From there, the speaker addresses the sages and asks that they teach him to sing. In other words, he is tired of the life that he has on this earth, and he wants to give up his earthly form and move on to what comes next. He feels that he is still fastened to something (his body) that is dying, and he wants to set free his soul and move into what eternity has to offer to him, where there is no 'old' and no one that does not know how to 'sing.' The speaker will then take his form in whatever he likes, such as a golden bird, and will not be concerned with these earthly issues anymore. The speaker wants to pass on, out of this world, and move away from being old and unnoticed as he has been for some time. Life, he apparently feels, is for…...
Yeats justification of contemporary Irish Nationalism by creating a myth of the Irish past:
The use of magic, myth and folklore in the poetry of .B. Yeats, specifically in his book "The anderings of Oisin and Other Poems."
Although the poetry of the Irish .B. Yeats is largely known today for the writer's espousal of a spare, harsh modernism, in his early 20th century poetry, Yeats' tone in verse also had a substantial mythological component. To justify his views of the Irish independence movement and the value of Irish history, Yeats created his own form of elegiac verse. This verse both recreated the ancient forms of Irish epic myths, based upon old folkloric tales, and also created a new self-enclosed schema of mythology within the framework of the poet's own individualistic vision.
The contrast between the modernist and the folklorist within Yeats is widely accepted by most contemporary critics of Irish verse. Most…...
mlaWorks Cited
Bloom, Harold. Yeats. 1970.
Yeats, W.B. "The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems." 1886. Last updated March 24, 2003. Retrieved on April 1, 2004 at http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Yeats/Drama/Wanderings1.htm
Yeats." Columbia Encyclopedia. 2001. Sixth Edition. Retrieved on April 1, athttp://www.bartleby.com/65/ye/Yeats-Wi.html2004
In all of these poems Yeats brings these fantastic worlds into such clarity -- both visually and emotionally -- for the reader that they feel swept away for the time they are reading. "ho Goes with Fergus" is exceptional in its ability to transport the reader into Yeats' world especially considering its brevity.
Finally, the poem that is most poignant in placing the Romantic movement is "The ilde Swans at Coole." This poem is about change, and it clearly relays the heartache that one must feel when confronting the dramatic change of all that you know in your youth. Both I and the Irish Civil ar were fought in the time between his first viewing of the swans and the one that he describes in this poem (Pierce 89). Both of these war changed the face of Ireland's world, both literally and figuratively, and Yeats was coming from a generation…...
mlaWorks Cited
Bell, Robert. "About Helen of Troy." Modern American Poetry. 1996. July 2006.http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/hd/abouthelen.htm.19
Harmon, William, C. Hugh Holman, William Flint Thrall, & Addison Hibbard. "On
Romanticism." A Handbook to Literature. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1995.
Pierce, David. Yeats's Worlds: Ireland, England and the Poetic Imagination. New Haven
The final lyrics in this poem divert back to the young girl that has stolen Yeats attention away from politics. The line reads "But O. that I were young again/and held her in my arms!(Yeats)" This line is significant in that Yeats seemingly asserts that although there is a certain fascination with politics, to a young man winning the affections of a girl is too much of a distraction and seemingly more important than politics. This line can also be a refection of Yeats life. It is as if he is looking back in hindsight and acknowledging that when he was younger he had an interest in politics and studying political systems but did not pursue this interest because of the aforementioned distraction.
Indeed, Yeats often expressed his political beliefs through poems that were also about love. Such was the case with a poem entitled No Second Troy. It is believed…...
mlaWorks Cited
Bloom, Harold. Yeats. London: Oxford University Press, 1972.
Khan, Jalal Uddin. "Yeats and Maud Gonne: (Auto)biographical and Artistic Intersection." Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics (2002): 127+.
Kiberd, Declan. Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation. London: Vintage, 1996.
Koch, Vivienne. W.B. Yeats, the Tragic Phase: A Study of the Last Poems. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951.
Poetry of William Butler Yeats [...] theme of Ireland in Yeats poetry and show in several poems how this one theme is developed and changed over time. Poems discussed are "To Ireland in the Coming Times," "Down at the Salley Gardens," "No Second Troy," "When you are Old," "At Galway aces," "ed Hanrahan's Song about Ireland," "The Falling of the Leaves," and "The Two Trees." William Butler Yeats was a famous Irish poet whose love for his homeland is evident in his works. This love changed and matured as Yeats himself matured, but he never lost the affection he felt for his homeland, or the ability to communicate that love to his readers.
Themes in William Butler Yeats Poetry
William Butler Yeats was a prolific writer, penning both plays and numerous poems. His poems encompass many themes, but none more enduring than his love for his homeland of Ireland, and to…...
mlaReferences
Gallagher, Patrick, et al., eds. The Yeats Country: A Guide to Places in the West of Ireland Associated with the Life and Writings of William Butler Yeats. Dublin: Dolmen Press, 1962.
