The place you come from is a very important factor in your personality; it impacts your choices and thoughts. Your nationality gives you the attitude and feelings about the decisions you make, it affects your opinions and views. It is amazing how a simple detail of a person, like their nationality, can have a major impact on their lives and guide their views, beliefs, and behavior. Ireland’s beautiful countryside, entertainment, and politics had an immense effect on William Butler Yeats that transpired into his poems. Yeats’ love for Ireland was a great motivation for writing his poetry. Irish legends and stories were a vast influence for W.B. Yeats’ work, and as he got involved with national politics his work and writing became more patriotic. …show more content…
In the poem “To Ireland in the Coming Times”, W.B. Yeats shows his appreciation for Ireland, “Know, that I would accounted be, True brother of a company, That sang, to sweeten Ireland’s wrong, Ballad and story, ran and song; Nor be I any less of them, Because the red- rose- bordered hem, Of her, whose history began, Before God made the angelic clan, Trails all about the written page. When time began to rant and rage, The measure of her flying feet, Made Ireland’s heart begin to beat… After the red- rose- bordered hem. Ah, faeries, dancing under the moon, A Druid land, a Druid tune! While still I may, I write for you, The love I lived, the dream I knew.”(121-123). The poem “I am of Ireland” shows Yeats’ everlasting love for Ireland, “I am of Ireland, And the Holy Land of Ireland, And time runs on, cried she, ‘Come out of charity, Come dance with me in Ireland…”. The main characters in the poem are old and continue to age as “time runs on”, their instruments don't work anymore because just like them they are timeworn “The fiddlers are all thumbs, Or the fiddle- string accursed, The drums and the kettledrums, And the trumpets are all burst And the trombone…” but they will not stop with their Irish traditions; they are proud of their land and will keep on dancing (678). In his poem “Remorse for Intemperate Speech” Yeats shows Ireland’s hatred of injustice passed down from generation to generation “I ranted to the …show more content…
Yeats was involved in politics, he was a part of the Irish National Theatre, the Irish Literary Society, and the Irish Republican Brotherhood; his poetry became more patriotic as his relationship with politics and increased (poets.org). His poetry shows his opinions of war and Ireland’s involvement with it. Yeats’ poem “An Airman Foresees his Death” shows his thought on the hypocritical use of war and soldiers, “Those that I fight I do not hate, those who I guard I do not love”. He also believed soldiers wanted to feel a sense of worth “A lonely impulse of delight, Drove to this tumult in the clouds” they were not fighting for political or moral motifs; they were fighting for the feeling of purpose (115). In the poem “Sixteen Dead Men” W.B. Yeats describes how war will neither improve nor worsen their situation, ‘The sixteen men were shot, But who can talk of give and take…While those dead men are loitering there To stir the boiling pot? You say that we should still the land, Till Germany’ overcome…Or meddle with our give and take, That converse bone to bone?” (462-463). This poem is also about the sixteen men who were shot and killed during the Uprising of 1916. William Butler Yeats’ not only shared his political views through his poetry he also shared the history of Ireland (poetryfoundation.org). Yeats’ poem “Easter, 1916” goes
When You are Old, by William Butler Yeats, represents and elderly woman reminiscing of her younger days. A past lover whispers to her as she looks through a photo album. Basically, Yeats is showing that as the woman gets older, she is alone, but she does not have to be lonely. She will always have her memories for companionship.
After a four week survey of a multitude of children’s book authors and illustrators, and learning to analyze their works and the methods used to make them effective literary pieces for children, it is certainly appropriate to apply these new skills to evaluate a single author’s works. Specifically, this paper focuses on the life and works of Ezra Jack Keats, a writer and illustrator of books for children who single handedly expanded the point of view of the genre to include the experiences of multicultural children with his Caldecott Award winning book “Snowy Day.” The creation of Peter as a character is ground breaking in and of itself, but after reading the text the reader is driven to wonder why “Peter” was created. Was he a vehicle for political commentary as some might suggest or was he simply another “childhood” that had; until that time, been ignored? If so, what inspired him to move in this direction?
