ENGLISH ADVANCED

MODULE B (CRITICAL STUDY): W.B YEATS

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS- CONTEXT

Personal:
- Protestant, Anglo-Irish minority
- Affirmed his Irish nationality
- Used Maud Gonne as a muse for his poetry

Cultural:
- Pre and during World War I
- Industrial Revolution has become a major turning point in society due to its scientific progress
and different ways of thinking
- Merging between Romanticism and Modernism
- Suffragette Movement became more prominent

Historical:
- Irish Rebellion against British rule
- World War I
- Post- Industrial Revolution

Social:
- Conflicting ideas between Romanticism and Modernism
- Social classes are being questioned, causing an increasing popularity in Marxism/Communism
- Child labour is prominent in the working class
- Women are starting to work

WHEN YOU ARE OLD

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

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Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Technique Quote Analysis

Syntax/ syndeton ‘When you are old and grey and Slows down the rhythm of the
full of sleep,/ And nodding by sentence and makes a
the fire.../ And slowly read...’ connection between the lines.

Symbolism ‘And nodding by the fire…’ Fire symbolises the decline of

love, thus causing change.

Comma ‘... and take down this book,/ Continuity of commas

And slowly ready and dream…’ emphasise the praises to further
capture this calmness.

Juxtaposition ‘And slowly read and dream…’ Juxtaposition the two terms to
suggest antithetical of the
physical and spiritual world.

Imagery ‘... soft look…’ Image of beauty and how

beauty/appeal will be lost.

Past tense ‘Your eyes had once…’ Tense change to contrast her
youthful days to her now.

Connotations ‘... and of their shadows deep;’ Connotations of death and her
getting old.

Alliteration ‘... glad grace…’ Describing the elegance she

once had.

‘And loved your beauty…’ Refers to both physical and

metaphysical love.

Juxtaposition ‘... false or true…’ Emphasises on the word ‘false’

since people only cared her for
her beauty.

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Third person ‘But one man... The word ‘But’ tells the reader
there is a contrast.’
Softens the poem and focuses on
‘her’- uses deliberate ambiguity
in third person to show how the
persona’s the only person who
had a depth of appreciation of
the whole/inner person.

Religious allusion/ Metaphor ‘... pilgrim soul…’ Refers to a traveller for religious
causes. Indicates his desire to
find something more
meaningful. Presumably, the
persona had loved her on a
spiritual level.

Present tense ‘And loved the sorrows of your Appreciation of the decline in
changing face.’ her physical beauty evident in
the present tense.

Motif ‘... beside the glowing bars…’ Romantic motif of a fireplace,

where glowing fire refers to the
later stage of life and raging fire
referring to youthful passion.

Gentle imperative ‘Murmur, a little sadly…’ Displays regret and a quiet loss.

Personification ‘... how Love fled/ And paced Love removes itself to
upon the mountains...’ emphasise how love isn’t only a
physical experience, making the
concept of love abstract.
Capitalised ‘L’ in ‘Love’ to
intensify the concept of love.

Symbolism/ Metaphor/ Verb ‘And paced upon the mountains Verb ‘paced’ suggests a
overhead…’ movement between physical and
spiritual love.
Refers to the love moving to a
place within spiritual elements,
emphasising the antithetics of
spiritual and physical love,
where physical love is
associated with youthful love
and beauty and spiritual love
associated with ageing.
Love assumes the highest point-
tip of the mountain to convey
the positioning of a climax.

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 Balances out spiritual and
physical experience.

‘And hid his face amid a crowd Balance between physical and
of stars.’ spiritual love because his love is
immortal and hidden in this
realm.

Structure The poem is set in three

quatrains, however the missing
couplet emphasises the sense of
incompleteness since a sonnet as
a final couplet.

Tone General tone of stoic acceptance

of loss, as enhanced by the
structure of the poem and slow
tempo.
The poem therefore explores
how true love is lost amongst
false love, as shown in Yeats’
depiction of the antithetics of
physical and spiritual love.

Critics:
Helen Vendler (‘Our Secret Discipline’): ​‘Yeats’ “translation” (of Ronsard’s original poem) offers a
single mourning parabola of narration, climaxing in its central third-person description of the “one
man”...’

AN IRISH AIRMAN FORESEES HIS DEATH

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,

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My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
Technique Quote Analysis

Indefinite article ‘An Irish Airman Foresees his Makes the poem broad and
Death’ abstract despite the poem being
a tribute to Major Gregory.

Monosyllables ‘fate… above… hate… love…’ Gives the poem a tone of

simplicity.

Personal pronouns ‘I know that I shall meet my fate/ Create accessibility through
High modality Somewhere among the clouds impact, whereby allows Yeats to
Juxtaposition above;’ display certainty of death.
This is juxtaposed by
‘Somewhere’ → ambiguity.

Juxtaposition ‘Those that I fight I do not hate/ Balance is a key feature of the
Those that I guard I do not love’ poem. Indicates he joined the
army out of impulse, not for
social/political reasons.

Juxtaposition ‘No likely end could bring them Balance between ‘loss’ and
loss/ Or leave them happier than ‘happier.’
before’

Listing ‘Nor law, nor duty bade me Listing the reasons that didn’t
fight,/ Nor public men, nor make him join the army.
cheering crowds’

Symbolism ‘A lonely impulse of delight’ Provides a positive aspect of

Rhythm being isolated from society.
Impulse is lonely → exclusive
from distractions, allowing a
unique individual experience.
Delight refers to light i.e.
absence of understanding when
in the air.

