ARABIA IN YEATS' POETRY

Islamic Studies (Islamabad) 29:1 (1990)
ARABIA IN YEATS' POETRY
NOTES AND COMMENTS
ADNAN M. WAZZAN
The Orient in general and Arabia in particular have fascina-
ted the people in the West through the ages. 'The East is a career'
Disraeli observed. The East represents a world of mystery-
something unknown. It is a fertile soil for satisfaying the economic,
historical, political and literary interests. Many Western men of
letters have considered the Orient an untrodden world waiting to
be discovered.
The present paper attempts to trace the oriental elements in
Yeats poetry in general with special emphasis on Arabia and Arabic
sources. Earlier studies like that of S.B. Bushrui, 'Yeats's Arabic
Interest' treated the topic from a different standpoint, con-
centrating on a few examples only, whereas this work will lay
greater stress on representation instances in this respect. F.F.
Farag in his work, 'Oriental and Celtic Elements in the Poetry of
W.B. Yeats' has examined the Eastern elements in Yeats' poetry
without special reference to Arabic elements as the present study
does.
A native of Ireland, William Butler Yeats was born in the
outskirts of Dublin in 1865, the son of the distinguished artist
John Butler Yeats. 'Yeats came from the outer fringe of the Irish
Protestant Ascendancy, from a rather better family than Shaw's,
and perhaps from not quite such a good family as Wilde's.'* From
1875 to 1880 Yeats received his education at Godolphin School in
Hammersmith, London. In 1880 he joined the high school at Dublin.
Yeats was unlikely to pass the entrance examinatior, to Trinity
College Dublin, so he entered the school of Art, Dublin, where he
became acquainted with George Russell and developed an interest
in mystic religion and the supernatural. In 1886 Yeats decided to
become a poet, he was encouraged by his father to do so. In 1891
he wrote 'John Sherman and Dhoya', two years later he edited the
poems of William Blake and in 1893, in collaboration with E. J.
Ellis, edited the works of Blake in three volumes. In 1906 he
edited Spenser's Works.
Yeats' early study of Irish folklore, history, legends, and
traditional Irish national themes alongside with the poet's
unrequited love for Maud Gonne provided much of the subject
matter for his poetry which remained within the framework of the

Pre-Raphaelite Style of the 1890s. However, the source of
inspiration changed later, as F. F. Farag remarks.
There is no doubt that the style and the subject matter of
his early poems reveal a heterogeneous effort in the
direction of the aesthetes whom his father taught him to
admire. However, we cannot dispose of the whole period in
this sweeping fashion. Although the Pre-Raphaelite diction of
his poetry remained throughout this phase. Yeats's .inspiration
after 1885 came from a different quarter. With the
appearance of the Indian Missionary, Mohini Chatte ji on the
scene, a new note entered Yeats's poetry.=
Yeats was stimulated by the East, especially, by India and
Arabia. The interest in India was not with the '~ndia of politicians
or historians or travellers, but an India of pure romance which
bears some subtle yet obvious relation to old romantic Ireland:!
Similarly the interest in Arabia, too, related to an Arabia of 'pure
romance' like the old romantic Ireland:
1 do not wish to overestimate the importance of Arabia and
the Arabs in the study of Yeats, but his interest in them in
fact stands on the same level as his interest in Indian
philose, Japanese drama, occult practices, magic and the
theo~ophy.~
W. B. Yeats attempted to establish a relationship between
~urope and Asia by bringing to light those elements which are
reconcilable. He dreamed of sowing oriental thought in the west.
In fact several artists and men of letters shared Yeats9 preoccupa-
tion with Orient. Laurence Binyon studied Japanese and Chinese
painting, Florence Farr and Sturge Moore studied Buddhism, Ezra
Pound and Arthur WaIey translated Japanese and Chinese works. In
America Emerson and Whitman turned to the East. T.S. Eliot applied
himself to Sanskrit. Max Muller was publishing translations of the
literature of the East. Once, in a letter to his friend Ethel Mannin,
Yeats wrote:
Our tradition only permit us to bless, for the arts are an
extention of the beautitudes. Blessed be heroic death
(Shakespeare's tragedies), blessed be heroic life (Cervantes),
blessed be the wise (Balzac). Then there is a still more
convincing reason why we'should not admit ppaganda into
our lives. I shall write out the style of The Ambian Nights
(which I am reading daily).'
From 1912 to 1915 yeats was , influenced by Rabindranath
Tagore, in whose work, he observed. a supreme culture full of
purity and passion. This made Yeats re-examine the nature of his
vork and he 'kept an eye cocked for other Eastern sages.*a Yeats,
thus stated in a letter to Olivia Shakespeare:

Isl&c Studies, 29:l (1990) 3
I have constructed a myth but then one can believe in a
myth-one only assents to philosophy- Heaven is an
improvement of sense - one listens to music, one does not
read Hegel's Logic. An oriental sage would understand even
the very abstruse allusion to the L&l's Prayer.'
Yeats' feelings towards Asia were mixed and based on the aspects
which he wrote about. For instance, he was happy to find that
'"The song of Amergin" is an ancient piece of pagan philosophy &I
Ireldpd whose tone was Asiatic.'@ He wyt further to write in the
introduction to the Upanidtadad that the Irish should have to
discover in the East something ancestral.'' In fact, these are the
ideas that he expressed in his work A V&onl@ after John Rhys had
suggested, in 1888, in his writings that the home of the Celts
might have been in Asia.11
The interest shown in Arabia by the Western people,
especially in Britain, was very prominant in the romantic era and
was at the highest level during 1850-1852. When a large number of
translations, travel books and studies appeared about the legacy of
Arabia, its language and life. The interest of Yeats and his
contemporaries Arabia was aroused especially after the publica-
tion of Richard Francis Burton's translation of the Altabian Night6
between 1885 and 1887. The Ambian Nigh& influenced Yeats
to such an extent that he wrote a letter to his friend Ethel
Mannin wishing to write some of his works in the manner and style
of the AJcabian Night6.Iz The Altabian Nigm has been considered
one of the greatest masterpieces of serious and sublime literature
which stimulated and influenced Yeats greatly; and when he was
asked in America which six books pleased and satisfied him best
and most he placed The Ambian Night6 second to Shakespeare.ls
The interest of Yeats in Arabia and things Arabic was stirred
by many other factors also. Yeats was preoccupied with the occult
and this led him to Eastern theosophy and to Arabic magic,
philosophy and mysticism. This becomes very obvious since 1896
when he came to know about Al-Fmbi and Avicenna (Ibn Sl)
not as philosophers but as magicians of whom hk wrote about in
'~osa Alchemica'.!! In 1908, Yeats learnt something about the
activities of the Arab '~osicrucians' and was influenced by the
teachings of Ara ben Shemesh, an Arab teacher who was orieally
discovered by Dr. Felkin. Yeats also showed a great interest in
Arabic folklore. Some other sources about the Arabs and Arabia
which fascinated Yeats were Charles Doughty's book ~~~
DuMa, T. E. Lawrence's work, The Seven MYim& & W4kfiz.m. Lord
Dunsany's play The Tmt& a4 the A& and the translation of Seven
Goeden Odw Pagan Ambia by W.S. Blunt and his wife. Yeats enjoyed
the company of Sir Edward Ross, an authority on oriental
languages from whom Yeats obtained some information about the
East and Arabia." However, Yeats* interest in Arabia can be
observed in the following letter he sent to lady Gregory:

