Yeats Passion with the Occult and Feminine Mystique Expressed in Poem

W.B. Yeats, The Song of Wandering Aengus

In the era which William Butler Yeats lived, the occult was not as inaccessible as it is today. Magic proved to be a solution to the ennui which pervaded many lives of the Anglo-Irish cast. Yeats, a member of this circle, was eager to discover his own identity as an Irishman. To accomplish this, he developed his own form of magic via incorporating the Celtic myths of his native land. Maud Gonne, the object of his desire throughout his life, was fused with his vision, thus creating a sense of a new generation that must be spawned to create the perfect Irish race. Yeats' early poetry is laden with some of the most complex yet classic images in the occult, which are often misunderstood in contemporary times. Yeats' 1899 collection of poems, The Wind Among the Reeds proved to generate "reactions to the volume [that] were quizzical. In some quarters bewilderment was expressed at [Yeats] deliberate search for obscurity…above all, the new volume's reliance on elaborate magical symbols was worrying" (Foster, 217). The troubled reader response is still justifiable today.

In the poem, The Song of Wandering Aengus, one can clearly see Yeats's fascination with the occult as a way of incorporating classic pagan and Celtic myths as a means of creating an alternative reality for his own nationalistic intentions. Maud Gonne is more then the tangible woman for Yeats-she is a symbol of that entire he is trying to attain. Therefore, Gonne is not just the physical woman, but a place of stature in the occult community, and a new Irish race reaching fruition. In the poem, Yeats magically transports the reader into a Celtic collective subconscious where a union between himself and Maud Gonne is displayed as the hopeful salvation of the Irish race.