W.B Yeats - The Wild Swans at Coole

Question 1

Theme

Answer 1

frailty of human life in the poem

Question 2

Poetic Techniques

Answer 2

Wistful tone

Symbolism

Question 3

“autumn beauty”

Answer 3

in this poem autumn represents the harvesting, gathering and withering of life

Question 4

‘swans’

Answer 4

are a symbol of timeless beauty, eternal love, idyllic life, freedom and fidelity. The swans also symbolize permanence as their perfect beauty will never fade

Question 5

‘lover by lover’

Answer 5

implies a feeling of loneliness on Yeats who had recently had his marriage proposal rejected by the woman he loved , Maude Gonne

Question 6

‘trod with a lighter tread

Answer 6

He reflects on a time where he ‘trod with a lighter tread’ but now ‘[his] heart is sore’, due to unrequited love

Question 7

‘[his] heart is sore’,

Answer 7

He reflects on a time where he ‘trod with a lighter tread’ but now ‘[his] heart is sore’, due to unrequited love

Question 8

‘nineteenth autumn has come upon [him]’

Answer 8

Now time has caught up with him

Question 9

‘nine-and-fifty’

Answer 9

Yeats also states that there are ‘nine-and-fifty’ swans but swans usually travel in couples which leads us to question if Yeats himself is the fifty-ninth swan.