William Butler Yeats is closely identified with the mythology of early Ireland and with the stories of Cuchulain in particular. This mythic background is an important part of what gives the poet his distinctive voice, and yet it is interesting how the poet strained against the mythology that served him, as if it were a false god and the truths it gave him were false. He made reference to other mythologies as well, notably those of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and he seemed less concerned with those references, perhaps because he knew that those mythic stories were better known to the world at large. He may have feared that his poetry was speaking to too small an audience, as if it were understandable only to the Irish and not to the world at large.
Yet there is no doubt that Yeats did reach the wider world with his poetry and caused much of that world to learn about the mythology he used as a way of delving more deeply into his poetry and his meaning. The mythology did not limit his ability to reach others, and instead it served to make his readers study his works all the harder. The world would not have done this simply to learn about the mythology, however, and instead it is clear that the world has made this effort with the knowledge that Yeats had embodied deeper and more universal truths in the mythic world he presented. Yeats himself may have considered his source to be too specific or too far from a more universal truth, but generations of readers have not accepted this view.
William Butler Yeats in "The Circus Animals' Desertion" writes a poem about his own creative process and about the history of his poetry and plays. In a way, the poem concerns the inability of the poet to write a poem,a nd yet here he is accomplishing that task even as he considers what it means to lack inspiration or to be uncertain of a theme:
I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
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