Social Victorians/People/William Butler Yeats

Also Known As

• Family name: Yeats, Hyde-Lees

William Butler Yeats

• W. B. Yeats
• Golden Dawn motto:
  • D.E.D.I., Demon Est Deus Inversus, "The Devil is the Converse of God" (Howe 296).
  • <quote>Both Gerald Yorke and Mrs. Yeats informed Allan Wade that Festina Lente was Yeats's motto in the Outer Order [of the Golden Dawn], but it surely belonged to George Pollexfen (Harper 74 166, n. 30).</quote>

Georgie Yeats

• Mrs. Georgie Hyde-Lees Yeats
• Née Bertha Hyde-Lees
• Georgia Hyde-Lees
• Golden Dawn motto: Nemo (N.) (Alastor) — "No one," but she was not in the original organization (Küntz 221)

Demographics

• Nationality:

Residences

• 18 Woburn Buildings, from March 1896

Family

• John Butler Yeats (16 March 1839 – 3 February 1922)
• Susan Mary Pollexfen Yeats (13 July 1841 – 3 January 1900)

1. William Butler Yeats (13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939)
2. Susan Mary "Lily" Yeats
3. Elizabeth Corbett "Lolly" Yeats
4. Robert Corbet Yeats
5. John "Jack" Butler Yeats
6. Jane Grace Yeats

• Nelly (Edith Ellen) Hyde-Lees ()
• Gilbert Hyde-Lees ( – 1909)
• Henry Tucker ()

• William Butler Yeats (13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939)
• Georgie Hyde-Lees Yeats (16 October – 23 August 1968)

1. Anne Butler Yeats (26 February 1919 – 4 July 2001)
2. Michael Butler Yeats (22 August 1921 – 3 January 2007)

Relations

• George Pollexfen, W. B. Yeats's uncle
• Henry Tucker, Georgie Hyde-Lees Yeats's step-father, was Olivia Shakespear's brother.

Acquaintances, Friends and Enemies

Acquaintances

• Helena Blavatsky

Friends

W. B. Yeats and also possible Georgie Yeats

• Florence Farr
• Lady Gregory
• Annie Horniman
• MacGregor Mathers
• Moina Bergson Mathers
• Mary Briggs
• Arnold Dolmetsch
• Arthur Conan Doyle?
• Frank Fay
• Thomas Horton
• Ernest Rhys? (Harper 74 6).
• William Sharp
• George Bernard Shaw
• Sybil Thorndike
• Maud Gonne
• Olivia Shakespear, romantic relationship, 1896–1897

Georgie Yeats

• Ezra Pound
• Walter Rummel
• Frederic Manning
• Dorothy Shakespear
• Olivia Shakespear

Enemies

• Aleister Crowley

Organizations

• Metropolitan School of Art, Dublin, 1884–1886
• The Rhymers Club, co-founded with Ernest Rhys
• The Dublin Hermetic Order, 1885 (involved in founding)
• Theosophical Society
• Golden Dawn

Timeline

1867, the Yeats family moved to London.

1880, the Yeats family moved back to Dublin.

1885 June 16, first meeting of the Dublin Hermetic Order, Yeats sat as chairman.

1887, the Yeats family moved back to London.

1892 July, Yeats wrote John O'Leary about MacGregor Mathers and "nationalistic questions" (Harper 74 18).

1894 March–April, the season at the Avenue: Yeats's The Land of Heart's Desire, Shaw's Arms and the Man, and Todhunter's The Comedy of Sighs; Florence Farr produced the plays.

1896 March 3, Yeats wrote to W. T. Horton, saying he "had ony recently moved" to 18 Woburn Buildings and setting the date for Horton's initiation into the Golden Dawn (Harper 80 3-4). Referring to some books Horton owned (?), Yeats "mentions the titles of two books by Thomas Lake Harris, whose teachings came to be a focal point in the ideological debate they [the members of the Golden Dawn] carried on for more than twenty years: Yeats asked to borrow God's Breath in Man and in Humane Society (1891) and promised to return The Arcana of Chritianity" (Harper 80 4).

