Self-Realization in Yeats' An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death was written by William Butler Yeats in memory of Major Robert Gregory who was killed in action on January 23, 1918 while fighting on the Italian front during World War I (Ellmann and O’Clair, fn. 154). Yeats was close with the Gregory family, but particularly with Lady Gregory due to their partnership in establishing the Irish National Theatre. Although Major Gregory is never explicitly mentioned in this poem, it is a commonly held belief that the airman in the poem is supposed to be him (Stock 118). This poem is not considered an elegy, but has been referred to as a "tragic soliloquy" (Ramazani 84). It is termed thus because the main character of the poem is speaking throughout, but does not necessarily seem to be speaking to a specific audience. It is considered a "tragic" soliloquy because the airman ultimately meets with death in the poem.
The airman’s decision to enter the war is not based on any deep love for his country or on any fierce hatred for the enemy. He says that "Those that I fight I do not hate, / Those that I guard I do not love" (Lines 3-4). Nor was he induced by the abundant propaganda of the time to join the war. Many young men entered the war because they desired recognition or because it was what everyone else was doing. The popular media glorified the war and made it seem like everybody was having a grand time fighting in the trenches. They did their best to hide the harsh realities of the war from the public. The following quote is an example of one of the many ways in which young men were enticed into joining the army: "Men and Millwall / Hundreds of Football enthusiasts / are joining the Army...
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...ing in a similar situation or, more likely, this is how Yeats wished that he himself could be. He glorified the life of Robert Gregory because that man was everything that Yeats wished he could be.
Works Cited
Brunner, Larry. Tragic Victory: The Doctrine of Subjective Salvation in the Poetry of W.B. Yeats. Troy, NY: Whitston, 1987.
Ellmann, Richard and Robert O’Clair, eds. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1988.
Ramazani, Jahan. Yeats & the Poetry of Death: Elegy, Self-elegy, and the Sublime. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1990.
Seiden, Morton Irving. William Butler Yeats: The Poet as Mythmaker, 1865-1939. East Lansing: Michigan State UP, 1962.
Stock, A.G. W.B. Yeats: His Poetry and Thought. London: Cambridge UP, 1961.
Unterecker, John. A Reader’s Guide to William Butler Yeats. New York: Noonday P, 1959.
Yeats, William Butler. "Into the Twilight." The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. eds. Richard Ellman and Robert O'Clair. New York: Norton & Company, 1988.
Baron, forlorn in the loss of his Madeline. Does Keats merely make tribute to this classic idea of
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Yeats, William Butler. "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death." The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. 2nd ed. Ed. Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1988. 154-155.
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