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 Rhythm is symmetrical to
represent balance and moment
of perfection.

Symbolism ‘Drove to this tumult in the Clouds become a motif for

Semicolon clouds;’ transcendence from mortality to
spirituality.
Semicolon connects the current
line with the next line to show
interconnectedness.
The two lines balances the
purposeless life before the war
and the prospect of a
purposeless life after it balances
at the moment of death.

Chiasmus ‘The years to come seemed Depicts the past and future as
waste of breath,/ A waste of insignificant but is still balanced
breath the years behind,’ out.

Caesura ‘In balance with this life, this Gives the poem the sense of
death.’ finality to reflect the persona’s
acceptance of death.

Structure Four lots of four rhyming

couplets and sixteen lines in a
poem reflects the perfect
balance.

Rhyming scheme ABAB rhyming scheme makes

it simple to listen, relieves any
tension and gives a sense of
balance. This depicts the notion
of life being about balance.
Critics:
Helen Vendler (‘Our Secret Discipline’): ​‘Gregory is forthright, independent, a soldier, and this form of
four-beat march step, with its emphatic masculine rhymes, will serve to express his nature.’
Barry Shells (‘W.B Yeats and World Literature’): ​‘... it allows us to see Gregory in his most generalised
form as a Nietzschean hero confronting death with equanimity.’
THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

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The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,

And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,

They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,

Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
Technique Quote Analysis

Juxtaposition ‘The Wild Swans at Coole.’ Wild has a connotation of being

Symbolism natural and uncontrolled, yet
swans are majestic and
beautiful.
Swans represent the soul and
strength, purity and immortality.

Symbolism ‘The trees are in their autumn Autumn is a point of

beauty,’ transference between summer
and winter- refers how persona
is still in search for beauty and
evocation of Yeats’ own
morality.
Romantic nature- uses nature as

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 a catalyst for contemplation and
insight.

Portmanteau ‘Under the October twilight the Combination of ‘two’ and

Trochee water/ Mirrors a still sky;/ Upon ‘light’- point of transference
Present participle the brimming water among the between day (good) and night
Semicolon stones’ (bad). Antithetical images and
Juxtaposition creates completeness/wholeness.
Trochee of the word ‘mirrors’
emphasise and offers point of
connection between water and
sky.
Present participle of ‘still’
indicates that the natural world
is alive and energetic in
comparison to the persona.
Semicolon loosely connects with
preposition to connect the two.
‘Brimming water’ and ‘stones’
are juxtaposed to give an image
of permanence.

Syntax ‘Are nine-and-fifty swans.’ Emphasises on nine to reinforce

persona’s loneliness as they
place him further apart from
men and as a consequence,
probably exacerbate his
communion with nature.

Present tense ‘The nineteenth autumn has Present tense emphasises the
Passive verb come upon me’ reflective stage as persona is still
grappling where he is.
Passive nature of ‘come upon
me’ indicates that autumn has
surprised the persona and is
frustrated over lack of control.

Personal pronoun ‘Since I first made my count;/ I Personal pronouns of ‘I’ contrast
Juxtaposition saw, before I had well finished,/ against the collective pronouns
Imagery All suddenly mount/ And scatter which describe the swans-
Verb wheeling in great broken rings/ foregrounding aloneness of the
Aural images Upon their clamorous wings.’ poet.
Punctuation Juxtaposing of persona’s
fixedness to earth against swans’
capacity to freely move between
the earthly and heavenly planes.
Images of movement that

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 concludes the stance highlight
against the power and energy of
the swans (present participle
lends a sense that this movement
continues into the future.
Verb mount asserts power.
The aural images of ‘scatter…
clamorous wings’ / plosive
‘bell-beat’ add to this energy.

Circular motif ‘And scatter wheeling in great Reflects the chaotic nature of the
broken rings’ swans as they scatter- resorts to
the swans to find order.
The final 3 lines are without
punctuation so the movement is
fluid and upward with the
‘rings’ suggested an eternal
gyral movement-and a
circularity/ continuity that fits
with the endless cycle of life and
death that the persona feels
outside of.

Caesura ‘All’s changed since I, hearing Unnatural break gives ‘I’ the
Repetition at twilight,’ main point of emphasis-
personal reflective poem.
Repetition of ‘twilight’ shows
that the past and present are
unified.

Metaphor ‘The bell-beat of their wings Illustrates how control provides

above my head,/ Trod with a the persona satisfaction.
lighter tread.’ Metaphor of movement as
‘tread’ implies a heavy
movement.
‘Lighter tread’ has connotations
of his earlier youth and lightness
of heart, but also naivety.
Art can transcend movement.

Juxtaposition ‘They paddle in the cold/ Cold suggests absence of

Companionable streams or emotion and contradicts with
climb the air;’ ‘companionable’- suggests a
connection between the positive
and negative.
Hard plosive sounds in ‘cold’
and ‘companionable’/ ‘passion

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 and conquest’ again speak to
power.

Time motif ‘Mirrors a still sky… Their Summation of the youthful

Repetition hearts have not grown old;... things from the previous lines
Attend upon them still.’ e.g. ‘Passion or conquest.’
Repetition in the verse of the
word ‘still’ suggests a
timelessness untempered by
mortality (for the swans) and as
well as wholeness.

