W.B. Yeats: Poet as healer

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) used poetry as a therapeutic tool for Irish culture and for every member of modern society, uneasy about the fragmentation of belief. Yeats writes poems that re-enact the foundational relationship between medicine and writing manifested by the ancient Greeks in their worship of Asclepius, god of healing and poetry. The process of poetry/bibliotherpy within Yeats's poetry will be examined through Hynes and Hynes-Berry's (1994) four stages in the bibliotherapeutic healing process: recognition, examination, juxtaposition, and application to self. Furthermore, Yeats sought communal healing for Ireland. His psychological explorations via poetry writing become healing, life-affirming aesthetic experiences for his readers.