1896 March 21, W. T. Horton initated into the Golden Dawn (Harper 80 4).

1896 March 28, one week after his initiation into the Golden Dawn, Horton wrote to Yeats about himelf and about Annie Horniman. Harper sees implications in the letter for later disputes regarding Horniman and the writings of Thomas Lake Harris (Harper 80 6).

1896 April 13, Yeats replied to Horton's 28 March letter, warning him, as Harper puts it, "about belief without proof":

Egyptian faces may very well come to you after your initiation, as the Order is greatly under Egyptian influence; but one can never say whether a specified vision is or is not authentic without submitting it to an actual occult examination. The great matter is to remain positive to all apparitions and to work on in the GD as far as the 5-6 grade before attempting much or any practical occult work such as invocation. You should get A.P.S. [Anima Pura Sit, Pullen-Burry] to send you with your material for examination 'The Banishing Lesser Ritual of the Pentegram [sic]; as you are entitled to it and may find it of importance. It is a great help against all obsession. (Harper 80 6)

1896 April 29, in a letter to Yeats, Horton said he had to get out of the Golden Dawn (Harper 80 7).

1896 October 29, Mathers demands written submission from the members of the Second Order.

1897 January 18, Yeats "had just returned to London, and he invited Horton to come in on Friday at 1.30. Yeats had been in Paris visiting MacGregor Mathers, ... who was assisting him with the composition of rituals, similar to those of the Golden Dawn, for the Celtic Mysteries, which Yeats was attempting to revive, in part at least as an appeal to Maud Gonne's ardent nationalism" (Harper 80 19-20). Yeats believed in the Celtic Mysteries, however, so his interest was not entirely an attempt to engage Gonne.

1897, late January, the Moina and MacGregor Mathers were in London. Did they travel with Yeats? Where did they stay? (Harper 80 80, citing Howe 140).

1897 on, Yeats took part in Celtic Mysteries / Celtic Explorations (Harper 74 164, n. 19), with Mary Briggs, Maud Gonne, Annie Horniman, George Russell, and William Sharp.

1897 March 16, Moina Mathers wrote Yeats about Bailly, an editor, who "is very anxious to communicate with you on the Celtic Religious movement. ... [sic Harper] He says that the whole nearly of the French press are ready to help in this matter" (Harper 74 165, n. 19).

1897 December 29, With D.E.D.I. [Yeats] as 'Conductor', a group of six Fratres and Sorores of the Golden Dawn embarked upon a visionary journey 'to get the talismatic shape of the gods done' (Letters, p. 265 ). Yeats and his colleagues achieved this end by calling the names of various Celtic heroes and god who gave different signs when their names were called. May Briggs [sic] (Per Mare Ad Astra), the recorder, drew sketches of them as they presented themselves to the group" (Harper 74 165, n. 19).

1898 January, the group conducted two experiments.

1898 March, Yeats wrote George Russell: "I go to Paris on the 14th of April to see the Mathers [sic] on Celtic things. I have just heard, curiously enough, that Mrs Mathers has been seeing Conla and without knowing that we have been invoking him constantly" (Harper 74 18).

1898 April 14, Yeats went to Paris to see MacGregor and Moina Mathers (Harper 74 18).

1898 April 14, April 25, and May ?9, Yeats was in Paris; "extended passages" in his Autobiography (335-42) records "several vivid experiences" during this trip (Harper 74 163, n. 15). Maud Gonne was there.

"On [1898, ] 25 April, Yeats wrote to Lady Gregory from Paris, where he had been 'for a couple of days', that he was 'buried in Celtic mythology' and would be 'for a couple of weeks or so'. 'My host, he said in a postscript, 'is a Celtic enthusiast who spends most of his day in highland costume to the wonder of the neighbours'" (Harper 74 18). Maud Gonne was also in Paris.

1898 December 10 (to be exact: "a few days before" 13 December), Yeats and Gonne, who was out of the Golden Dawn in December 1894, performed "similar experiments."

