W. H. Auden’s elegiac poem, “In Memory of W. B. Yeats,” pays tribute to the life and death of W. B. Yeats, one of the most extraordinary writers of the twentieth century. Broken up into three parts, the elegy starts off seemingly simple as he describes the cold day on which Yeats passed away. He recalls organic memories of “the evergreen forests” (Auden ll. 8) to date back to a younger Yeats, one full of life and full of poetry. Now, Yeats will visit “another kind of wood,” (ll. 19) as Auden relates the previous idea to the dark wood of Dante’s Inferno, where Yeats will hopefully find solace in the fact that he will be remembered by the poetry he has left behind. Auden praises Yeats in this way throughout the poem, and yet he also finds many
Auden speaks to Yeats’s greatness to reaffirm the fact that what Yeats created while he was living on this Earth was of immense importance. In the poem, Auden writes: “When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse” (ll. 24) in order to describe what many people are busy doing; he mentions them as those types of people that wouldn’t understand the importance of the creative process. They are part of the money-driven, utilitarian society where taking the time to create a work of poetry isn’t practical or useful. Auden wants to make a point to say that after everything that Yeats has created in his lifetime, even the bankers, the lawyers, and the brokers can agree “The day of his death was a dark cold day” (ll. 30). This idea that the creative process is what writing is all about was what Yeats built his writing upon; Yeats’s poetry was often times centered around the practice of writing poetry. This notion that Auden emphasizes in his elegy, that writing is just as important as (if not more important than) any other profession, is what Yeats also writes about in his poetry. In “Adam’s Curse,” Yeats talks about this very thing when he says that writing a single line can sometimes be nearly impossible and yet writing is seen by other non-writers to be a mere hobby: “For to articulate sweet sounds together / Is to work harder than all these and yet / Be thought an idler by the noisy set / Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen” (ll. 10-13). Yeats does not want the creative process to be belittled because he knows firsthand how difficult it can be at times. It is not about pairing words that rhyme with each other; it is about the development and progression of an idea. Truly great writing, like the writing of Yeats, is
Keats’ poetry explores many issues and themes, accompanied by language and technique that clearly demonstrates the romantic era. His poems ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and ‘Bright Star’ examine themes such as mortality and idealism of love. Mortality were common themes that were presented in these poems as Keats’ has used his imagination in order to touch each of the five senses. He also explores the idea that the nightingale’s song allows Keats to travel in a world of beauty. Keats draws from mythology and christianity to further develop these ideas. Keats’ wrote ‘Ode To A Nightingale’ as an immortal bird’s song that enabled him to escape reality and live only to admire the beauty of nature around him. ‘Bright Star’ also discusses the immortal as Keats shows a sense of yearning to be like a star in it’s steadfast abilities. The visual representation reveal these ideas as each image reflects Keats’ obsession with nature and how through this mindset he was able
Time is endlessly flowing by and its unwanted yet pending arrival of death is noted in the two poems “When I Have Fears,” by John Keats and “Mezzo Cammin,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Keats speaks with no energy; only an elegiac tone of euphoric sounds wondering if his life ends early with his never attained fame. He mentions never finding a “fair creature” (9) of his own, only experiencing unrequited love and feeling a deep loss of youth’s passion. Though melancholy, “Mezzo Cammin,” takes a more conversational tone as Longfellow faces what is commonly known as a midlife crisis. The two poems progressions contrast as Keats blames his sorrow for his lack of expression while Longfellow looks at life’s failures as passions never pursued. In spite of this contrast, both finish with similar references to death. The comparable rhyme and rhythm of both poems shows how both men safely followed a practiced path, never straying for any spontaneous chances. The ending tones evoking death ultimately reveal their indications towards it quickly advancing before accomplish...
John Keats’s illness caused him to write about his unfulfillment as a writer. In an analysis of Keats’s works, Cody Brotter states that Keats’s poems are “conscious of itself as the poem[s] of a poet.” The poems are written in the context of Keats tragically short and painful life. In his ...
“Adam’s Curse” is a poem by William Butler Yeats that was written at a time when his first true love, Maud Gonne, had married Major John MacBride. This may have caused Yeats much pain and Yeats may have felt as cursed as Adam felt when God had punished man from the Garden of Eden. This poem, in fact, symbolizes his pain and loss of love that he once had and is a recollection of his memories during happier times with Maud.
Throughout Keats’s work, there are clear connections between the effect of the senses on emotion. Keats tends to apply synesthetic to his analogies with the interactions with man and the world to create different views and understandings. By doing this, Keats can arouse different emotions to the work by which he intends for the reader to determine on their own, based on how they perceive it. This is most notable in Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale, for example, “Tasting of Flora, and Country Green” (827). Keats accentuates emotion also through his relationship with poetry, and death.
