William Butler Yeats’s poetry ranges from the intensely lyrical to the overtly nationalistic. This course will trace those influences in two twentieth-century Celtic poets who followed him. Welsh poet Dylan Thomas inherited Yeats’s flowing lyricism, drawing on the landscapes and rhythms of his native country, yet he also addressed broader concerns of the 1930s and 1940s through his influential radio broadcasts. Seamus Heaney likewise absorbed Yeats’s example: his early work is deeply rooted in Irish rural life while remaining alert to the political tensions surrounding Ireland’s struggle with England. Together, the works of these three poets illuminate a central dichotomy facing modern writers—whether to reflect the personal or to engage directly with political life.