Ancestral Houses and Ancient Buildings – Yeats and his „Chief of Men”
Ancestral Houses and Ancient Buildings – Yeats and his „Chief of Men”

Summary/Abstract: In 1889, Yeats walked out from the meeting of the Socialist Circle and never returned. He attended these gatherings for two years and immersed himself in various ideas of the famous English textile designer and social activist, William Morris. Some of his notions were repeatedly trampled upon so he decided to leave the literary cradle for men of art. When years later, he held a Senate seat (1922–1928) within the newly formed Irish Free State, several of William Morris’s ideas would reappear and would be reiterated in his speeches. The most notable ones are Yeats’s actions and reactions in connection with the motifs of homes, houses, buildings, ancient monuments, as well as notions of agriculture. The paper starts with Morris as he stood for the centre of a literary and thinking hub; then highlights the main differences between the thought of the two men. Having these as foundations, the third part will elaborate on recurrent motifs, notions and values in the Senate speeches, underpinning an often forgotten element of Yeats criticism that William Morris had always remained, as the poet put it, his „chief of men”.

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