Estrangement: Extracts from a Diary Kept in 1909, Summary and Analysis

Yeats has collected a group of diary entries in which he expressed his feelings of estrangement that comes from his work. In these entries, Yeats lamented the lack of intelligence in society, the lack of understanding of the struggle of the artist, writers in particular. Yeats expressed as well his opinion that this turn toward unintelligence of society was threatening the best parts of Ireland. Yeats then turned his attention to love and how it related to the writer. Yeats believed that poetry was much like a young person in love and that was what gave the words their passion.

Yeats felt that most people were too concerned with material things and politics as well. Yeats knew that philosophy and spirituality were two very different things. Most...