Themes In William Butler Yeats's No Second Troy

William Butler Yeats, one of the foremost figures of 20th century Modernist poetry, used a lot of chief recurring themes in his poems: Symbolism, Spiritualism, The occult-which he dabbled in at the Society of the Dawn-, Irish nationalist politics and revival of Irish folklore. Another recurring theme in the poems was his turbulent relationship with, and his love for Maud Gonne- the English born but Irish actress and revolutionary.

In 1889, he met Maud Gonne, who he would propose to four times in the span of the next ten years. The Twenty three year old English actress sought his acquaintance after admiring “The Isle of Statues“. This would be the start of “the troubling of his life”, in his own words written twenty five years later. He also

He wrote hundreds of poems for her, one of which was No Second Troy. Even though there are multiple possible ways to analyse the poem, to understand it in Maud Gonne’s context, it is essential to study the beautiful actress’ political ambitions.

Maud Gonne’s father, an army officer, was posted to Dublin and she accompanied him until his death. She then returned to France and fell in love with a right wing politician, Lucien Millevoye and they agreed to fight for Irish independence. She returned to Ireland and worked tirelessly for the release of Irish political prisoners from jail.

In 1891, she briefly joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organization with which Yeats had involved himself. Between 1893 and 1895, she and Millevoye had two children together of which only the second, a girl named Iseult Gonne, survived. Later, at the age of 23, Iseult was proposed to by, and rejected, the then-52-year-old William Butler Yeats, and she had a brief affair with Ezra

Interestingly enough, their relationship was consummated once in 1908, but it led to a complete anticlimax: it seemed to disappoint both, and not lead to any furthering of their romantic relationship. Soon afterwards Gonne wrote to the poet indicating that despite their night together, they could not continue as they had been: "I have prayed so hard to have all earthly desire taken from my love for you and dearest, loving you as I do, I have prayed and I am praying still that the bodily desire for me may be taken from you