How effective is W.B Yeats in cautioning the modern reader on the melancholic, the frustrating and the falling elements in life, in his poems 'The Second Coming,' and 'A Prayer for My Daughter?'
Q. How effective is W.B Yeats in cautioning the modern reader on the melancholic, the frustrating and the falling elements in life, in his poems 'The Second Coming,' and 'A Prayer for My Daughter?' A. William Butler Yeats was a 20th Century poet. Poets at that time focused on the background of man and war, and how war has taken away the youth and deterioration of man and humanity. These poems also show how man has been reduced to a meaningless cause and how he has lost all the qualities of goodness and superiority. There are many other writers and poets that concentrate on war. One such writer that I have found is 'Earnest Hemmingway' who was a soldier in the Second World War and he presented his experience in the novel which he titled 'Farewell to Arms.' The novel presents the horrors of war and humans inability to lead a normal and meaningful life. Other such writers and poets which deal with the various elements which have contributed in making mankind dignified are John Osborne, D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Elliott and so on. Coming back to these poems, the author William Butler Yeats married late in life, in 1917, when he was 52 years old. His marriage marked a crucial turn in his life, not so much because he had married the woman of his dreams - that was Maud Gonne, and she had rejected him enough times by 1917 that he knew he would never achieve his dream of
To What Extent Was the Failure of the Easter Rising Due To Internal Divisions?
TO WHAT EXTENT WAS THE FAILURE OF THE EASTER RISING DUE TO INTERNAL DIVISIONS? The Easter Rising of 1916 had profound and far-reaching effects on Ireland's subsequent history. It has been referred to as "The Irish War of Independence" and was the pivotal event in ultimately securing independence for the Republic of Ireland. Hindsight has its defects as well as its advantages. Because the 1916 rising has lodged itself so firmly in the mythology of Irish revolution it has been easy to regard it as inevitable. But it was far from inevitable. Apart altogether from the internal divisions among the leaders which almost paralysed it at the start, the conditions precedent for a truly national insurrection were simply not in evidence. This was the point above all others that Macneill had tried to drive into the heads of his colleagues when in February 1916 he set down on paper the pros and cons of a rebellion.1 For considerable time it appeared that the critical confrontation in early twentieth-century Ireland would take place not between the British government and Irish nationalists, but between Irish capital and Irish labour, this theory was dashed in 1916.2 On Easter Monday, April 24th, 1916, a force of Irishmen and women under arms estimated at between 1,000 and 1,500 attempted to seize Dublin. Their ultimate intention was to destroy British rule in Ireland and create an
Love is a common theme in poetry and it has been written about for hundreds of years. Two of the most famous poets in history are William Shakespeare and W.B. Yeats. Both of these poets used the love theme very often in their poems.
Love is a common theme in poetry and it has been written about for hundreds of years. Two of the most famous poets in history are William Shakespeare and W.B. Yeats. Both of these poets used the love theme very often in their poems. William Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616. He was from Stratford, Upon Avon and was famous for writing plays. William Shakespeare was a world-renowned playwright. He wrote the famous play 'Macbeth' and is still performed hundreds of years later. Shakespeare had written most of his poems before 1600. This was a period of change when people living in medieval times developed into modern times. He wrote mainly about love and nature and his poetry was very subjective and contained very deep feelings. W.B. Yeats was born in 1865 and died in 1939. He was always a poet. He was a protestant man from Dublin and was a nationalist. Yeats tended to use Irish mythology in his poems. He was a shy man who fell in love with a lady called Maud Gonne. He asked her to marry him on several occasions but she refused. Instead she married a man called Major John McBride. Yeats' poems are very carefully crafted and his love poems more to do with longing than fulfilment. His poetry often relates back to Maud Gonne. He was devastated that she would not marry him and she said if she did Ireland would lose their best poet. One of these very original yet very deep
In 1936 Yeats wrote, "I too have tried to be modern". How does his poetry reflect the modernist movement?
