George William Russell (1867–1935,) pen name A.E. or Æ, was an Irish poet, essayist, dramatist, mystic, journalist, and painter. A leading figure of the Irish literary revival of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he published many collections of romantic and often mystical poetry, among them The Divine Vision (1904) and Midsummer Eve (1928.)
Born in Lurgan, County Armagh, Russell had a natural talent for painting. In 1877, his family went to Dublin, where, at the Metropolitan School of Art, he met the poet William Butler Yeats. Russell, previously something of a mystic, through Yeats, became interested in theosophy. Russell gave up painting except as a hobby and started working first in a brewery and then as a draper’s clerk.
Russell began contributing poems and articles to The Irish Theosophist. He took his pseudonym Æ from a proofreader’s query about his earlier alias, “AEon.” His first book Homeward: Songs by the Way (1894) established him as a renowned figure in the Irish literary renaissance.
Russell became an organizer for the Irish Agriculture Organization, skillfully blending his mystical visions with everyday practical responsibilities, in the spirit of the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gītā, a work that impressed him.
Russell was the editor of the Irish Homestead 1906–23 when it merged with the Irish Statesman. As editor of the latter 1923–30, he aimed at a balanced expression of Irish opinion, even though he held nationalistic sympathies.
Russell’s writings include books on economics, The Candle of Vision (1918,) and on religious philosophy, essays, many volumes of verse, which reflect his mysticism, among them The Divine Vision (1903) and Midsummer Eve (1928,) and a play, Deirdre (1907.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by George William Russell
Any relations in a social order will endure, if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy which qualifies life for immortality.
—George William Russell
Topics: Society
The journalist holds up an umbrella, protecting society from the fiery hail of conscience.
—George William Russell
Topics: Journalism
Seek on earth what you have found in heaven.
—George William Russell
People tell me that the countryside must always be stupid and backward, and I get angry, as if it were said that only townspeople had immortal souls, and that it was only in the city that the flame of divinity breathed into the first men had an unobscured glow.
—George William Russell
We may fight against what is wrong, but if we allow ourselves to hate, that is to insure our spiritual defeat and our likeness to what we hate.
—George William Russell
And see the confluence of dreams
That clashed together in our night,
One river born of many streams
Roll in one blaze of blinding light!
—George William Russell
Our hearts are drunk with a beauty our eyes could never see.
—George William Russell
Topics: Beauty
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
William Butler Yeats Irish Poet
George Bernard Shaw Irish Playwright
Oliver Goldsmith Anglo-Irish Novelist, Poet
Oscar Wilde Irish Poet, Playwright
Brendan Behan Irish Poet
Jonathan Swift Irish Satirist
James Joyce Irish Novelist
Sheridan Le Fanu Irish Novelist
Samuel Lover Irish Writer, Artist, Songwriter
Nathaniel Parker Willis American Poet, Playwright