W.B. Yeats' Poetry
Many literary critics have observed that over the course of W. B. Yeats’ poetic career, readers can perceive a distinct change in the style of his writing. Most notably, he appears to adopt a far more cynical tone in the poems he generated in the later half of his life than in his earlier pastoral works. This somewhat depressing trend is often attributed to the fact that he is simply becoming more conservative and pessimistic in his declining years, but in truth it represents a far more significant change in his life. Throughout Yeats’ career, the poet is constantly trying to determine exactly what inspires him; early on, in such poems as “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and “The Wild Swans at Coole,” Yeats obviously looks towards nature to find his muse, thereby generating idyllic pastoral scenery that is reminiscent of the nature-based poetry of Wordsworth. However, his later works are darkened not by his own perspective, but by the fact that he is no longer certain that nature is truly the fountain that he taps for inspiration. A number of his later poems, such as “Leda and the Swan” and “The Circus Animals’ Desertion,” employ symbolism and metaphor in order to reflect the author’s battle to find his true source. Yeats spends his career dealing with this conflict, and he eventually concludes that while nature itself may have been the source of the general ideas for many of his poems, the works themselves came to life only after he reached into the depths of his heart and sought the fuel of pure human emotions and experiences. Ultimately, he discovers that the only true inspiration comes from the trivial and mundane influences found in everyday life; the purest poetic inspiration is humanity itself.
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...ho came before him. To accomplish this, he had to determine where to find inspiration beyond, and thereby stronger than, nature. He ultimately realizes that he was looking at this inspiration the entire time without actually seeing it. It does indeed lie “in the deep heart’s core,” where he finally discovers “the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.”
Primary Sources
M.H. Abrams et al, eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 7th ed. NY: Norton, 2000. Pgs. 2092-2120.
Secondary Sources
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. “Principles of the Mind”: Continuity in Yeats’s Poetry. MLN, Vol. 83, No. 6, Comparative Literature. (Dec., 1968).
David Ward. Yeats’s Conflicts With His Audience, 1897-1917. ELH, Vol. 49, No. 1. (Spring, 1982).
Virginia Pruitt. Return from Byzantium: W.B. Yeats and “The Tower.” ELH, Vol. 47, No. 1. (Spring, 1980).
Keats, John. “The Eve of St. Agnes”. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic
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 ...
The tales were rediscovered around 1880 inspiring the Irish literary revival in romantic fiction by writers such as Lady Augusta Gregory and the poetry and dramatic works of W.B. Yeats. These works wer...
Almeida, Hermione de. Critical Essays on John Keats. Boston, G.K. Hall & Co., 1990. 97-327.
In regard to the Nationalists, he incorporates traditional Irish characters, such as Fergus and the Druids, to create an Irish mythology and thereby foster a national Irish identity. After the division of the Cultural Nationalists, Yeats feels left behind by the movement and disillusioned with their violent, "foolish" methods. He is also repeatedly rejected by Gonne. These efforts to instigate change through poetry both fail, bringing the function of the poet and his poetry into question. If these unfruitful poems tempt him from his ?craft of verse,?
All in all, Yeat’s poems: “When you are Old”, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”, “The Wild Swans at Coole”, “The Second Coming”, and “Sailing to Byzantium” all show the struggle and opposition between change and stability in the world. Yeats uses imagery, language, and ideas to represent change and changelessness just like the critic, Richard Ellmann, said. Yeats’ philosophy on the conflict of opposites by using gyres shows us how different forces struggle against one another, just like the development of a personality or the rise and fall of a new civilization.
In “Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop” Yeats employs two themes, the theme of good versus evil, and the theme of sexuality. He conveys the theme of good versus evil through the Bishop’s statements in the first stanza, as well as J...
To conclude it has been firmly established that Keats had a profound ability to use literary techniques. Throughout his all his Odes he uses a variety of different devices, bringing forth our senses of taste, sight, smell, hearing and touch, creating an overall unique sensual experience. In reading his poetry I have gained a new found adoration and insight to the world of poetry. Reading deeper into the use of certain words and images has demonstrated that each word is as important as the previous, or next in this establishment of arousing ones senses. The world of sense has truly been evoked throughout Keats masterpieces.
...me. The ideas Yeats presents his readers with is the fact that change and changelessness coexist with one another and one cannot be without the other. He is able to explain this very well in his poems including When You Are Old, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, The Wild Swans at Coole, The Second Coming, and Sailing to Byzantium. Each of these poems has its own way of approaching this idea yet each and every one does express the ideas of change and changelessness even when the ways in which they do so are not entirely obvious to the readers. In the simple poetic lines and observations that Yeats presents his readers are able to gain insight into his own life as well as a deeper understanding of how the world around they could possibly work and also become more willing to accept changes when they happen and be happy with the stability they can see present in their lives.
Keats, John. Ode to Autumn. The Norton Anthology of English Lit. Ed. M. H. Abrams, et al. 7th ed. Vol 2. New York: Norton, 2000.
Analysis of William Butler Yeats' Poems; When You Are Old, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, The Wild Swans at Coole, The Second Coming and Sailing to Byzantium
Throughout many of his poems, W.B Yeats portrayed important aspects of Ireland’s history especially around the 1900’s when Ireland was fighting for independence. During this time, Ireland was going through an agonizing time of struggle. The Employers’ Federation decided to lock out their workers in order to break their resistance. By the end of September, 25,000 workers were said to have been affected. Although the employers’ actions were widely condemned, they refused to consider negotiation or compromise with the Union. His readers are able to see how Yeats reflects the political, cultural, and societal atmosphere in Ireland during the early 1900’s. The poems September 1913 and Easter 1916 both reflect the political, cultural, and societal atmospheres that were found in Ireland around the 1900’s.
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...
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.
Just as animals feel entrapped by the circus, there is much evidence to suggest that Yeats was entrapped by his passion that of poetry. In his poem, ‘The Choice’ (Yeats 1933) he muses that, ‘The intellect of man is forced to choose perfection of the life, or of the work’(Yeats1933:1+2), which bearing in mind his constant seeking for higher ideals within his art form this is a clear indication that he is directly conveying a frustration with poetry. This notion is reinforced by the line, ‘Players and painted stage took all my love,’ (Yeats 1939: 22) which informs the reader of Yeats complete immersion in his