In 1936 Yeats wrote, "I too have tried to be modern". How does his poetry reflect the modernist movement? Modernism is the persistent experimentation with language and form. It relies and is dependent upon poetic images and mythology. It gave licence to artists to break away from convention and gave liberation from tradition. The period between, if regarded as a time-bound concept, 1890 and 1930 (Childs, p.12) saw the emphasis shifting away from the representational towards the subjective and impressionistic. The artist's focus no longer remained on what was seen, rather how it was seen. The presentation of the artist's vision of the object was fundamental to the artists of the modernistic movement, not the object (as it was with their literary predecessors). The term 'Modernism' has many definitions and meanings. Due to the limited scope available in this essay it is not possible to include a comprehensive study of the modernistic movement. "It is now, however, perhaps both impossible and undesirable to speak of a single 'Modernism'." (Childs, p.12) This essay will be looking at the aspects that I feel are the most salient and how Yeats' poetry reflects them. One of Yeats' most famous and most anthologised poems is The Second Coming, which represents (in Yeats' conception) the end of modern history. The dramatic, fierce imagery that Yeats employs in the poem creates an
Examine three poems by Auden and Yeats and compare how they present the struggle of man.
Examine three poems by Auden and Yeats and compare how they present the struggle of man. Two poets who are influenced by different individuals yet both come together to produce poems which expose the same image, the struggle of man, are William Butler Yeats and Wystan Hugh Auden. W.B.Yeats, born in Dublin and the son of an Irish painter, hastily revealed, after returning from his childhood life in County Sligo, that he preferred poetry, hence resulting in the rejection of his studies on painting. Yeats became involved in a protest, which was against the cultural power of English rule on Ireland. Apart from Irish mythology and folklore, Maud Gonne was a big influence on Yeats' poetry. Gonne was just as famous as Yeats, but for her beauty and her passion for politics. It is evident that Gonne influences Yeats, as Ireland was "no country for old men", which suggests that Ireland is not a place for old people not fit to fight, which then implicitly depicts the political torment that Ireland was experiencing. On the other hand, W.H.Auden born in York and educated at Christ's Church, Oxford. Thomas Hardy, William Blake, Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins influenced Auden. He had remarkable intelligence in which he would employ the writing styles of other poets such as Emily Dickinson. Yeats' work can be compared with the work of Auden as both often metaphorically represented
1881 Yeats and "The Countess Cathleen".
The statement "censorship was merely formalised by the Censor of Publications Act 1928" is not proved, despite the fact that long before the 1928 Censorship of Publications Act there is sufficient evidence to show that attempts at censorship were occurring in the strongholds of the Roman Catholic Church and in the up and coming socialist political groupings. The United Irishmen and Maud Gonne took it upon themselves to try to censor and were actively supported by the Newspapers and some writers as well as the Church. The United Irishmen, and Arthur Griffith of Sinn Fein (later to be the first President of the Irish Free State), acted as a pressure group mainly focused against the Abbey theatre and the work of W.B. Yeats. Maud Gonne was very clear about her objective when she said "We must subordinate all freedoms till we get our number one aim political freedom", she had obviously given the matter a lot of thought and was prepared to make sacrifices - including freedom of speech, thought and expression. Yeats however disagreed with her view believing that the theatre was a place where poetic licence could and should be used. In 1881, Yeats lived in London where he had founded the Irish Literary Society. During that year he returned to Ireland on a visit. In the course of this visit he asked Maud Gonne to marry him. Although she refused, she begged him for his friendship. In
Language and Literature Assignment. Analyse 'The Stolen Child' By W.B Yeats.
