Yeats - September 1913

Question 1

Yeats opens the poem with a satirical, rhetorical question. Quote to support.

Answer 1

What need you, being come to sense,

But fumble in a greasy till

Question 2

The Irish middle class were mean, penny-pinching and fearfully devoted to their religion. Quote to support.

Answer 2

And add the halfpence to the pence,

And prayer to shivering prayer until,

Question 3

They took everything they could… quote to support.

Answer 3

You have dried the marrow from the bone?

Question 4

He derides them saying their only purpose in life was to say prayers and save money… quote to support

Answer 4

For men were born to pray and save:

Question 5

What is the refrain of September 1913?

Answer 5

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,

It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Question 6

The men of Irish history who fought for freedom were different to these penny-pinching middle-classes of 1913. Quote to support.

Answer 6

Yet they were of a different kind.

Question 7

There was a sense of inevitable death for these men who fought for the Irish freedom. Quote to support.

Answer 7

For whom the hangman’s rope was spun

Question 8

Yeats wonders if the Ireland of 1913 was the Ireland for which these brave men fought. Quote to support.

Answer 8

All that deilirium of the brave?

Question 9

The men who fought for freedom gave their lives freely for the cause. Quote to support.

Answer 9

They weighed so lightly what they gave.