William Butler Yeats was a prolific and prominent Anglo-Irish poet and literary figure.
At various stages of his life, Yeats was influenced by and influenced Indians. As a young adult, Yeats was drawn to Theosophy and met Mohini Chatterjee when he visited Dublin in 1885. After this meeting, Yeats wrote three poems (published in 1889) that refered to India: ‘The Indian to his Love’, ‘The Indian upon God’, and ‘Anushuya and Vijaya’. Yeats was further influenced by his reading of the great fourth century Indian poet and dramatist, Kalidasa. Yeats later wrote a poem entitled ‘Mohini Chatterjee’ (published in 1933 in the collection The Winding Stair and Other Poems).
In 1912, William Rothenstein wrote to Yeats about the need for an introduction for Tagore’s Gitanjali which was to be published by the India Society. Yeats sent his introduction to Gitanjali from Dublin. Yeats was instrumental in having a performance of Tagore’s play, The Post Office, performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in October 1913. As he was so prominent in literary circles, Yeats was also linked to other Indian poets such as Sarojini Naidu and Manmohan Ghose, and encouraged a young Indian student at Oxford, G. K. Chettur, to publish his poems in 1922 (for which Chettur dedicated the anthology to Yeats).
Later in life (in the 1930s), Yeats became friends with Purohit Swami. Yeats wrote an introduction to Purohit Swami’s book about his Master, Shri Bhagwan Hamsa. They translated the Upanishads together in Majorca in 1935-6. Yeats introduced Purohit Swami to his friend the stage actress Margot Ruddock, who became a disciple of the Swami’s.
Despite his many connections, Yeats did not manage to visit India in his lifetime.