Structure & Form of Yeats' Poetry

Structure & Form of Yeats' Poetry

1. The Stolen Child

   • ABAB AABB rhyme scheme
     • ABAB creates soft, lyrical, lilting tone but AABB shows form of a Clerihew - rhymes often forced
   • Folkloric monologue by Faery to Human Child to persuade him to go with the Faery

2. September 1913

   • Ballad with clear chorus - mockery, sarcastic
   • Simple ABAB to put out strong political message
   • Popular form in Irish Culture

3. The Cold Heaven

   • Quatrains to symbolise regularity and tedium of age
   • Half rhyming ABAB rhyme scheme shows confusion of Yeats

4. The Wild Swans At Coole

   • ABCBDD rhyme structure is rhythmically disturbed flow - Yeats is pleased with nature but displeased with his own life
   • Rhyming couplets in every stanza represent Swans and partners, accentuate Yeats' lonliness
   • It's almost a Sestina but has 5 stanzas instead of 6, showing loneliness

5. An Irish Airman Forsees His Death

   • ABAB Quatrains shows regularity, dull life and inevitability of death
   • Elegiac

6. The Fisherman

   • ABABCDCD is Shakespearean Sonnet, emphasising love for the Fisherman
   • 6-7 syllables per line - Fisherman's small emphasis to society

7. Broken Dreams

   • Prosaic
   • Stream of Consciousness represents raw emotion

8. The Cat and the Moon

   • 28 lines represents 28 phases of the Moon
   • Rhythmically structured to symbolise Waltz dance
   • Ballad - highly emotive

9. The Second Coming

   • Free Verse - chaotic, lack of control
   • Prosaic - rushing thoughts

10. Sailing to Byzantium

    • Lyric poem - expresses Yeats' strong emotion
    • Corruputed Ottava Rima - an epic, but with twisted half-rhyme so characteristics of it reinforces content

11. Among School Children

    • Ottava Rima represents regularity of school routine
    • Continually changes in rhyme scheme, Yeats questioning philosophy of life

12. In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz

    • ABAB connotes Mantra in last stanza
    • No particular rhyme scheme or structure represents the familiarity with the sisters and informality of friendship

13. Leda and the Swan

    • Petrarchan Sonnet
      • Octave introduces problem but against tradition Sestet doesn't solve it, signifying the problem hasn't been solved, it's permanently broken, leaving audience still wondering
      • Written in traditional rhyme scheme but events are a stark contrast against the usual topics of sonnets
    • Quatrains until Sestet where structure is broken, signifies destruction

14. The Man and the Echo

    • Simplistic rhyming couplets - simplicity, regularity of death
    • Dialogue between Yeats and his haunting past, a shadow
    • AABB shows form of Clerihew, rhymes are often forced, Yeats is being forced to reflect in order to understand afterlife

15. Easter 1916

    • 2nd and 4th stanza are 24 lines long to represent 24th April
    • ABAB structure - Yeats varies rhyme to emphasise certain parts of the poem's content and significance
    • Maintains a consistency in form, showing unity
    • 1st and 3rd stanza are 16 lines long to represent 1916
    • 4 stanzas to show the four months of April