Juxtaposition ‘Mysterious, beautiful;’ The final stanza offers a moment

of contemplation and elevation
made possible for the persona by
an acceptance of the
changes wrought by time and
death ascension toward
heaven/spirit.
Mystery- something inexplicable
about the swans- has the quality
of enjoyment endlessly.
Nature has continuity and
balance.

Question mark ‘To find they have flown away?’ Interrogative nature indicates
unresolved nature of the poem.
The disappearance of swans will
tell him about the human
condition- a central struggle of
human experience in the
inevitability of change, ageing
and mortality.
Critics:
Andrew Gates (‘The Wild Swans at Coole’): ​‘... the enduring existence of Yeats’ poem answers the very
question its text seems unable to resolve; by creating this textual image of his experience in the dialogue
he establishes with the reader, he has, in language itself, found the eternal.’

EASTER 1916

Technique Quote Analysis

Juxtaposition ‘I have met them at close of day.’ Contrast​ ​between I and them
separates himself from the
collective group. ​Initially the

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 persona indicates his distance –
his disconnection with the cause,
however as the events unfold his
empathy is induced. Yeats had
misgivings of populism of
democracy; he preferred the
order, authority and restraint of
the aristocracy (oligarchy).

Differentiation of “I” and

“them” pronouns being separate
from one another, reinforcing
Yeats being outside of these
events. “Them” as a
demonstrative, pushes them
away and chooses to keep them
anonymous.

Symbolism ‘Coming with vivid faces/ From Passion for Irish freedom which
counter or desk among grey/ contrasts​ ​against dull ‘eighteenth
Eighteenth-century houses.’ century houses’​ ​allusion​ ​to
Enlightenment thinking which
privileges over emotional
thinking.
Synecdoche​ ​reinforces the
ordinariness of them.

Repetition ‘Or polite meaningless words,/ Or His patronising attitude is

have lingered awhile and said/ revealed by his perfunctory
Polite meaningless words,’ greetings, repetition of “polite
meaningless words.” Polite
meaningless words and it’s
length, emphasises it’s
pointlessness and Yeat’s regret.

Assonance ‘And thought before I had done/ Of Long I sounds ‘polite’ ‘awhile’
a mocking tale or a gibe/ To please ‘gibe’ gives the stanza unity,
a companion/ Around the fire at linking the ideas and images in
the club,’ our minds and at the same time
emphasising the bored and
unworthy thoughts the writer
had towards the people he had
met.

Metaphor ‘Being certain that they and I/ Yeats' reference to 'motley'

Syntax But lived where motley is worn:/ clothing indicates that some of
High modality All changed, changed utterly:/ A the leaders were affiliated with

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Superlative terrible beauty is born.’ the Abbey Theatre, the world of
Plosive actors and clowns, a group
Tense rarely consumed by serious
Oxymoron issues in Irish society – costume
of the fool in Shakespeare’s time
reinforces that Yeats was
convinced this was all
play-acting, except this
conviction was changed by the
tragic events that happened.

‘They’ and ‘I’ affords a new

status to them, as a reflection of
him not being an agent of
change despite that he thought.

‘all’ – his cynicism is gone,

sense of regret.

‘Utterly’- the regret reaches its

climax.

Plosive b sounds ‘terrible beauty

is born’ - annunciation of beauty
and violence and provide
emphatic finality.

Yeats's use of "is" rather than

"was" at the end of stanza one,
forewarns of the tragic conflict
to come. Emphasises a central
theme to the poem, that "beauty
is the offspring of terror."
Yeats changes his perspective
and recognises the ‘terrible
beauty’ of the part taken by the
same acquaintances he
exchanged ‘polite meaningless
words’ in the Rising and its
aftermath.

Personal pronoun ‘That woman’s days were spent/ In Yeats offers judgements on four
ignorant good-will,/ Her nights in of the Rising’s leaders, and then
argument/ Until her voice grew goes on to say that they have
shrill’ been not only ‘changed’ but
‘Transformed utterly.’.
Experience has taken on a new

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 and tragic form.

Deliberate dismiss of personal

pronouns allows the poem to be
universal.

Sustained metaphor ‘This man had kept a school/ And Cumulatively → loss of
Symbolism rode our winged horse;/ This other waste/good people.
his helper and friend/ Was coming Sustained metaphor​ ​of his
into his force;’ ordinariness and the heroic
contrasted.

Pegasus: wisdom in poetry.

Eulogising the death of an
educated Patrick Pearse.

Metaphor ‘​He, too, has resigned his part Aligns with the Motley, giving a
In the casual comedy…’ sense of Yeats remaining in the
ordinariness whilst the Rebels
are elevated by their heroic
nature.

Symbolism ‘Hearts with one purpose alone/ ‘Stone’ → changes the course
Metaphor Through summer and winter seem/ of the water → agent of change
Enjambment Enchanted to a stone/ To trouble → is it positive or negative by
the living stream’ the verb ‘trouble.’

Metaphor “living stream” for

human existence – manifestation
of the dance and life. The "living
stream" of pragmatism faces an
endless conflict with the
symbolic "stone" of single-
minded devotion to Irish
nationalism. Yeats leaves no
doubt that the "stone" has
permanently altered the course
of Irish history.
The "stone" remains implanted
"in the midst of all."
Paradoxically, the ideology that
gave birth to the Irish Free State,
also anchored Irish nationalists
to one rigid and unyielding
political objective, a free and
independent United Ireland.