1898 December 13 through 1899 February 8, Yeats et al. were in Sligo for the Celtic Explorations (Harper 74).

1898 December 13, there are "a number of divinations" in Yeats's papers; Annie Horniman was there.

1899 February, Yeats went to Paris to see Maud Gonne. "Although, as he wrote to Lady Gregory, 'she made it easy for me to see her', he was depressed. Maud had told him 'the story of her life' and discouraged any further pursuit on his part" (Harper 74 20). Yeats probably saw MacGregor and Moina Mathers there.

1906 July 13, Yeats had been planning to tour the U.S. with Florence Farr? John Quinn wrote WBY telling him not to go to USA with Farr: "'It wouldn't do ... or you and Miss Farr to come here together. This is after all a provincial people.' American audiences, 'especially at the Women's Colleges', where 'you are now known in a most dignified way', would consider such a tour improper. 'It is too risky', he warned, 'too easily misunderstood'" (Harper 80 29).

1907 April, Yeats went to Italy with Lady Gregory (Harper 80 28).

1910 May 6, Friday, Edward VII, King of England, died.

1910 May 7, Saturday, The Abbey Theatre in Dublin did not close for Edward VII's death, so Annie Horniman cut them off.

1910 September 26, George Pollexfen died.

1912, Florence Farr moved to Ceylon "to accept a position as Principal of Ramanathan College for Hindu Girls. According to Yeats, in the words of 'All Souls' Night', she

Preferred to teach a school
Away from Neighbour or friend
Among dark skins, and there
Permit foul years to wear,
Hidden from eyesight, to the unnoticed end. (Harper 74 175, n. 17)

1917 October 20, William Butler Yeats and Georgie Hyde-Lees married.

1926 June 24, Moina Mathers told W. B. Yeats that SDA (Anna Sprengel) was an American, not a German (Harper 74 166, n. 27).

1926 July 14, Moina Mathers told W. B. Yeats, in answer to a query of his, that the Matherses didn't trust Anna Sprengel (Harper 74 166, n. 27).

Questions and Notes

1. According to King (though Howe disagrees), Yeats <quote>took the name Festina Lente, but after he had attained the grade of Adeptus Minor he was known as Frater D.E.D.I. -- Daemon est Deus Inversus, meaning the Devil is the reverse side of God. This motto, which Yeats took from the French occultist Eliphas Levi, has a rather diabolical air about it and it appears that Yeats was fascinated by Diabolism (which he seems to have pronounced Dyahbolism) at the time. Max Beerbohm wrote that Yeats 'had made a profound study of it and he evidently guessed that Beardsley ... was a confirmed worshipper in that line. So to Beardsley he talked, in deep vibrant tones, across the table, of the lore and of the rites of Diabolism. ... I daresay that Beardsley ... knew all about Dyahbolism. Anyhow I could see that he, with that stony common-sense which always came upmost when anyone canvassed the fantastic with him, thought Dyahbolism rather silly. He was too polite not to go on saying at intervals, in his hard, quick voice, 'Oh, rally, how perfectly entrancing.' (King 89 51)</quote>
2. 1906 July 13, Yeats had been planning to tour the U.S. with Farr?
3. 1897, late January, the Moina and MacGregor Mathers were in London. Did they travel with Yeats? Where did they stay? (Harper 80 80, citing Howe 140).
4. Read Beerbohm on WBY (see, for example, King 89 51).

Bibliography

Works by Yeats

• Golden Dawn rituals 0=0 through 5=6 were written by MacGregor Mathers and revised some by Annie Horniman and Yeats (see Harper 74).
• The Trembling of the Veil, Yeats "borrowed for one section of The Trembling of the Veil " the title "Liber Hodos Chamelionis," the first section of which in the Golden Dawn ritual MSS was Ritual W, Minutum Mundum (Harper 74 177, n. 30; 178, n. 38).

The diagram consists of ten circles, representing the Cabbalistic Sephiroth, connected by lines. 'The First Diagram of MM' in the study manual for the students of 5=6 'Sheweth the Sephiroth in the colours of the Queen and the Paths in the colours of the King'. The 'Minutum Mundum' was the first section of the 'Liber Hodos Chamelionis', a title which Yeats borrowed for one section of The Trembling of the Veil " (Harper 74 177, n. 30).

Secondary Works about Yeats

• Harper 71
• Harper 80
• Howe
• King 89