There is a temptation to see all Irish work since the revival in terms of decolonization. Cahalan, in The Irish Novel, traces the tendency of Irish writers such as Swift, Edgeworth and Maturin to employ fantastic elements and non-realism in direct opposition to English colonial models and in affirmation of certain Irish traditions. Mercier, in The Irish Comic Tradition, points also to the presence of exaggeration, absurdity and scatological detail in Gaelic heroic cycles and poetry.
William Yeats is deliberated to be among the best bards in the 20th era. He was an Anglo-Irish protestant, the group that had control over the every life aspect of Ireland for almost the whole of the seventeenth era. Associates of this group deliberated themselves to be the English menfolk but sired in Ireland. However, Yeats was a loyal affirmer of his Irish ethnicity, and in all his deeds, he had to respect it. Even after living in America for almost fourteen years, he still had a home back in Ireland, and most of his poems maintained an Irish culture, legends and heroes. Therefore, Yeats gained a significant praise for writing some of the most exemplary poetry in modern history
Throughout ‘Easter 1916’, Yeats illuminates a personal explanation of the duality of war and revolution. Repetition of the oxymoron, “a terrible beauty is born” is an ideal example of textual integrity, which illustrates Yeats’ personal perspective surrounding the Easter rising. The contradictive diction of the words “terrible” and “beauty” showcases Yeats’ bilateral perception of the war. Although a nationalist concerned with the continual development of Irish liberation, Yeats rejected violence, as a means of attaining independence. The rhetorical question “was it needless death after all?” questions the sacrifice of the Irish soldiers, suggesting that Yeats himself did not believe any ‘beauty’ would result from the uprising. C.K. Stead reassures Yeats’ denunciation of violence by stating that the ‘terrible beauty’, of which Yeats is refe...
...at "more than their rhyming tell" ("To Ireland", 20). Yeats investment in the mystical Order of the Golden Dawn deepens his symbolic resources, extending his fascination with Celtic mythology into a syncretic spirituality which stresses the Jewish mystical doctrine known as the Kaballah. Through a combination of highly accessible rhyming and metrical poetry with such esoteric systems Yeats is able to construct a dual-level poetics in which readily traceable meanings are amplified by an acquaintance with the symbolic systems Yeats spent a great deal of his life mastering. His investment in these symbolic systems, and their ability to invoke unseen spiritual forces instantiates the poet's resistance to certain developments of modernity - such as the stress on reason, urbanity and individuality - and makes his poetic work a central aspect of his magico-religious Work.
In William Butler Yeats' poem, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death," he focuses on man's inner nature. He touches on the many jumbled thoughts that must race through one's mind at the point when they realize that their death is inevitable. In this poem, these thoughts include the airman's believed destination after leaving Earth, his feelings about his enemies and his supporters, his memories of home, his personal reasons for being in the war and, finally, his view of how he has spent his life. Through telling the airman's possible final thoughts, Yeats shows that there is a great deal more to war than the political disputes between two opposing forces and that it causes men to question everything they have ever known and believed.
W.B. Yeats poetry effectively reconciles the personal and the universal in that while he talks of personal experiences, he immortalizes these common, universal human experiences within his poetry. In order to understand how Easter 1916 encompasses both the personal and universal, one must comprehend the context of it. It talks of the sacrifice made by Irish Republicans who wanted to gain independence from Great Britain and lost their lives in the Easter Rising. Art was generally more romantic at the time, not political. Yeats was creating something groundbreaking when he analysed this historical event. It garnered interest from the public because of the widespread Irish nationalism at the time; the poem was published only five years after the initial event. Yeats uses free verse in iambic trimeter, and rhythm to prolong contemplation of certain verses and lines.