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 Enjambed ‘enchanted’ →
connotations
permanent/negative of
something changing.

The stone becomes powerful

when it ‘troubles the stream’,
implying that the martyrs have
become powerful too.

Present tense ‘Minute by minute they change;/ A change → present tense →

Repetition shadow of cloud on the stream/ immediate.
Meditative structure Changes minute by minute;/ A
horse-hoof slides on the brim,/ And Changes ‘minute by minute’-
a horse plashes within it;/ The The passage implies that such
long-legged moor-hens dive,/ And changeableness is at odds with
hens to moor-cocks call;/ Minute heroic transformation.
by minute they live:/ The stone’s in Repetition of ‘minute by
the midst of all.’ minute’ equates change with life
→ changes go on in the world
while the stone remains
immutable, unchanging →
continual change

Celebrates change as an
important part of a rich
existence. Organic ‘stone’ in the
midst of it all. Stone in the
“midst of all”, middle of living
stream privileges stone as
important.

Meditative structure →
balances emotional and
intellectual.

Rebels engendered gyral

movement through “from cloud
to tumbling cloud.” Movement
from earth to sky, Rebels
occupying both spaces “the
horse that comes from the road”
to “the birds that range.”

‘Too long a sacrifice/ Can make a Rebels engendered gyral

stone of the heart./ O when may it movement through “from cloud
suffice?’ to tumbling cloud.”

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 Movement from earth to sky,
Rebels occupying both spaces
“the horse that comes from the
road” to “the birds that range.”

Aural image ‘To murmur upon name,/ As a Soft ‘m’ sounds of a mother
mother names her child’ humming to a child – maternal
image.

Truncated sentence ‘What is it but nightfall?/ No, no, Juxtaposes night and death
Semicolon not night but death;’ ‘What is but nightfall?/ No, no,
not night but death;” Sleep and
death often synonymous in
Elizabethan literature. Nightfall
a comforting metaphor for
death.
Pause after death emphasis,
reminder of the terrible aspect of
the Rising. Yet, Yeats's
admiration for the rebels' deed
seems untainted by any sense of
an unnecessary loss of life

Reversal of syntax ‘For England may keep faith. For The word ‘done’ is said before
Plosive all that is done and said,’ ‘dead → privileges action.

‘Said’ and ‘dead’ plosive d

sound → finality and death.

‘We know their dream; enough/ To Their passion lead to their death
know they dreamed and are dead;’ rather than external factors
factors e.g being shot ‘We know
their dream; enough/ To know
they dreamed and are dead;’

Present tense ‘And what if excess of love/ Yeats extends to them an eternal
Hyphen Bewildered them till they died?/ I place in Irish history by naming
Listing write it out in a verse-/ them. Naming them at the end
Present tense MacDonagh and Macbride/ And and the hyphen creates tension
Future tense Conolly and Pearse/ Now and in and suspense, ascending them
Juxtaposition time to be,/ Wherever green is and giving them importance.
Passive voice worn,/ Are changed, changed
utterly:/ A terrible beauty is born.’ Present tense → sense of
urgency.

Yeats names the four, but places

them in the present and the

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 future tense, for their memory
lives on

‘Wherever green is worn’ →

Wearing green was one of the
Irish traditions banned in 1798
after a revolution against the
English → contrasts with the
motley.

Passive voice: they are all

changed, violent events →
catalyst transformation.

The middle- class rebels whom

Yeats held in such contempt,
were responsible for all that was
"utterly changed" and the
"terrible beauty" that was born.
On a universal scale, a new era
has come in human history.
From death there has come a
birth, one of ‘terrible beauty.’
He is suggesting that a new
cycle of history is beginning and
this ‘terrible beauty’ which has
been born is the result of this
tragedy of change.
Critics:
Roy Foster: ​‘(the poem) derives its power from a sense of ​agonized uncertainty that pulses through the
stanzas.’
Helen Vendler (‘Our Secret Discipline’): ​‘Yeats substitutes their permanent chronicle-names for their
ideological ‘fixity.’ They will survive under these names as the transformed founders of the Republic for
which they are willing to die.’
Marjorie Perloff (‘“Easter 1916”: Yeats’ First World War Poem’): ​‘revolution is necessary if there is ever
to be real ‘change’ ... Natural change… is all very well, but if human beings do not interfere with nature,
there can be no civilization, and certainly no progress.’

LEDA AND THE SWAN

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,

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He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push

The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there

The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

Technique Quote Analysis

Indefinite article ‘A sudden blow:’ The octave describes in a series

Colon of nouns, Leda’s gradual
perceptions of her assailant as
she first experiences a blow,
where it’s plosive sounds in the
indefinite article ‘A sudden
blow” highlights aurally Leda’s
assault.
The pause emphasised by the
colon effectively makes Leda
and as well as the reader reel
from that blow and be
momentarily stunned.
Antithetical image of a power
god and a swan (physical vs
mythical).

Definite article ‘: the great wings still/ Above The nouns of the un-ascribed
Present participle the staggering girl, her thighs persons wings and webs, are
caressed’ both prefaced by the definite
article, “the great wings”, “the
dark webs”

The present-participle of the

plosive verb ‘beating’ of the

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 wings, shows that it’s relentless
and ongoing, in contrast to the
verb ‘staggering’ which
highlights the powerlessness of
Leda in comparison to Zeus’
wings.