Language and Literature Assignment. Analyse 'The Stolen Child' By W.B Yeats Shell Woodward Lecturer Sarah Mills The aim of this essay is to analyse W.B Yeat's poem, 'The Stolen Child', by concentrating on his use of literary devices. By carefully analysing the features of language he has used to create the poem I aim to discover how their effects contribute to the overall meaning. The literary devices I will be concentrating on the most shall be metaphor, metonymy and sound patterning. Metaphor & Metonymy W.B Yeats has used an abundance of figurative language throughout the poem. The most prominent is his use of both metaphor and metonymy in the refrain that is repeated four times at the end of each stanza (changing slightly in the final stanza). The refrain consists of four lines but it is in the fourth line, written in iambic heptameter, that contains the most significant figurative language of the entire poem. "The world's more full of weeping than you can understand" Here 'the world' metonymically stands for the child's reality, his society and life, not the literal meaning of soil, gases and water that make up the earth's core. This use of metonymy is used by Yeats to aid the reader/listener to visualize an abstract idea. The speaker of the poem, an enticing faery, refers to the entire world when pointing out its troubles to the child. The effect of this
Sailing to Byzantium
Sailing to Byzantium W.B. Yeats' poem 'Sailing to Byzantium' is an allusion to the agony of old age and human mortality, and was written as a part of a collection of poems called 'Tower'. It is in very old verse form which is written as a narrative verse in first person, with four eight line stanzas. It has a rhyming scheme of ABABABCC, or two trios of alternating rhyme followed by one couplet. This rhyming scheme gives the reader the sense that the final two lines of each stanza are the most important, and that the first six are leading up to the conclusion of the stanza. Each line takes the rhythm of iambic pentameter. The tone of the poem provokes a sense of sadness in the reader as it tells of a man's desire to live forever, and how he can't accept that he has grown old and will soon die. This tone is reinforced by the sound of the letter 'o', heavily used throughout the poem. The poem talks of the mortality of the living, and how the elderly are a reminder of this. The youth are caught up in the moment and do not wish to be reminded that there will come a time when they too will grow old and die. Upon this realisation, he decides to travel to the holy city of Byzantium. Byzantium (which was renamed Constantinople, then Istanbul) was a city in the Eastern Roman Empire. The journey to Byzantium is not a literal one, but a metaphorical one which represents the acceptance
Poetry Analysis of W. H. Auden's "In Memory of W. B. Yeats"
Poetry Analysis of W. H. Auden's "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" Being one of the greatest poet in the modern world and a major figure devoting to the Celtic Twilight, which is a trial and a "popular desire for a revival of Irish traditional culture" (Kelen 32), William Butler Yeats died in January, 1939. Meanwhile, it was only eight months before the outbreak of World War II and the whole Europe was on the edge of the war - there were revolutions within the Continent and people got scared and considered themselves in a war. In Wystan Hugh Auden's "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", Auden makes use of an elegy to state the fact of the death of a great poet and moreover, takes the readers to a wider political context focusing on the extent of effectiveness of poetry in time of tumult. In my view, Auden delicately divides the focus of the poem into two levels, the superficial level (the fact of Yeats' death) and the in-depth level (the effectiveness of the poetry in relation to the political context). The two levels are evenly distributed to the three sections of the poem so that even though different sections carry different meanings, they form cohesion. In the first section, Auden states the fact of Yeats' death on an intense cold day by making use of imagery such as the "frozen brooks" (line 2), the "deserted airports" (line 2) and the "disfigur[ing] of the public statues" (line 3). In
Discuss how Yeats uses the theme of the supernatural in "The Cat and the Moon".
Discuss how Yeats explores the concept of the supernatural and human nature in The Cat and The Moon “The Cat and The Moon” is a poem centred on the forces at work in life and the mystical views which exist way beyond the simple rational views. The poem is very much similar as it works on one level, which is the celebration of the cat and the moon but, it also is semi- magical as it describes an unconscious relationship between the cat and the moon. The simplicity and the complexity of the poem can only be explained as a supernatural relationship and are very much reflective of humans; and how they perceive the world around themselves. The cat, Minnaloushe, perhaps is Yeats’s expression for his love Maud Gonne and that he still has feelings for her. Yeats expresses his undying love for Maud Gonne in “The Cat and The Moon” by using her cat in the poem. This can be seen by the use of the definitive article “The” in the title of the poem showing that the cat is someone specific in Yeats’s mind. Also, the theme of romance is present through the pure, untainted image of the moon in the sky; “pure cold light in the sky” which can perhaps be seen a as a metaphor for Yeats’s pure and ever-present love for her. Additionally, as the moon is always present in the sky, yet not seen for half the day can possibly show that Maud Gonne doesn’t recognise Yeats’s