Yeats, W.B." The Columbia Encyclopedia. 6th ed. 2000.
Yeats, William Butler. "Poems." Poetry-Archive.com. 2002. 27 Feb. 2004. http://www.poetry-archive.com/y/yeats_w_b.html
Yeats' "The Stolen Child"
An Analysis of the Temptation to Flee Reality in Yeats' "The Stolen Child"
Yeats' "The Stolen Child" depicts a world in which fantasy and reality are in contention with one another. The conflict is between the sense of reality (barely perceptible and inundated by a flood of dreamlike perceptions) and the flight of fantasy. A parallel might be drawn between the poem and the social problem of addiction. If the poem on one level is about a child's escape/flight from reality into fantasy, it might also be said that the poem on a deeper level is about those who suffer from addiction are unable to face reality and must fly from it. Indeed, the imagery used by the fairy narrator evokes scenes comparable to states of inebriation or drunkenness. While fear and the ominous sense of death both appear to be underlying factors in the poem, this paper…...
hile imagination is important to the poem, it is not all of it. Stuart claims that the poem is often "dismissed as a youthful, nostalgic, derivatively romantic lyric" (Stuart 71). In this way, we can see how the poem is more than just a wishful place. The "retreat to the island of Innisfree is a journey in search of poetic wisdom and spiritual peace, a journey prompted by supernatural yearnings, a journey in quest of identity within a tradition" (71). Stuart claims that the wisdom and peace that the author seeks can only be "realized through a poetic and spiritual grasp of the purity and even identity that exists between the legendary past of the Celtic world and the present" (72). The place is real and it is imagined. Clearly, Yeats intended for us to see both worlds through his lens.
Chrism Semansky agrees. He states, "The details in the first…...
mlaWorks Cited
Hunter, Stuart, "Return to 'la bonne vaux': The Symbolic Significance of Innisfree." Modern Language Studies. 14.3. JSTOR Resource Database. Site Accessed September 20, 2008. http://www.jstor.org
Semansky, Chris. "Critical Essay on 'The Lake Isle of Innisfre.'" Poetry for Students, GALE Resource Database. Site Accessed September 20, 2008. www.infotrac.galegroup.com
Yeats, William Butler. "The Lake Isle of Innisfree." Literature, an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, & Drama. 4th Compact Ed. Kennedy, X.J., et al. eds. New York: Pearson Longman. 2005.
Thus, at the end of the poem, Yeats uses words to suggest that Leda has made a full transformation from weak women to one with a sexual assertiveness that can only be described as a shudder and a power that is greater than Zeus's. Through this suggestion, Yeats also points out that women are different than the Greek's conception of them in the myth. Instead of being weak, his word choices argue that they are powerful enough to overcome even the greatest of powerful men, and that this struggle to become powerful is what makes them gain that ability.
Finally, the structure of Yeats' poem itself suggests Leda's eventual rise from a weak, sexually conquered, "staggering girl" (2), to a strong, sexually assertive woman. This can be seen, first, through the chronological nature of the poem. Content, imagery, and word choice all trace Leda's evolution in a chronological fashion. In…...
mlaWorks Cited
Yeats, William Butler. "Leda and the Swan." n.d. The Literature Network. 3 April 2009.
W.. Yeats and Eavan oland
While William utler Yeats and Eavan oland may be united by a common nationality and literary heritage, they are divided by almost a full century. Eavan oland, as an Irish poet living after Yeats, has certainly been indebted to his influence. Ignoring such a debt would indeed be impossible, and oland herself has even admitted to the importance of Yeats' Irishness to her:
There were great and wonderful Irish male poets, all of whom I found inspiring in different ways. It meant an enormous amount to me in a very tribal way that William Yeats was Irish. And I would have liked, I suppose, to include in that tribalism a woman as well.
The Stoicism of Love")
oland here admits that she sees herself in a line of Irish poets and that she has a literally "tribal" kinship with other Irish poets. While, this may seem like a strange…...
mlaBibliography
Bernstein, Michael. The Tale of the Tribe: Ezra Pound and the Remaking of American
Poetic Tradition. Berkeley: U. Of California P, 1992.
Boland, Eavan. "Interview." Caffeine Destiny. Apr. 23, 2003. http://www.caffeinedestiny.com/boland.html
Boland, Eavan. "The Pomegranate." The Academy of American Poets Web Site. Apr. 22, 2003. http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?45442B7C000C07040F74
The verse structure is not consistent from book to book, though the third book consists purely of four-line stanzas, whereas the rest of the poem does not even have this regularity. Its use in the third book could foreshadow the return to normalcy and balance that comes with Oisin's literal fall.
Yeats uses form to help clarify and define meaning. In the third book, with its regular four-line stanzas, there is a driving and almost monotonous pace that recalls the hoof-beats of the horse from which Oisin must not alight. In the first two books, when the end is not so imminently near, stanza length is adjusted to account for each piece of the story, with enough lines used per stanza to tell each discrete piece of the story, whether that be only three lines or twenty. Yeats' adaptation of the poem's form at various pints reinforces the storytelling and…...