Gendered pronominal adjectives ‘By the dark webs, her nape Leda and Zeus are separated by
Lack of conjunctions caught in his bill,/ He holds her the gendered pronominal
helpless breast upon his breast.’ adjectives “her nape” and “his
bill”, but are brought closer as
they share a single noun when
her helpless human “breast” is
held upon his avian “breast.”

Absence of conjunctions
emphasises that there is no
harmony, reflective of the
violence that is perpetuated.

Rhetorical questions ‘How can those terrified vague The rhetorical questions are seen
fingers push/ The feathered to have calculated connotations
glory from her loosening to the sublime, where the first
thighs?/ And how can body, laid rhetorical question justifies her
in that white rush,/ But feel the physical submission, as she not
strange heart beating where it only terrified but seduced in the
lies?’ verb “caressed”, and her thighs
are not loosened by forcible rape
by the “feathered glory”, but are
“loosening” of their own free
will in her acceptance of change
in the “terrible beauty.”

The second rhetorical question

thus justifies her acquiescence in
pleasure, because in contrast to
the earlier meaning of the verb
“beating” of the “feathered
glory”’s wings, she seems to
show no resistance as a result by
finding the human quality of the
“beating” of the “strange heart”
within the “white rush” where
she lies.
Yeats creates ambiguity as to
whether Leda consents.

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Indefinite article ‘A shudder in the loins Yeats suppresses Leda’s former
Enjambment engenders there’ emphatic perception of separate
possessive adjectives, and
presents the indefinite article in
“A shudder in the loins”,
unattributed to either gender.
The climax is located of a single
place in the enjambed “there”,
where male and female meet and
are effectively engendered.

Listing ‘The broken wall, the burning Listing of images in present

Allusion roof and tower/ And tense makes clear that the effects
Dual metaphor Agamemnon dead.’ of this rape ends with not only
the death of Agamemnon, but
Leda gives birth to the
destruction of Troy.

Dual metaphor of the ‘broken

walls’ refers to the breaching of
the city and breaking of her
hymen.

Past tense ‘Being so caught up,/ So Having united Zeus and Leda in
mastered by the brute blood of prophetic vision of the aftermath
the air,’ of the rape, the sonnet moves to
past tense and enacts their
disjunction as Leda seemingly
understands that she has been
“caught up” in his physical and
psychological entrapment in
knowing Zeus in all three of his
aspects as swan, lover and god
respectively in “mastered by the
brute blood of the air.”

Rhetorical question ‘Did she put on his knowledge This rhetorical question
with his power/ Before the questions whether or not Leda
indifferent beak could let her has consumed his power as sole
drop?’ knower of the future. However,
later Zeus adopts the animal
nature of the swan and acts
“indifferent” towards Leda after
he has got what he wanted
originally.

Structure Sonnet in iambic pentameter.

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 The poem structures itself at
first in half-lines, then whole
lines. The half-lines represent
the two participants in Helen’s
conception, where the speaker
goes back and forth from the
swan-god-lover to the hapless
“girl” until the two protagonists
join in a mutual single line
“climax.”
Critics:

Helen Vendler (‘Our Secret Discipline’): ​‘... the speaker is uncertain whether he should ratify the
absolute right of Zeus to set destiny going in a new direction or should sympathise with Leda’s initial
terror.’

Maria Viana (‘Violence and Violation: The Rape in Yeats ‘Leda and the Swan’’): ​‘... the final question,
remark(s) on the movement from the personal, intense intimacy of Leda’s sexuality, to the less personal
and passionately poetic rhetoric of the puzzle of human history, but leaving the question unanswered.’

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

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Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Technique Quote Analysis

Repetition ‘Turning and turning in the The repetition of the present

widening gyre’ participle turning and absence of
punctuation in the first octave
shows no sense of hope as
world’s “centre cannot hold.”

Metaphor ‘The falcon cannot hear the Humanity is unable to reconnect

Definite article falconer;’ with Gods or hear him as
humanity is led into chaos, thus
they cannot be controlled.

Definite article of the falcon and

falconer are used to highlight
certainty in the social disconnect
present in the world due to
‘widening gyre.’

High modality ‘Things fall apart; the centre Yeats shows no ambiguity.
cannot hold;’

Passive voice ‘Mere anarchy is loosed upon Yeats’ passive voice conveys his

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Enjambment the world,/ The blood-dimmed negative view in the verb
tide is loosed, and everywhere’ ‘loosed’ which is repeated, and
effectively shows that the world
has no control and causes the
metaphorical ‘blood-dimmed
tide’ of various political
uprisings and the resulting loss
of life and therefore the
inevitable collapse of
civilisation.

Enjambed word ‘everywhere’ →

impactful.
‘Anarchy’ → Yeats’ disdain for
this state of loss of authority.

Metaphor ‘The ceremony of innocence is Yeats refers to the naivety of 21​st

Biblical allusion drowned;’ century ‘drowned’
Pun metaphorically.

Allusion to Noah’s Ark, as it

references that destruction will
lead to renewal.
Can also refer to Christian
baptism.

Tone ‘The best lack all conviction, Tone is full of condemnation at

Parallel language while the worst/ Are full of the people being on what is
Juxtaposition passionate intensity.’ right.
Parallel language of ‘best’ and
‘worst’ → comparison between
the two.
Echoes we fear what we don’t
know.

