Swan & Swans

Coole was the estate of Lady Gregory, a friend of Yeats.

From Quiz The poetry of W.B. Yeats

Answer: Cuchulain

Needless to say, Cuchulain did not win, though he did fight to a draw.

From Quiz William Butler Yeats

Answer: The Second Coming

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity." So reads the first verse of this 1920 poem in which Yeats uses Christian apocalyptic imagery to describe the state of Europe immediately following World War I, and the conditions in Ireland as the Irish War of Independence was underway. Then there was the 1918-1919 flu pandemic: his pregnant wife was recovering from a severe case that nearly killed her when he wrote the poem. Things were not good, and this poem has continued to strike a chord through the years. It has been widely referenced in poems, novels, essays, films, etc. - sometimes as a direct quote, sometimes as a reference that relies on familiarity with the original to see significance in a twist. An example of the latter is the title of Jonathan Alter's analysis of the 2012 US Presidential election, 'The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies'.

From Quiz The poetry of W.B. Yeats

Answer: old men

One of Yeats' later poems, one can see Yeats already trying to set down his place in history in this poem.

From Quiz W.B. Yeats and His Times

Answer: The Long-Legged Fly

It is difficult to believe, in the few years before 1939, that Yeats did not have his poetic eye on events across the English Channel on the continent. Caesar needed the "silence" of the "long-legged fly upon the stream" as he pored over his maps "so that civilization may not sink." A young Helen of Troy needed the "silence" of the "long-legged fly upon the stream" as she practiced the alluring arts of becoming a woman so that the "topless towers" of Troy may be burnt, giving birth to Homer and Western Civilization. And, finally, Michelangelo needed the "silence" of the "long-legged fly upon the stream" so that children ("girls of puberty") may witness the art of the Sistine Chapel. Much must have seemed in jeopardy in those years.

From Quiz Poetry Of William Butler Yeats

Answer: To the Rose Upon the Rood of Time

"To the Rose Upon the Rood of Time" was written in 1892. The title suggests the combination of the Rose and the Cross in Rosicrucianism. The Rosicrucian Order is a legendary esoteric order with its roots in the western mystery tradition. It is an hermitic order viewed as a "College of Invisibles".

From Quiz The poetry of W.B. Yeats

Answer: Aengus

The poem is 'The Song of Wandering Aengus'. Aengus has spent the rest of his life searching for this woman, never to find her again.

From Quiz William Butler Yeats

Answer: Under Ben Bulben

This is one of the last poems written by Yeats, and was not published until after his death six months after he wrote the first draft. Yeats is buried in the churchyard of St Columba's Church in Drumcliff, near the foot of the large rock formation known as Ben Bulben. Ben Bulben has featured in Irish legends, and was the site of a battle of the Irish Civil War. Yeats had told his family that he wished to be initially buried where he died (in France), to avoid publicity, but then to have a final resting place in Sligo. This was done in 1948; the epitaph on his tombstone reads: "Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman pass by!" This is yet another piece of Yeats' work which has found a home with other writers. Larry McMurtry's first novel, 'Horseman, Pass By', was adapted into the 1963 movie 'Hud', starring Paul Newman. The horseman is Hud's stepfather Homer, whose funeral is at the end of the book.

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Last Updated Jan 10 2026 5:46 AM

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