GYRES
Yeats is well-known as a poet who has used a lot of symbolism in his works, especially mythological. 'The Gyres' is also one such poem where he introduces his readers to one of the most important esoteric concepts of his works - gyres. There are numerous references of circles and of re-occurring periods, as a whole, in Yeats' poems, and those references are somehow linked back to the concept of 'gyres' - conic spirals that signifies cycles of 2000 years that bring major changes in the world. Intensity of the change that a gyre cycle is capable of bringing can be evaluated by the second line of the poem - 'Things thought too long can be no longer thought (2)'. One needs extensive deciphering of symbolism when reading (and getting underlying meaning) of Yeats' poems - The Gyres is no exception. The period Yeats has in mind started with the…...
Successful Rhythm in Yeats' "hen You Are Old"
e read many thing a and do not generally consider rhythm as part of the reading experience. However, with poetry rhythm emerges as an important aspect of the poem, creating a mood and tone that the poet would otherwise have difficulty achieving. illiam Butler Yeats creates rhythm in "hen you Are Old" by using a familiar rhyming meter, literary devices such as alliteration and assonance, and a simple rhyme scheme. The poem is written in iambic pentameter, which creates a slow and even rhythm that is easy to read. Rhythm gives this poem an added feature, which makes it more memorable to readers. "hen you Are Old" displays Yeats' style and ability as a poet.
"hen you Are Old" is written in iambic pentameter, following the ABBA rhyme scheme. This form allows the poem to feel more romantic and even mesmerizing. The rhyming pattern…...
mlaWork Cited
Yeats, William. "When You Are Old." Bartleby Online. Information Retrieved April 9, 2011.
Frost and Yeats
The poems "Sailing to Byzantium" by illiam Butler Yates and "Birches" by Robert Frost both tell narratives about one generation and how the death of the old is what allows the present generation to thrive. hereas Yates uses a narrator describing the evolving mental state of a man who knows that he is not long for this earth, Frost uses the degradation of the forests over time to illustrate the same point. One line of Yates' poem acts as a motto for both: "hatever is begotten, born, and dies" (line 6). They are epitaphs to a dying generation, which includes the narrators of the poems themselves.
Yeats' poem "Sailing to Byzantium" is a sad tribute to the older generation who can no longer survive in the modern world. "That is no country for old men" (line 1). The narrator, closely approaching death remarks upon the fragile nature of humanity.…...
mlaWorks Cited:
Frost, Robert. "Birches." Literature. 11th Ed. 1042-1043. Print.
Kennedy, X.J., and Dana Gioia. Literature. 11th ed. Print.
Yeats, William Butler. "Sailing to Byzantium" Literature. 11th ed. 937-939. Print.
Childhood
Poets of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth century concerned themselves with childhood and its various experiences, but the particular historical and aesthetic contexts within which different poets wrote affected their perspective on the matter greatly. As literature moved from Romanticism to naturalism, the tone poets took when considering children and their place in society changed, because where children previously existed as a kind of emotional or romantic accessory, they soon became subjects in their own right, with their own experiences and perspectives. By examining illiam ordsworth's "Michael," illiam Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper," and .B. Yeats' "A Prayer for my Daughter," one is able to see how the gradual transition from Romanticism to naturalism brought with it a less exploitative consideration of children, one that better reflected their place in the rapidly changing world.
The first poem to examine is illiam ordsworth's "Michael," because it fall squarely in the realm of…...
mlaWorks Cited
Blake, William. Songs of Innocence and Experience. London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 1866.
Wordsworth, W. Lyrical Ballads. 4th. 2. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Orme, 1805.
Yeats, William. The Collected Poems of W.b. Yeats. London: Wordsworth Editions, 2000.
Yeats acknowledged that Synge was a true genius when regarding things from an artistic point-of-view and insisted that they develop a collaboration in bringing life to the Irish theatre environment. "For some time after his return Synge spent his time renewing his kinship with Ireland, sensing the life and belief of its peasantry" (JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE).
Many critics believe The Playboy of the estern orld to be one of the most significant of Synge's plays. Synge's work was accompanied by strong critique from behalf of the masses in both Dublin and Philadelphia. People felt that the play was immoral and that it was thus likely to instill confusion in individuals who were vulnerable to being influenced by the playwright's corrupted thinking.
illiam Butler Yeats was one of the foremost individuals in the Irish Theatre environment and also played an important role in the English and Irish literary movement. He joined Lady…...
mlaWorks cited:
Gassner, John, "The Reader's Encyclopedia of World Drama," (Courier Dover Publications, 09.05.2002)
"JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE," Retrieved February 24, 2013, from the Theatre History Website: http://www.theatrehistory.com/irish/synge001.html
"William Butler Yeats," Retrived February 24, 2013, from the Online Literature Website: http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/
I. Introduction
II. Body
I. Introduction
II. Body
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now