A critical study of the poetry of William Butler Yeats in the Light of Hinduism

The theme of this paper is “A light to Hinduism “which means influence of Indian culture, literature and philosophy in the poetry of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, and the influence of his poetry on Twentieth Century Indian Literature. The paper takes into account literary, cultural, philosophical as well as religious influence, their reception and responses of a culture to literature. Yeats asserts that a “Poet writes always of his personal life, it is always finest work of his tragedy, whatever it be, remorse, lost love, or mere loneliness.” But he never writes of it directly, for he creates with the transformative power of his imagination, even when the poet seems most himself he has been reborn as an Idea. The study seeks to examine the nature of Indian philosophical influence throughout his prolific life on the poetic works of William Butler Yeats, a literary giant of the twentieth century. Yeats mature verse prompted me to engage in his poetic works; which has earned him conflicting names from being Orientalist, Colonialist, Anti-Colonialist, Modernist, Nationalist, Revivalist and even Traditionalist in his attitude and writings. Such multi-labeling is in itself evidence enough to prove how complex Yeats life is, defining easy classification. Many texts have been written about Indian influence on the poet, and I wish to build on them and expand the field as there is still uncovered ground, without strictly categorizing (and thereby limiting) Yeats and his output. In this paper I will be analyzing some of his below mentioned poems to explore the light of Hinduism as a dominant theme in the selected poems of W.B. Yeats. The poems are “The wandering of Oisin”; “sailing to Byzantium”; “Lake Isle of Innisfree”; “An Irish Airman Forsees his Death”’; “Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven”; Leda and the Swan”; “Death”; “Long Legged Fly”; “Among School Children”; “A Prayer for my Daughter”; “The Stolen Child”; “When you are Old”; “Down by the Salley Gardens”; “an Image from a past Life”; Before the World was Made”; “ Broken Dreams” etc.