Good people are not taking

action while bad people are full
of passion for their causes.
Indicates reversal of values.

Repetition ‘Surely some revelation is at Assurance/ reinforcing that

hand; Surely the Second Coming something is coming to the
is at hand.’ change the world.

Allusion ‘When a vast image out of ‘Spiritus Mundi’ → Collective

Spiritus Mundi/ Troubles my soul of the universe collecting
sight:’ memories of all time.

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Allusion ‘A shape with a lion body and Indicates brute destructiveness
the head of a man’ with human intelligence.
Also refers to the image of the
Sphinx → combination of beast
and man.

Metaphor ‘A gaze blank and pitiless as the Metaphor reflects lack of

Tempo sun,/ Is moving its slow thighs,’ conscience and compassion.

‘Slow thighs’ reflects the image

of something that will take its
own time.

Connotations ‘That twenty centuries of stony ‘Vexed’ and ‘nightmare’ is

Juxtaposition sleep/Were viewed to nightmare juxtaposed with ‘rocking cradle’
Symbolism by a rocking cradle,’ to emphasize the contrast
between good and evil.

Cradle symbolizes the rhythm of

humanity which was influenced
by the birth of Jesus in
comparison to the ‘nightmare’
that symbolises the upbringing
of the Second Coming.

Rhetorical question ‘And what rough beast, its hour Trying to find balance of home
Tempo come round at last,/ Slouches after the war occurs as Yeats
towards Bethlehem to be born?’ wonders about the nature of
future civilizations.

Tempo climaxes on ‘slouches’: a

movement and an attitude to
reflect power and insolence.

Pun ‘The Second Coming’ Ironic appropriation of the

Biblical allusion Christian belief that Christ will
come again, saving the good and
punishing evil.
Believes the world will end
because of WW1. Interprets his
view by using apocalyptic
imagery. Sees antithesis of the
First Coming (Christ’s birth) and
the Second Coming (birth of the
devil).

Tempo Opts for direct images and a

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 disjointed rhythm to reflect an
off-balanced and disoriented
image. Tempo builds the climax
at the end of the poem.
Critics:
Helen Vendler (‘Our Secret Discipline’): ​‘... he pursues a personal myth- his myth of supernaturally
driven historical change producing an incarnate signal of the new..’
Daniel L. Hocutt (‘What Rough Beast Indeed?’)” ​‘The second coming is his own, an artistic
reincarnation far beyond the physical violence of contemporary Ireland.’
Nancy Helen Fletcher (‘Yeats, Eliot and Apocalyptic Poetry’): ​‘... The Second Coming describes
situations in the physical world that were consistent with Yeats’ psychic research. He did not attribute
agency for the chaos to mankind, but rather to the vast impersonal historical cycle of the gyres.’

AMONG SCHOOL CHILDREN

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Technique Quote Analysis

Personal pronoun ‘I walk through the long Personal pronoun begins → ‘I’
Present participle schoolroom questioning;’ and establishes a personal
reflection.

Present participle of
‘Questioning’, highlights an
ongoing self-reflection and
reverie throughout the whole
poem.

Enjambment ‘- the children’s eyes/ In Enjambed ‘the children’s eyes’

Verb momentary wonder stare upon/ represents youth.
Juxtaposition A sixty-year old smiling public
Symbolism man.’ Stare → verb hinge offers a
connection between age and
youth, as the children look at
him at old age, which is what
Yeats represents.

Symbol ‘A sixty year old man’

Yeats feels the need to clarify
his age to emphasise his old age.
Antithetical of youth and old
age.

Allusion ‘I dream of a Ledaean body,’ Yeats is portrayed as not wholly

Metaphor concentrating on the schoolroom
but instead his thoughts are
elsewhere and in comparison
with the ‘I walk’ of stanza one,
it is replaced by ‘I dream’ as he
daydreams about Maud Gonne
‘Ledean body’ makes reference
to Helen, daughter of Leda →
Maud Gonne metaphor.

Alludes to Leda’s rape –

explores the fact that eerie child
comes to a point where they face
a change or hardship that
changes them.

Juxtaposition ‘... bent/ Above a sinking fire,’ Contrast between youth and old
Motif age as he makes a connection
between ‘When You Are Old’ of

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 Maud Gonne as an old woman
to now Maud as a young girl.

Recurrent motif ‘fire’ → evokes

same symbols of passion etc.

‘Told of a harsh reproof, or Paraphrasing: He remembers a

trivial event/ That changed some powerful sense of connection
childish day to tragedy-’ between them, and suggest a
story that is a catalyst for his
new understandings. Maud
confines in him when she was a
young school girl.

