Yeats

Yeats

The Second Coming
1. Point of civilisational change, impacted by world events: communism, WW1 ended and Russian revolution.
  1. Present symptomatic of the future; where power will be valued over tenderness. A sense to humanity is preordained to the poem. Language is high, ceremonial and apocalyptic.
2. "Turning and turning in the widening gyre, The falcon cannot hear the falconer", being assessed in the future where authority is lost.
3. "The ceremony of innocence is drowned", there is no control. Enjambement structuring is damaging.
4. "Surely the Second Coming is at hand" infers the end of Christian Age, repetition of "surely" has an underlying tone of desperation about the tiredness of the "second coming"
5. "Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born", with a biblical reference, the anti-christ is born, representing Yeats' fear of it coming to life
When You Are Old
1. "When you are old and grey and full of sleep" - Declarative statement, alluding to the future, inferring negative attributes of old age
2. "Nodding down by the fire" - infers gentle setting, with low modality verbs "slowly", "dream"
3. Recalls her beauty, "your eyes had once, and of their shadows of deep"
4. "Glad Grace" - Alliteration of 'G' draws attention to good times
5. "But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you" - didn't love her just for her beauty, infers he was better than the other suitors
6. "How love fled, and paced up the mountains overhead, and hid his face among a crowd of stars"
  1. Personifies himself as love, where he invocation supernatural powers - hyperbolic self reference
7. Shift from gentle tone to arrogance
Among School Children
1. Existentialist Angst = what is the meaning of life?
2. "Wonder if she stood so at that age" - temptation to dissolve in unrequited love is never far away, looking for Maud Gonne
  1. "Hallow of cheek as though it drank the wind" - Metaphor for her ageing body
3. In Stanza 5, Yeats explores mothers and if they would give birth to a child if they saw their older self. Is the meaning of life to grow old?
4. Stanza 6 - Aristotle, Pythagoras and Plato are ultimately as useful as a scarecrow, "old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird"
5. "The body is not bruised to pleasure soul", means that hard work is okay as long as the body isn't degraded
6. "O Chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer", this tree is productive from the top to the bottom, inferring that all elements of life may be integrated. This alludes to that in life you need all elements otherwise it is nothing, just like the chestnut tree.
7. "How can we know the dancer from the dance?", means what good is the artist without the hard work of the choreographer to plan the dance?
Leda and the Swan
1. "A sudden blow: the great wings beating still" - high modality, vibrant verbs and adjectives
2. "Her nape caught in his bill, he holds her helpless breast upon his breast" - sexual domination as well as phyical
3. "And Agamemnon dead. Being so caught up," - enjambent, slowpace down
4. Rhetorical question repetition, places emphasis on the physical struggle wanting to be free. Loveless rape, "heart beating" followed by questions shows there is no heart
  1. Rhetorical Question 1 - States Leda is unable to resist
  2. Rhetorical Question 2 - Swan has physical heart but no emotional heart
  3. Rhetorical Question 3 - Leda has gained nothing from the exchange
Easter 1916
1. "I have met them" - use of first person, unnamed people implies lack of significance
  1. Infers they have ordinary houses and lives
2. Repetition of "polite meaningless words" - people meant nothing to him
3. "All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born" - emphasises change, use of 'b' suggests the noise of canyons
4. "Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born" - repetition refers to the hyperbolic nature of change
5. Underlying message of was the violence necessary in the end
Wild Swans at Coole
1. "The trees are in their autumn beauty" - Changing, colour, leaves falling acts as a metaphor for Yeats feelings in his life where he is experiencing his own "twilight" in his life
2. "Nine-and-fifty swans" - definite number, mate for life, however there is one lone swan that metaphorically represents himself
3. "And now my heart is sore" - shows the disconnect of nature to making him happy, losing the tone of romanticist perception
4. "Trod with a lighter tread" - 19yrs ago nature inspired him to be happy
5. "To find they have flown away" - accepted the reality that they will fly away, use of rhetorical question indicates freedom
The Irish Airman
1. Chiasmus balancing effect, "those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love"
2. "My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan's poor" - He has an ability to relate to the poor
3. Makes no attempt to please anybody and flies for the love of flying
4. Little romanticist imagery, infers a sense of post-modernism; has particular take patriotism. Major idea of anti-war, that with every positive thought there is a negative one.

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	Created by Briony Maitland over 10 years ago