W. B. Yeats (Poetry) Flashcards
The Wild Swans at Coole
“The trees are in their autumn beauty the woodland paths are dry” - consonance creates calm atmosphere - delicate beauty
“Nine-and-fifty swans” - enjambment - mechanical counting reflects loneliness
“Unwearied still, loved by lover … their hearts have not grown old” - alliterated L binds swans - Yeats lonely - palpable image of disillusionment
“Heart is sore”
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
“I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree” - repetition in form of anadiplosis - tone is deliberately formal - Parable of the Prodigal son
Repeated in final stance - determination
“There midnights all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow” - radiant imagery - light connotations- syntax inversion allows for aural and visual parallels
The Stare’s Nest by my Window
“Loosening” is repeated - Ireland is crumbling
“That dead young soldier” is “trundled down the road” - harrowing image - destruction of warfare
“The heart’s grown brutal from the fare” - link to Easter 1916 - people became engrossed in their desire
“Come build in the empty house of the stare” - repeated refrain - form of a plea - becomes more desperate as poem progresses - Yeats calls on sources of nature
Easter 1916
“Enchanted to a stone / to trouble the living stream” - symbolic of rebels permanent place in Irish history - disruption to flow of ordinary life
“A nod of the head” or “polite meaningless words” - Yeats recalls dismissing the rebels - shares private opinions on a hugely public challenge
“A terrible beauty is born” - repeated paradoxical refrain - Yeats’ conflicting emotions - oxymoron
An Irish Airman Foresees his Death
“Those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love; my country is Kiltartan Cross, my countrymen Kiltartan’s poor” - paradoxical lines - pessimistic tone - life has no meaning
Use of “I” indicates persona - Robert Gregory - a fighter pilot for British army during World War One
Life is a “waste of breath”
“Years to come” and “the years behind”
