Maud gonne william butler yeats12/8/2023 But Cardozo was apparently privileged to have the cooperation of Maud's surviving friends and relatives, particularly her son, Sean MacBride, founder of Amnesty International and winner of the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize (a chief concern of his mother's was the plight of political prisoners). One of the difficulties in writing a biography of Maud Gonne has been the absence of material for research.Many of the most important documents and letters, including most of Yeats' letters to Maud, have been lost, many in the ransacking of Maud's house by the Black and Tans during the Irish Civil War in the early 20s. The author has done a thorough job of scholarship and has brought a sense of order to the facts of Maud Gonne's tumultnous life, even at times uncovering new, previously unavailable information (such as evidence, thanks to the help of Yeats scholar Richard Ellmann, that Willie and Maud probably did become lovers for a brief period). Lucky Eyes and a High Heart (an unfortunately vapid title that comes from one of Yeats' poems) is a generally well-written, lively account of a life that needs no embellishment. The history in which she participated, the fascinating cast of literary and political figures with whom she was associated and, more important, her unconventional spirit in a Victorian society made her a potentially fascinating subject for an enterprising biographer.Īnd Nancy Cardozo has certainly been enterprising. It was clear from the bits and pieces of her life and character that I put together from various sources, including her own less-than-can-did autobiography, A Servant of the Queen, that she was much more than Yeats- muse, that her impact on the formation of the Republic of Ireland had been great. Reading of Yeats repreated pleas that she "give up the tragic stuggle and lead a peaceful life," his frequent criticisms of her for neglecting her beauty and wasting it on what he felt was a hopeless cause, I had no trouble understanding why the spirited Maud Gonne refused the self-dramatining young poet. It annoyed me that the literary critics who wrote about Yeats always referred to Maud Gonne with a certain condescension, unable to understand why she wouldn't marry "Willie" and settle down to find fulfillment as his muse. She had also been the source of his greatest suffering ("I was twenty-three years old when the troubling of my life began," he wrote in his autobiography, recalling their meeting), for, although she would be his friend throughout his life, she did not return his passion and chose instead to devote hers to the cause of Irish independence. This 6-foot tall beauty - some called her "the most beautiful woman in Ireland" - had been Yeats great passion and the inspiration for many of his poems and plays. Iseult died a year later.I FIRST HEARD of Maud Gonne when I enrolled in a graduate seminar in the poetry of William Butler Yeats. When Maud Gonne died in 1953, Iseult was not acknowledged as her mother's daughter in her will. In 1920, she married Francis Stuart, a poet of Ulster descent. Iseult attracted a number of other men, including Ezra Pound. Tagore left it to Yeats' discretion to decide the merit of the work, but Yeats did not feel sufficiently bilingual in French to judge them. Together, in France, they translated some of Tagore's The Gardener into French directly from the Bengali. She was tutored by Devabrata Mukerjea, with whom she also had an affair. Inspired by his poetry, she began to learn Bengali in 1914. Maud and Iseult Gonne were both the subjects of a number of poems written by Yeats. Yeats proposed to Maud Gonne in July 1916 and then Iseult soon after. Yeats, Maud Gonne's lifelong admirer, knew of Iseult's existence from 1898 and became a close part of her life. As an illegitimate daughter who lived in France, it was not until the divorce case between Maud Gonne and John MacBride took place in 1905-6 that her existence became known to the wider public. Iseult Gonne was the daughter of the Irish nationalist, Maud Gonne.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |