![]() ![]() That phrase “things fall apart” seemed to me just right and appropriate. I wasn’t thinking of that at all when it came time to find a title. It was only later I discovered his theory of circles or cycles of civilization. I used to make up lines with anything that came into my head, anything that sounded interesting. He may be wrongheaded, but his heart was always on the right side. Passion! He was always on the right side. His chaotic ideas seemed to me just the right thing for a poet. I really loved his love of language, his flow. ![]() The greatest factoid about this cultural influence? Achebe told The Paris Review that he simply loved the line and named his book after it before he knew what Yeats meant, saying: The title of Achebe’s famous first novel comes from a line in Yeats’s “The Second Coming,” which is, well, about an apocalypse of sorts. It’s a little nod to a man who left a mark on generations, and much of it will be vaguely reminiscent, sort of like the morning after: So whether you like Yeats, love him or could do without him, here’s a short timeline of the poet’s pop culture permeation to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day. The 70-year-old Yeats was a Nobel prize-winning poet of immense stature and influence, not to mention Mannin’s former lover, and she asked him to join a campaign to free a German pacifist. You don’t choose it, but it’s part of you. Even a line like “A terrible beauty is born” from the poem “Easter, 1916” was somehow laced into the back of my brain, like a earworm melody that lies dormant in your mind, planted by school dances or supermarket shopping trips. Yeats was a fantastic writer, and for generations, people have been using his lines as book titles and quoting him in movies and TV shows. The first time I committed to reading his work, all of it felt familiar. William Butler Yeats, the famed Irish poet, is one of these artists. But regardless of how cheap the reference, it remains a testament to an artist’s life and through it, however mangled or maligned, their work endures. Only figures with the lasting power of Andy Warhol get tote bags and punny band names for the rest of time. There are only so many artists who are able to leave their mark so indelibly on the world that it ripples through the pop culture of generations. ![]()
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