This is not a love story: W.B. Yeats and Maud Gonne

W.B. Yeats is one of the greatest poets in the history of ever. I’ve only had the displeasure of meeting one person who doesn’t like Yeats and that guy is, in fact, an idiot. But what a lot of people don’t know is that some of Yeats’ greatest poems were inspired by a woman named Maud Gonne, and she… well. It seems she really didn’t return the sentiment.

Yeats and Gonne met when they were both in their early twenties and the romance (or lack thereof) lasted for almost the rest of their lives. She was an Irish revolutionary, and he was completely enamored with her, to the point of obsession. She was his Muse, really; references to her are rife within the poet’s embodied works. Yeats proposed to her four times throughout their lives… and each time she said no.

Depressing, right? Yeats is pretty much the poster child for unrequited love. By most accounts they were good friends and she was fond of him- she just didn’t want to marry him.

Things get a little weird after that. Yeats, in his fifties, decided that he really needed to get married and pass on the legacy of his poetic genes before he died. It was then that he decided to propose to Gonne’s daughter, who was in her twenties and who he had known all her life. Creepy, right? I guess he figured if he couldn’t get her mom he could get the next best thing (there’s a joke I can make about Twilight and werewolves and weird vampire babies here, but I will abstain). Luckily, she refused, and Yeats eventually married a nice woman named Georgie, with whom he shared a happy marriage with even though she was his dream girl.

My friend, who loves Yeats, told me once that he “is good with words, not women.” I think that sums it up quite nicely.

Dating for English Majors

I’ll admit it. I’m not exactly an expert on human interaction. I manage to get by fairly well because I’m nice to everyone and cute enough that my lack of social grace comes off as being more charming than embarrassing. But despite being “absolutely freaking adorable” as so many of my peers claim, I’m a bit of a failure in the romantic sphere.

I blame my love of books for this.

You see, it’s not so much that I grew up reading about Mr. Darcy and holding out for his real-life counterpart (I can safely say that I’ve never pined away after a fictional character, though I must admit that liking Mr. Darcy is worlds better than liking a sparkly vampire). It’s more that I’ve been waiting to meet someone who loved reading and writing as much as me. Someone who doesn’t mind my perpetually inky fingers and who appreciates the smell of old books, with their yellowed pages and cracked leather spines. Someone who knows that Frankenstein isn’t the name of the monster but the man who created him, who is aware that the Divine Comedy is loads more than just the Inferno, and will argue with me over the literary merit of the Harry Potter series.

I was thoroughly convinced that nobody like this existed, but I’ve met a lot of boys at my college who at least appreciate literature, if not live it and breath it like I do. But still, even these boys will give me strange looks when I begin to jabber on about how fantastic of a character Raskolnikov is or start quoting Shakespeare in casual conversation.

I suppose I’m just going to have to resign myself to being a spinster for the rest of my life. Only instead of having a dozen cats I’ll have a house bursting at the seams with books.

(Note- I posted this on an old wordpress blog that I’ve since abandoned due to completely forgetting my username and password, so if it looks familiar, don’t worry! I’m not plagiarizing!)