Allusion ‘Told, and it seemed that our Through listening to her account
Imagery two natures blent/ Into a sphere and expressed sympathy until he
Metaphor from youthful sympathy,/ Or completely identified with her,
else, to alter Plato’s parable/ creating an irrevocable
Into the yolk and white of the connection that can be shared
one shell.’ through this platonic connection
one like the yolk and white of an
egg.
Reference to Plato’s Symposium
– “When we are part of the
immortal realm, we are part of
one sphere → complete soul.
When we are born, that spheres
break into two parts and those
spheres are sent into the world
Our quest in the world is to find
that missing part to become
whole again”
Yeats ‘alters Plato’s parable’
through his use of the image of
‘yolk and white of the one shell’
metaphor. The idea that different
elements are united; but are
contained into one sphere. They
are different but coe-exist
dependent of each other
therefore Yeats is suggesting
that opposites are required to see
how the world works (in
balance)

Metaphor ‘Sphere’ The two

images of Maud and Yeats’

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 unity are offered, first the
‘sphere’ (attributed to Plato’s
writings) and then the earthly
image of ‘the yolk and white of
an egg’. These two images start
off the emerging argument of
the poem, which is concerned
with Platonic and alternative
ways of seeing reality.
‘The yolk and white of an egg’
allusion to the eggs of Helen of
Troy.

Present participle ‘And thinking of that fit of grief Back to the present
or rage/ I took upon one child or Present participle thinking and
t’other there’ goes back in time to Maud when
she was the children’s age.

Metaphor ‘And wonder if she stood so at Yeats is shown as looking at the

Rhyming couplet that age— / For even daughters girls in the school-room and
of the swan can share/ wondering whether Maud ‘stood
Something of every paddler's so at that age’.
heritage— / And had that colour
upon cheek or hair, / And ‘Swan metaphor’ → cycle of
thereupon my heart is driven youth and age.
wild: / She stands before me as a It was through what was
living child.’ contradictory is what movement
can take place → out of youth
and age he comes to a
conclusion about the Dancer and
the music.
The rhyming couplet makes this
an authoritative statement – the
poet’s imagination is triumphant
over time and circumstance.
The memory of her drives his
heart so ‘wild’ that she appears
to ‘stand before me as a living
child’ with her story yet to
unfold
Stands – Present tense
Yeats reincarnates Maud Gonne
as a child. Past enters present.
This emphasises the
interconnectedness of time.

Juxtaposition ​ er present image floats into

‘H Helen Vendler → describes that

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Allusion the mind— / Did Quattrocento these verse presents to us a
Rhetorical question finger fashion it’ ‘diptych’ (two scenes that are
Engendered pronoun joined by a hinge) which offers
two perspectives.
Juxtaposing of the child with all
of her potential and sense of the
grown daughter of the Swan
(echoes When You Are Old) and
the sixty-year old woman.

Quattrocento – Renaissance
artist, allusion to God’s finger
reaching down to Adam to make
him
Rhetorical question, despite how
old she looks, she is so beautiful
it can only be art.

Changes from gendered pronoun

to ‘it’ as it is though
disconnected from her and
becomes a more universal image
of ageing, than it is an image of
her.

Imagery ​ ollow of cheek as though it

‘H Reference to Maud’s political
drank the wind/ And took a mess ideology ‘meal of shadows’, a
of shadows for its meat?’ result of the life she chose to
live which contrasts with the
living child.
Imagery – accepts her declining
beauty + it not being a constant
aspect in their lives (G.s
Lenisua).

Tone ​ nd I though never of Ledaean

‘A Tone of regret of the loss of his
Alliteration kind/ Had pretty plumage hair ‘plumage’ (birds feathers)
Metaphor once—enough of that,/ Better to Sense of as an old man, his
Juxtaposition smile on all that smile, and vanity has gone that was present
show/ There is a comfortable in his youth.
kind of old scarecrow.’ Alliteration pretty plumage
mocks his vanity suggests that
he is mourning that loss.

Metaphor ‘Old scarecrow’ –

hard motif. The crow is the
opposite of the swan, showing

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 ageing and losing beauty is
inevitable – accepts the change
that comes with age.
Adjective ‘comfortable’ →
suggest an acceptance of that old
image and is not mourning the
loss of youth and vigour
(When You Are Old – and the
regret he prophesied he would
have if he did not live out a life).

Imagery ​ hat youthful mother, a shape

‘W Paraphrase: ‘What youthful
Plosive upon her lap/ Honey of mother…’ long question →
generation had betrayed,/ And would mothers regret their
that must sleep, shriek, struggle child’s birth when they look at
to escape/ As recollection or the the child and what they have
drug decide,/ Would think her become. Would they feel that it
son, did she but see that shape/ was worth it?
Yeats operates out of Yeat’s
Symposium – ‘Honey of
generation’ – reproduction
Celestial realm → soul gets
taken from heaven and placed in
the child that is going to be born
According to Plato, as the soul
travels to where it will be born,
it sips a cup of oblivion ‘drug of
forgetfulness.’
‘Shape upon her lap’ image of
pregnant belly or a child sitting
on their lap.
The shape has been betrayed of
the sweetness of sex.
Plosive sounds of shriek,
struggle…’ highlights the
trauma the soul of the child
experienced.

Symbolism ​ ith sixty or more winters on

‘W Sixty or more winters, implies a
Rhetorical question its head,/ A compensation for the bleakness to that 60 years rather
pang of his birth,/ Or the than a brightness associated with
uncertainty of his setting forth?’ summer/spring
Suggest a hard life.
Rhetorical question “or the
uncertainty” → his conclusion
would be no.

