ABSTRACT
George Watson seems correct in his observation that "Though born into the Protestant Church of Ireland, W. B. Yeats quite early discovered that he was not or could not be at all orthodox. The idea of spirits as "literal truth" was engrained in Yeats from his earliest years in the form of Irish folklore. The suspension of disbelief and the grounding of the imagination and all attendant mythology within reality were hallmarks of the poet that began early. The geographical reach of his early poetry is characterised by Ireland, as well as influences from Spain, India and Arcadia in some early poems. However, The Wanderings of Oisin, the long poem which Yeats initially penned between 1886 and 1887, and published in 1889, would be clothed in a distinctly Irish mythological attire reminiscent of Samuel Ferguson. In February 1889 Yeats had recognised that Oisin needed "an interpreter", summarising the three incompatible things that man is always seeking in vain.