Poetry often supplies the occasion for self-reflection and meditation. Yeats Among School Children manages to puzzle -yet at the same time- enthuse writers and average disciples alike. Although the stanzas –which contain many allusions, extensions and ciphers- construct a reverie, not a word of Among the School Children lends to neither an awkward nor superfluous reading. During the course of the poem, the speaker ruminates on the complexities of life, the unpredictability of love and the paradox of artistic ability. While in a classroom filled with young students, the speaker realizes that the desired but very elusive unity of being especially in regards to the creator and the creation. Though at first he is dubious about his work, through many allusions and comparison, the speaker analyses the importance of seeing the beauty of the whole simultaneously with its components. As he ages, he realizes that he is a part of whatever he creates. The body is not sacrificed to the soul; the speaker discovers his worth through the entirety of life not just its sectional spheres.
Arthur Yvor Winters, an American poet and literary critic stated "This is a remarkably beautiful poem on the subject of daily realization of the imminence of death" it’s a poem of departure from life, an intensely conscious leave-taking. And Allen Tate, a distinguished American poet, teacher, and critic called this "An extraordinary poem".
William Butler Yeats writes this poem for the sole purpose of balance. Throughout the entire poem Yeats uses both physical and imagery balance to give the reader the full understanding of balance through his eyes. His imagery includes all the irony he uses in his lines like “Those that I fight I do not hate (Line 3)/Those that I guard I do not love (Line 4),” the topic of past and future he writes about it in the end of his poem, and the Irish airman’s emotional balance. Example of physical balance is were Yeats used couplets scheme of writing and he even wrote balance in his poem a couple of times which allows the reader to see it physically. In other words Yeats wants the reader to find something that will allow them to be balanced when he/she passes, whether it be in the past or future, or death itself, one must find balance.
John Keats employs word choices and word order to illustrate his contemplative and sympathetic tone. The tone could be interpreted as pessimistic and depressing because the majority of the poem focuses on Keats’ fear of death. However, if the reader views the last two lines of the poem in light which brings redemption, one might see that Keats merely wants to express the importance of this dominant fear in his life. He does not desire for his audience to focus on death, but to realize that man does not have control of when it comes. The poet uses poetic diction, a popular technique of the early nineteenth century. The poem also demonstrates formal diction that Keats is often known for. Although Keats meant for most of his words to interpret with denotative meanings, he does present a few examples of allusion and connotation. His connotations include “teeming,” defined as plen...
This opposition shows Keats highlighting the delicate correspondence between happiness, death and melancholy having humanistic traits. In order to experience true sorrow, one must feel true joy to see the beauty of melancholy. However, Keats’s poem is not all dark imagery, for interwoven into this poem is an emerging possibility of resurrection and the chance at a new life. The speaker in this poem starts by strongly advising against the actions and as the poem continues urges a person to take different actions.
Though written only two years after the first version of "The Shadowy Waters", W.B. Yeats' poem "Adam's Curse" can be seen as an example of a dramatic transformation of Yeats' poetic works: a movement away from the rich mythology of Ireland's Celtic past and towards a more accessible poesy focused on the external world. Despite this turn in focus towards the world around him, Yeats retains his interest in symbolism, and one aspect of his change in style is internalization of the symbolic scheme that underlies his poetry. Whereas more mythological works like "The Shadowy Waters" betray a spiritual syncretism not unlike that of the Golden Dawn, "Adam's Curse" and its more realistic fellows offer a view of the world in which symbolic systems are submerged, creating an undercurrent of meaning which lends depth to the outward circumstances, but which is itself not immediately accessible to the lay or academic reader. In a metaphorical sense, then, Yeats seems in these later poems to achieve a doubling of audience, an equivocation which addresses the initiate and the lay reader simultaneously.
in his poems. There is also the view that war has turned into a cycle,
This refrain enforces his disgust at the type of money hungry people that the Irish have become. In the third and fourth stanza, however, Yeats completely changes the tone of his poetry. He praises the romantics of Irish history, such as Rob...
death of a fellow poet, Auden may be lamenting the ultimate futility of Yeats’ life and art
Yeats and Eliot are two chief modernist poet of the English Language. Both were Nobel Laureates. Both were critics of Literature and Culture expressing similar disquietude with Western civilization. Both, prompted by the Russian revolution perhaps, or the violence and horror of the First World War, pictured a Europe that was ailing, that was literally falling apart, devoid of the ontological sense of rational purpose that fuelled post-Enlightenment Europe and America(1). All these similar experience makes their poetry more valuable to compare and to contrast since their thoughts were similar yet one called himself Classicist(Eliot) who wrote objectively and the other considered himself "the last Romantic" because of his subjective writing and his interest in mysticism and the spiritual. For better understanding of these two poets it is necessary to mention some facts and backgrounds on them which influenced them to incorporate similar (to some extent) historical motif in their poetry.