Auden noted in a 1948 Kenyon Review essay entitled “Yeats as an Example,” Yeats accepted the modern necessity of having to make a lonely and deliberate “choice of the principles and presuppositions in terms of which sense of his experience.” Auden assigned Yeats the high praise of having written “some of the most beautiful poetry” of modern times. This conviction led many to accuse him of elitism, but it also unquestionably contributed to his greatness. He was equally firm in adhering to his self-image as an artist.
Although he lived in London for 14 years of his childhood (and kept a permanent home there during the first half of his adult life), Yeats maintained his cultural roots, featuring Irish legends and heroes in many of his poems and plays. Most members of this minority considered themselves English people who happened to have been born in Ireland, but Yeats staunchly affirmed his Irish nationality. He belonged to the Protestant, Anglo-Irish minority that had controlled the economic, political, social, and cultural life of Ireland since at least the end of the 17th century. William Butler Yeats is widely considered to be one of the greatest poets of the 20th century.
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