The Cold Heaven Flashcards
What’s the context of ‘The Cold Heaven’?
- From ‘Responsibilities, 1914’
- Written when WBY realised that Maud Gonne would probably never accept him
How does the poem ‘The Cold Heaven’ display WBY confusion over the afterlife and destiny?
- the use of an oxymoron in the title ‘The Cold Heaven’
“Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven” - the “rook” is a crow - a bird associated with death - “cold” and “delighting” are an antithesis which further emphasises WBY’s confusion
“Confusion of the death-bed” displays how WBY is so afraid of death and the afterlife as he has now lost his eternal love, Gonne, so has nothing to cling to in the afterlife.
“when the ghost begins to quicken” emphasises WBY’s fear at the coming of death and how it appears to getting closer to him
How are WBY feelings concerning Maude Gonne shown in ‘The Cold Heaven’?
“stricken/ by the injustice of the skies for punishment”- WBY feels fate has done him no favours and is angry at nature and the way of the world: he doesn’t want to spend eternity without Gonne; he has now lost his paper.
“I took all the blame out of all sense and reason”- WBY removes all rational thought from himself as he blames reason for his failure to unite himself with Gonne (he believes in the fate of the star crossed lovers) so he is left only with pure emotion, which he can put down on paper
Repetition of “all” accentuates WBY’s feeling of loss
What references are made to Shakespeare ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in ‘The Cold Heaven’?
“with the hot blood of youth, of love crossed long ago”- “hot blood of youth” emphasises how Yeats was more lively and energetic in his youth, when he believed he had a chance with Gonne; now he is “cold” and dire
“love crossed long ago” emphasises how the chance of them coming together was lost “long ago” OR could make allusion to Shakespeare’s “star-crossed lovers” (Romeo & Juliet) and how WBY feels they were meant for each other
“with the hót blóod of yóuth, of lóve cróssed lóng agó” – pseudo volta with awkward spondaic metre on the vowel sounds: this acts to split the poem
How is WBY overwhelming emotions and heartbreak shown in ‘The Cold Heaven’?
“ice burned and was but the more ice”- oxymoron of “ice burned” emphasises the pain Yeats feels and how they are coming from two different sources: heartbreak and fear of death
“was but the more ice” highlights how Yeats feels no way out and that no matter how much pain he experiences “burns”, there will yet be more “ice”
“imagination and heart were driven/ so wild”- “imagination”, “heart”, “driven” and “wild” all emphasise how WBY feels he has no control and his emotions were just taking over- contrast with “cold” and with his idea of being trapped and surrounded by ice
How are WBY feelings of loss shown in ‘The Cold Heaven’?
“every casual thought of that and this/ vanished” – all “casualness” and emotion has been “driven” from him
“vanished” is emphatically positioned at the start of the line to emphasise how not only did his casual thoughts and emotions vanish but as did his hopes of love and of heaven
“vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season”- “left but memories” emphasises how WBY has lost all sense of purpose for the present or future and the idea of a future eternity means nothing to him: the only thing important to him is the memories he shares of time he had hope of being with Gonne.
“should be out of season” emphasises the end of a cycle of his hope of being with Gonne; the end of his life and his facing of death; and implications of out of the mating season, so Gonne is no longer an option to be with him
“I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro”- following WBY’s loss of all rational thought, he then lets out all emotion- leaving him empty, naked and “cold”
like “all sense and reason”, the tricolon and polysndetic listing (“and”) illustrates how WBY feels he has lost so much
The feet of each line of the poem climbs and falls between 5,6 and 7 feet on each line, emphasising the “rocked to and fro” motion
“sent/ out naked” – WBY feels that now he has been drained of emotion and rational thought, he is “naked”
Feels that he will leave life as he entered it, “naked” and confused like a baby, having achieved nothing throughout life
What does the line “Riddled with light” exemplify in ‘The Cold Heaven’?
- how WBY feels that all good in nature (“light”) is in fact a façade that is confusing and riddling man- he questions the goodness of heaven, and of the afterlife (“light”)
What word shows the crux of the poem in ‘The Cold Heaven’?
“Ah!” acts as the crux of the poem; an apostrophe to the reader, and what follows is the climax of the poem
What is the structure, form and rhyme scheme of the poem ‘The Cold Heaven’?
- One stanza of free verse mixed with an Alexandrine to emphasise WBY’s confusion as to whether fate prevails or his life is made up of his own choices (fixed Alexandrine vs free verse)
- Large amounts of enjambment and the irregularity of line lengths make the poem feel like a trail of thought
- The reduced sonnet (with the last two lines without a rhyming couplet) display how his love to Maud was never fully achieved and how his questions on the afterlife can never be fully answered
- Alternate rhyme scheme (ABAB) emphasises the contrast between life and death, and unrequited love compared with unreturned love
- Abundance of feminine rhymes (eg. “reason” and “season”) and lack of masculine rhymes display that, although the poem appears about death”, MG and WBY’s love for her is also a pressing component of the poem