When Seamus Heaney started writing poetry, the feud between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants was getting heated, and by 1971 it had become a civil war (“Seamus Heaney- Biographical”). Civilian deaths were not uncommon in riots, and military barricades were being built. It was a time of intense war in Northern Ireland. The English army was trying to calm the citizens, but that made the problems much worse. The riots were bloody and often times resulted in deaths by the hundreds (“Seamus Heaney, Irish Poet”). The most famous day of the rebellion was the day deemed “Bloody Sunday” (“Seamus Heaney: “Casualty” ”). This was when the British Army attacked twenty-six unarmed citizens (“Seamus Heaney: “Casualty” ”). These citizen massacres made the conflict triple in size.
He had no strong affiliation to his countrymen or a loathing of his enemy. He simply joined the war because of his love of flying as shown in lines 11 and 12 of the poem “A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds” (Yeats, 1919, p. 1046). Ultimately, it seems the airman had surrendered to his fate, and subsequent death in the air, with the final two lines of the poem “A waste of breath the years behind – In balance with this life, this death.” (Yeats, 1919, p. 1047). The poem is very well written and has mood and meter that effectively contribute to the meaning and the attitude of the poem. This is important, because of the meaning of the poem; contemplation of life and death, to most, would be extremely dramatic; yet, for this airman it seems as though he feels forlorn and unattached in reflection of his life and eventually, his death. Yeats skillfully uses rhyme, meter, and alliteration throughout the poem “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death”, which in the end adds depth and connection, leaving a lasting impression on the
...tember 1913, there were only a few people that made huge sacrifices for independence in their country while others had contradicted their efforts and only focused on themselves. It was seen as if the heroes died in vain. In Easter 1916, the reader is able to notice a change in the people’s views and see that they are now the ones who are fighting for Ireland’s independence in honor of their previous leaders. The change Yeats talks about is that the result of the 1916 rising and the execution of some of its leaders. In turn the country revolted into the War of Independence. The Free State resulted in dividing the country both geographically and passionately along with those who had accepted the Free State and those who didn’t.
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...
On 26 January 1877, William Yeats entered the Godolphin primary school in Hammersmith where he would learn for four years, before his family moved back to Dublin. In 1881, Yeats continued his education at Erasmus Smith High School in Dublin, near his father’s studio. Yeats spent most of his time there, meeting the city’s artists and writers. It was during this time when he started to write poetry. During the years of 1884 and 1886, Yeats attended the Metropolitan School of Art, when in 1885 his poetry works and essay of “The Poetry of Sir Samuel Ferguson” were published in the Dublin University Review. Others of his works from this time include a play about a bishop, a monk and a woman ...
In his first collections, he portrayed his interest of Irish mythology by writing about heroes such as Oisin and St. Patrick. It is quite possible that his Irish beliefs in mythology led him to believe that there were supernatural beings in this world. It was during this time that Yeats profession as a writer began to take off. As he progressed as a poet, his writing began to take on a form of mysticism. This mysticism allowed him to use his imagination and to reach deep inside his life and use all of the Irish folktales and fairytales that his parents and grandparents had shared with him over his life. By writing about these heroes and fairies, this was his way of preserving his Irish roots and culture. Several of Yeats writings are reflective of this type of writing such as, “The Countess Cathleen” and “The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems.”
William Butler Yeats was born June 13, 1865 in Samdymount, Dublin in Ireland. Yeats’s father, John Butler Yeats, was a barrister who in time became a portrait painter. Yeats’s mother, Susan Pollexfen, was the daughter of a wealthy merchant in Sligo. Though his parents were both Protestant, William believed in a tradition more deeply than Protestant and Catholic. He was repulsed by Protestants for their distress for material success and he could not share their faith with the Catholics. He believed his best choice was to develop a tradition more insightful than Protestantism: the tradition of a veiled Ireland that was more pagan than Christianity by its customs and beliefs (“William Butler Yeats”).