William butler yeats timeline7/30/2023 In the wake of the uprising, MacBride and many others were executed. In 1916, her husband, John MacBride, took part in the violent Easter Rising against the British. ![]() Gonne had always been more of a firebrand than Yeats, and she endorsed the more radical and violent revolutionary efforts to secure Ireland's independence from Britain in the first decades of the 20th century. According to "No Second Troy," she "taught to ignorant men most violent ways." With the comparison to Helen, Yeats is accusing Maud Gonne of being partially responsible for the violence in revolutionary Ireland, just like Helen was partially responsible for the Trojan War. Angry husband + massive armies = Trojan War. Many legends paint her as a romantic who left her husband Menelaus for the beautiful but cowardly Trojan Prince Paris. She was also partly responsible for starting the Trojan War, which eventually led to the burning of the great city of Troy. Like Maud Gonne, Helen was considered one of the most beautiful women of her age. Helen is a legendary character from Homer's Iliad. In this poem, however, Yeats's attitude is somewhat harsh, as he compares Gonne with the infamously beautiful – and notoriously mischievous – Helen of Troy. (Hey, you gotta admire his persistence.) Having pursued her for over a decade and dedicated many of his poems to her, we think it's fair to say that Yeats was obsessed with her. Yeats published " No Second Troy" in 1916 in the collection Responsibilities and Other Poems, after he had already proposed to Gonne – and been rejected – on numerous occasions. ![]() Maybe he should have known better, but hey, that's love. He was a buttoned-up poet with conservative tendencies she was a free-spirited actress who wanted nothing less than revolution for her country. William Butler Yeats's relationship with the beautiful and defiant Irishwoman Maud Gonne is one of the great literary love stories of the 20th century. William Butler Yeats' No Second Troy: Poem Introduction
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