W.B. Yeats - A Fisherman vs September 1913

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By close examination of – ‘The Fisherman’ and one other appropriately selected poem, discuss the effectiveness of the poetic methods used by Yeats to present his opinion of the Ireland of his time.

‘The Fisherman’ was a poem written in February 1916 by Yeats. The poem reflects Yeats vision of the ideal Irishman as ‘A Fisherman’. ‘September 1913’ was a direct response by Yeats to the Dublin Lockout of 1913. Yeats contrasts the present Ireland with the past.

‘September 1913’ consists of 4 equal stanzas with an A B A B rhyme scheme at the beginning of each Stanza, written in the form of verse. ‘The Fisherman’ consists of 3 stanzas with once again an A B A B rhyme scheme at the beginning of each stanza written in the form of verse.

In the first stanza of ‘The Fisherman’, Yeats uses the fisherman as a symbol of the ideal Irishman.

“Although I can see him still

The freckled man who goes

To a grey place on a hill

In grey Connemara clothes

At dawn to cast his flies,

It’s long since I began

To call up to the eyes

This wise and simple man”

The method of Rhyme and language used in the first stanza is ‘simple’ for Yeats. Being simple it helps to illustrate his point that ‘simple’ men like this don’t exist in the society of the Ireland of his time. The words and sentence structure are remarkably restrained and plain for Yeats style of poetry.

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In the second stanza Yeats goes on to mention:

“The living men that I hate,

The dead man that I loved”

Here Yeats is referring to William Martin Murphy, the leader of the Dublin 1913 lockout as a man that he hates and John Synge as the man he loved.  , ,  writer, and a key figure in the  , one of the cofounders of the .  Here we see Yeats using Murphy as a symbol of the present Ireland he lives in and Synge as the Ireland of the past which he loved. This is a ...

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