Isldc Studies, 29: 1 ( 1990)
Through the great gallery of the Treasure House
Where banners of the Caliph hang, night-coloured
But brilliant as the night's emb~oidery!~
Kusta Ben Luka through whom Yeats retells the' autobiography of
Harun Al-Rashid refers to his addressee as the Learned Treasure'
of the good Cali~h. The identity of the Caliph being referred to
was revealed as the wild Bedouin' and the name of the Caliph
occurs only once in the entire poem. Yeats goes on to make mention
of the which is also very popular in Arabic folklore. There
is also the mention of Sand divination:
Half running, dropped at the first ridge of the desert,
And there marked out those emblems on the sand.''
The original source for Kusta Ben Luka's character and story
can be examined in the Afiakn Nigh:
Although Yeats painted Kusta Ben Luka in the way that
suited his own poetic purposes, Kusta was a real historical
figure. Arab historians know him as a great translator and a
brilliant doctor. not as a philosopher; what is known about
his life is very scanty. He was a translator of mathematical
and philosophical works, and in addition had distinguished
himself in medicine, philosophy, geometry, numbers and music.
He mastered both Greek and Arabic.='
The Gift of Harun Al-Rashid' is essentially a manifestation of
the restless search for truth that seems to be the lot of all men,
from lrish heroes to Caliphs:
Those terrible implacable straight lines
Drawn through the wandering vegetative dream,
Even those truths that when my bones are dust
Must drive the Arabian host.21
'~olomn to Sheba', and '.Solomon and the Witch' both take
the form of. dialogues. Yeats reveals Sheba's, Arab race in both
poems. These two poems are related to The Gift of Harun
Al-Rashid'. Solomon and Sheba are symbolical characters
representing, passion and wisdom, mind and heart, body and soul.
Sheba's race is seen in '~olomon to Sheba' as follows:
Sang Solomon to Sheba,
And kissed her dusky face
Sang Solomon to Sheba
And kissed her Arab eyes.* *
'.Solomon and the Witch' begins also with the revelation of Sheba's
race:

And thus declared that Arab lady:"
It might however be noted that the Chronicle of King
Solomon and Queen Sheba had two versions. There is the Jewish
version of the Qed Tutizment in the 'book of the Kings.' The other
version is of course the Arabic source. The character of Solomon
which yeats portrayed in these two poems is based on the Arabic
source, Yeats sees Solomon as one:
Who understood
'Whatever has been said, sighed, sung,
Howled, maiued+x barked, brayed, belled, yelled, cried
crowed* '@
The lines above stress that Yeats depicted Solomon's figure in
accordance with the Arabic tradition, which states that Solomon
understood and spoke the language of all birds and beasts and he
held dominion over all the jinn. This is firmly stated in the Holy
Qur'Zin. In two different places on reads:
And Solomon was David's heir
He said: "0 Ye people!
We have been taught the speech
Of Birds and on us
Has been bestowed (a little)
Of all things: this is
Indeed Grace manifest (from God)
And before Solomon were marshalled
His hosts - of Jinns and men
And birds and they were all kept in order and rank
(27:16-17) "
However,
The narrative of the Queen Sheba is a folk tradition and
belongs to the story-tellers of the East, while the story of
Solomon as told by Arab minstrels is entirely different from
that given in the OPd Tmment, where in the first thirteen
verses of the first '~ook of Kings' we read of a pious,
wealthy and quite human King. Anyone familiar with the
figure of Sulaymb ibn DZGd (Solomon the son of David) or
Sulaym'n al-IjakTm (Solomon the wise) in Arabic folklore,
notably in The Aaabian Night&, will not be surprised to find
that the Solomon of the Arabs is a totally different man
from that of the Jews.2c
Yeats* poem 'The Second Comingq might implicitly suggest the
christian belief in the return of Jesus. Here again the deep roots
of the Arabic elements of Yeats' poetry are first detected when he
symbolically uses a falconer and his falcon and the loss in
communication between them to signify man's strides in breaking
with his indigenous ties:

1sIanic Studies. 29 : 1 ( 1990 ) '1 7
The details of the poem offer some difficulty. The image of
the falcon who is out of the falconer's control should not
be localized as some have suggested, as an image of man
loose from Christ; Yeats would not have cluttered the poem
by referring to Christ both as falconer and as rocking
cradle further on. *
Apart from Yeats' symbolic used of falconry (a favourite sport
among the Arabs), he deepens his Arabic romanticism in The
Second Coming' by further using objects reminiscent of Arabia:
Somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
1s moving its slow thighs, while all about it,
Reel Shadows of the indginant desert bids.z
The name Michael Robartes is nonoriental, but Yeats framed a
strong link between Robartes and the Arabs. Michael Robartes,
according to Yeats, was an English traveller in Arabia. He went to
Damascus to learn Arabic, then proceeded to Makkah. The creation
of Michael Robartes by yeats is an imitation like many other
writers in English literature who made persons undertaking a
journey like that of Robartes and travel in disguise as an Arab,
spending some time among the Bedouins of the desert. It is possible
that Yeats' creation of his character is drawn from books like
Richard Burton's Peltllad Namative 06 a PZgtirnage to Al-Madina
and Meccah (1855). Robartes in his journey eventually found himself
among the tribe of the Judwali whose doctrines resemble those
Yeats examined in Gi&w'~ Speculum Ang&.rrum et HominoluLm as
he explained in a letter to Lady ~re~ory (which has been
mentioned earlier).fy Robartes learnt frqm the Arabs about their
religion and occult practices. The poem Michael Robartes and the
Dancer' has the following passage:
Opinion is not worth a rush;
In this altar-piece the knight,
Who grips his long spear so to push
That dragon through the fading light,'.
The image of a knight and dragon is reminiscent of the Arab
Orient. The dragon still remains a powerful figure among certain
tribes in the East.
Although Yeats' interest in India surpassed his interest in
Arabia, yet the matter of Arabia and the Arabs has a distinct
place in the imaginary world of W.B. Yeats'. The belief of Yeats in
the ancestral roots of the Irish in the Orient seems to have
influenced him greatly. His interest in the Arabs and Arabia as a
whole seems greater than his interest in Indian philosopy, Japanese
drama and other particular oriental areas, though it was an Indian

38 Islamic Studies, 29 : 1 ( 1 W0 )
missionary who opened his eyes to the richness of the Oriental
world. That he ranked Aaakn N i g h second to
Shakespearean's works shows how 'addicted' Yeats was to Arabia.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
G.S. Fraser. W.8. Yea4 (London: The British Council-Lungman. 1977).
p. 11.
F.F. Farag.'(Xiental and Celtic Elements in The ~ o e of h W.B. Yeats.'
1865 W.8. Yea& 1965, edited by D.E.S. Maxwell and S.B. Bushmi.
(Ibadan University. 1965). p. 33.
C.L. Wrenn.' W.8. Yea&:
CO. 1920). p. ?-
A mItaIty Sldy, (London: Thomas Murby &
S.B. Bushrui, Yeats's Interest'. Yea& C e h w , , (London: Doleman.
N.Y.. 1965), p. 280.
Allan Wade (ed.) The Lttt@U 06 W.B. Ytatb, (London: Rupert
Hort-Davis, 1954), p. 832.
Richard Ellmann, The 'Identity 06 Yea&,
19541, p. 183.
Allan Wade (ed.) op. d, p. 781.
(London: Macmillan & CO..
S. B. Bushrui, op. d, p. 184.
'Ibid. Yeats in this respect was independent in the adaptation of his
sources of inspiration. He approved what complied with his ideas and
thoughts and gave it the stamp of his own poetic personality as
based on intuition not that of logic or scientific thinking.
W.B. Yeats, A Ohion, (London: Macmillan & Co.. 1937). p. 257.
Sir John Rhys. Lecau on the ad Gtowth 06 Religion ao
I@u&.ated by Ceetic Heathendom, (London, 1888).
Allan Wade (ed.) op. d p. 781.
S. B. Bushrui, op. cit, p. 292.
W. B. Yeats '~osa Alchemica', Mythobgiu, (London: 19591, p. 282.
S. B. Bushrui, op. cit, pp. 294-296.
Allan Wade (ed.) op. cit, p. 644.
S. B. Bushrui, op. tit, pp. 287-288.
Macmillan Editors, W. 8. Yea& Co&cted P~z~A, (London: Macmillan.
1978) p. 511.
'Ibid, p. 518.
S. B. Bushrui, op. cit, p. 300.
W. 8. Yea& C&cted Poem, p. 517.
ibid, p. 155.
'Ibid, p. 199.
rbid.
Translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali.
S. B. Bushrui. op. cit, p. 309.
Richard Ellmann, op. cit, pp. 258-259.
W. 8. Yea& Co&cted Poem, op. a p. 211.
Norman Jeffares. W. 8. Yea& Man and Poet, (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1978), p. 196.
W. 8. Yea&' Co&cted WO~ZA, op. Cif, p. 197.