The Smiling Public Man: W. B. Yeats as Senator of the Irish Free State
The Smiling Public Man: W. B. Yeats as Senator of the Irish Free State

Summary/Abstract: William Butler Yeats, the poet of the Anglo-Irish literary revival welcomed the arrival of a new era by joining the Senate of the compromise-born Irish Free State. My paper proposes that it is worth looking at what happens if a poet, „an unacknowledged legislator” is given seat in a legislative body. Focusing on Yeats.s views regarding three sets of topics: the new country.s diplomacy, language and art, I wish to show why these speeches deserve a closer analysis: they add a new filter when re-reading the poet.s volumes in the light of history (The Tower, 1928) and also reveal that Yeats, the „smiling public man” proved to be a poetcounsellor, a cultural diplomat and a legislator, however unacknowledged, not merely to the Irish Free State of the time but also to Ireland of the coming times.

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