Yeats’s Disenchantment with Nationalism and His Pursuit of Universal Mind

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to chart Yeats's evolving attitudes towards nationalism and mysticism and his eventual turn to universal mind by reading his poems and proses written in the nineties and early twentieth century. Although he converted to nationalism in 1886 by writing poems combining his nationalist agenda and mystical ideas, he slowly showed skepticism about his nationalist agenda and about the realization of a mystical vision. My argument is that this change stems basically from his understanding of the limitations of nationalism: independence as isolation by analyzing some poems in The Rose (1893) and The Wind Among the Reeds (1899). In addition, Yeats revealed on many occasions his weariness at political skirmishes into which he was constantly dragged because of his double allegiance to art and politics and to England and Ireland. Although he turns to the Irish Literary Theater, announcing a need to separate art from politics, his place in Irish modern history makes it difficult to keep himself from engaging in political battles which gradually instill bitterness and hatred into his poetry. It is also important to notice that Yeats talked about universal mind during this period when he expressed his skepticism about the possibility of achieving the state of oneness and his frustration about needless political fights. Certainly, Yeats’s dealing with universal consciousness and his disappointment in nationalist politics due to its provincial nature and its tendency to fight with each other leads us to see where Yeats is eventually moving to in the future: the pursuit of unity by reconciling East and West. Yeats’s gradual movement towards universalist agenda is necessary and inevitable to deal not only with the narrowness of nationalism and nationalist politics, but also with his ambivalence towards England and Ireland and his bitterness caused by his involvement in vicious political fights. Our understanding of Yeats’s gradual transition from nationalist to universalist is crucial in following his evolving attitude towards the spiritual traditions which he resumes to study in 1912 and his use of them for his later political objectives: a realization of a unified world. Unfortunately, however, Yeats’s pursuit of universal qualities is clouded by his hatred of the urban Catholic middle class.