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Allusion ​ lato thought nature but a
‘P Philosophers → presents them
Imagery spume that plays/ Upon a with a summary of what they
ghostly paradigm of things;/ believe:
Solider Aristotle played the Images become diminishing
taws/ Upon the bottom of a king - Plato’ the idealist,
of kings;/ World-famous dismissive of nature
golden-thighed Pythagoras/ - ‘Soldier Aristotle’, more
Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or of a materialist, but
strings/ What a star sang and remembered here as the
careless Muses heard:/ Old tutor of Alexander the
clothes upon old sticks to scare Great, whom he
a bird./ punished with ‘the taws’
(a Scottish word for a
schoolmaster’s leather
strap)
- ‘Pythagoras’ the
mathematician and
astronomer who
believed in the music of
spheres – music unable
to rouse the interest of
the ‘careless muses’.
The stanza ends with the same
scarecrow imagery repeated
throughout the poem, ‘old
clothes upon old sticks’ which
dismisses all the three
philosophers as no more than
scarecrows since their ideas
have failed to save them from
the humiliations of the ageing
body.

Rhetorical question ‘Both nuns and mothers worship The transition to stanza 7 is
Imagery images,/’ abrupt by immediately
questioning why we are in the
world of ‘nuns and mothers?’
Both nuns and mothers
worship ideal images, God for
nuns and children for the
mothers, and Yeats challenges
perfection

‘image’ → immediately
questions it’s validity as it
connotes not confronting the
reality.

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Imagery ​ ut those the candles light are
‘B Yeats suggests that mothers are
not as those/ That animate a able to survive the sufferings of
mother's reveries,’ labour because they are
sustained by an image of the
child which they can worship
just as a nun is sustained by
contemplating the ‘repose’ of a
statue.
Yeats argues that this
idealisation is the flaw of this
worship as it neglects what is
real → his argument that real
life has “music” and the ideal
isn’t part of it.

Worships ‘animate’ → active

engagement.

Exclamation ​ nd yet they too break

‘A ‘And yet they too break hearts’
hearts—O Presences’ implies that all worship of this
kind is an attempt to go beyond
the human; after the broken
heart, there may be peace.
Helen Vendler: ‘O’ Odle →
worship, adoration, but views it
as an odle sublime.
Presences – perpetual things.

Symbolism ​ hat passion, piety or affection

‘T The representations of this
Plosive knows,’ ‘heavenly glory’ known to
‘passion, piety or affection’ –
interpreted as the emotions of
lover, nun and mother in their
perfection mock ‘man’s
enterprise’ (the pun on
enterprise is either just simply
to live or in order to live takes
courage).

Passion:love, piety, spiritual

love for God.
Affection: love for child.

These types of love worship

the ‘presences’ – p sounds
feels mocking rather than
plosive sounds.

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Structure ​ self-born mockers of man's
‘O Ends image incomplete due to a
enterprise;’ break in an ottava rima (used to
demonstrate reflection of human
life).
Enterprise – our life, even it is
fleeting Yeats want to elevate us
from the misery of the mockery.

Imagery ​ abour is blossoming or

‘L Labour refers to all human
dancing where/ The body is not enterprise → they are
bruised to pleasure soul,’ interchangeable.
‘Blossoming’ ‘Dancing’ – rises
above the ordinary, meaningful
Presenting to us a Prelapsarian
(innocent) image of our
enterprise not involving that
kind of suffering when the body
is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Present participles – blossoming
dancing, continuity - doesn’t end
at the end of life.
It engages the soul and not just
the physical body.

Symbolism ​ chestnut tree, great rooted

‘O The chestnut-tree’: whole living
Exclamation blossomer,’ creature, the ‘blossom’ is
inconceivable without the great
roots.
Occupires both spaces through
roots and it’s beauty
Fertility ends, in old age it can
be more beautiful than it was a
young sapling.
O – sense of sublime,
Compound words – idea of
connectedness and the
wholeness of the actual tree.

Rhetorical question ​ re you the leaf, the blossom or

‘A Two questions – Yeats trying to
Imagery the bole?’ find an image that finds a
metaphor for human enterprise
Trying to get away from life and
death, children an old people
Tries to encapsulate the whole
human enterprise.
The tree – inadequate image,
does not change → does not

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 respond to things humans do, it
has no free will, has no fading
beauty that we have – we
become the scarecrow
Yeats trying to make worthy the
scarecrow.
The tree is not a tree without
those leams.

Exclamation ​ body swayed to music, O

‘O Both ‘o’s suggest the sublimity
Present participle brightening glance,/ How can and the awe of both images
Symbolism we know the dancer from the No sense of mockery
dance?/ Three components: body ,
music, dance → inseparable
The body is us.
Sways in response to the music
→ movement.
But it response to music → life,
experiences.
How we live comes out of the
free will by God in Eden →we
can choreograph the steps but it
must respond to the music.

Ends with the immortal:

Progressive verb/present
participle → brightening, the
eye looks forward, implies
something that is infinite.
Preoccupied with the realm of
the soul
Suggest the awkwanening like in
wild swans, or a soul awakening
of the continuity of the soul

Present particle of ‘brightening.’

Critics:
Helen Vendler (‘Our Secret Discipline’): ​‘Yeats’ discovery of the great importance of the creative
continuity of life… cannot erase what he has seen of the shriek of infancy and the tragedy of idealising
attachment.’
Evan Radcliffe (‘Yeats and the Quest for Unity’): ​‘Yeats again seeks to reinterpret his past and to make
his career into a unity. Thus, he re-enacts the struggle to achieve unity we have seen in ‘Among School
Children.’ And finally the concept of unity itself becomes the problem of unity.’

33