W.B.Yeats:Poems

 Thinking Activity : W.B.Yeats:Poems

This Blog is a response to the thinking activity on 'W.B.Yeats's poems' given by professor Dr. Dilip Barad Sir. 

William Butler Yeats[a] (13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish literary establishment who helped to found the Abbey Theatre. In his later years he served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State.

A Protestant of Anglo-Irish descent, Yeats was born in Sandymount and was educated in Dublin and London and spent childhood holidays in County Sligo. He studied poetry from an early age, when he became fascinated by Irish legends and the occult. From 1900 his poetry grew more physical, realistic and politicised. He moved away from the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with some elements including cyclical theories of life. He had become the chief playwright for the Irish Literary Theatre in 1897, and early on promoted younger poets such as Ezra Pound. Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923. His major later works include 1928's The Tower and Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems, published in 1932.

His Famous Works:-

1. Meru

2. Leda and the Swan

3. The Song of Wandering Aengus

4. He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead

5. When You Are Old

6. The Circus Animals Desertion

7. Lake Isle of Innisfree

8. The Sad Shepherd

9. The second coming

10. Easter 1916

1. The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

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?

"The Second Coming" is a poem written by Irish poet W. B. Yeats in 1919, first printed in The Dial in November 1920, and afterwards included in his 1921 collection of verses Michael Robartes and the Dancer. The poem uses Christian imagery regarding the Apocalypse and Second Coming to allegorically describe the atmosphere of post-war Europe. It is considered a major work of modernist poetry and has been reprinted in several collections, including The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. 

   

This poem is one of the most successful poems of William Butler Yeats. It is a non rhyming poem.It is a poem of Twenty Two lines expressing the opinion of the second incarnation.

 

When Yeats wrote ‘The Second Coming’ the First World War had just ended, memories of the Easter Rising in Ireland were still vivid and revolution had broken out in Russia. The world appeared to be in a state of flux and chaos.

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;"

In the first stanza of the poem the poet explains the state of Complete disorder in Ireland. The poet says that time passes very fast and the wheel of time also moves fast. It changes rapidly. The poet further says that the Falcon does not hear the Falconer. Here Falcon is a small but to prey and falconer is a trainer of the bird who trains the Falcon in art of preying.or who gives the training of praying to the Falcon. But now Falcon is not in the control of his trainer.

  

"The Blood dimmed tide loosed"

During the First World War there was killing and death. There were many rivers of blood. Many innocent men died. His wife caught the virus and was very close to death. The highest death rates of the 1918–19 pandemic were among pregnant women—in some areas, there was an up to 70 percent death rate for these women.So here we found this poem as pandemic. It was a very terrible situation as we were faced because of the corona pandemic.This all symptoms we found in Infected people and also found in COVID -19 so people are different from both the pandemic but symptoms and situation are same. In another way we can say that the best people are confused about what to do and the worst not the worst but free - wanderers are free to do what they want to do and the poor people are facing so many problems due to lockdown. As we know, there was a rule that they weren't allowed to open shops and other things but they were sitting in the crowd and doing timepass which was strictly denied by the government.

  

"Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the second coming is at hand "

There is a terrible picture of Christ when he will come the second Time. There will be the body of a lion and the head of a man. There will be sand and the scorching rays of the Sun. The figure will move slowly in the darkness.

During the pandemic time, people became more religious,they started worshipping god more and more and expected some relief and help from God. referencing that people are believing that the second coming will surely happen and things will get better. The situation will again get back to normal.

  

There will be "A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun." 

 And no sympathy in the eyes. The bad people will surely be punished.

The second coming however ends with hope

"rocking cradle".

It seems as if the poet is influenced by Hindu philosophy because the incarnation of the God 'Narsimha' resembles the imagination of the poem. As Jesus Christ took birth on the earth to save mankind. Like that the second incarnation of God also would appear on the earth to save mankind.

2. On Being Asked for a War Poem

I think it better that in times like these

A poet's mouth be silent, for in truth

We have no gift to set a statesman right;

He has had enough of meddling who can please

A young girl in the indolence of her youth,

Or an old man upon a winter’s night.

 

"On being asked for a War Poem" is a poem by William Butler Yeats written on February 6, 1915 in response to a request by Henry James that Yeats compose a political poem about World War I. Yeats changed the poem's title from "To a friend who has asked me to sign his manifesto to the neutral nations" to "A Reason for Keeping Silent" before sending it in a letter to James, which Yeats wrote at Coole Park on August 20, 1915. The poem was prefaced with a note stating: "It is the only thing I have written of the war or will write, so I hope it may not seem unfitting."The poem was first published in Edith Wharton's The Book of the Homeless in 1916 as "A Reason for Keeping Silent".When it was later reprinted in The Wild Swans at Coole, the title was changed to "On being asked for a War Poem".

It’s one of Yeats’s shortest well-known poems, comprising just six lines, and sets out why Yeats chooses not to write a ‘war poem’ for publication. The poem is written in iambic pentameter, rhymed abcabc. The final two lines are the only ones which might cause some real head-scratching from readers (and critics), but Yeats appears to be making an appeal to the broad readership that poetry (including his poetry, by 1915) enjoyed: young girls might enjoy his romantic verses about old Ireland, while an old man might enjoy the ballads.W B Yeats was lived in the time of world war because he know very well about world war. In this poem he describes his emotions and feelings.

"On Being Asked for a War Poem

I think it better that in times like these"

In the poem, the first stanza is about forthright and conversation for " times like these". When the poet writes of “a poet’s mouth” being silent, he is using a technique called metonymy. Like metaphor, metonymy substitutes one thing for another. Metaphor does this by contrasting different things but in metonymy, something closely related to something else is substituted.

"We have no gift to set a statesman right"

In this stanza This seems to say that poetry has no place in intervening in politics, and the poet has no role in making big statements about wars and what causes them.

One

In this stanza the poet says that A quick change in imagery and reference point, from the macrocosm to the microcosm, from the world of politics to the world of intimate acquaintances.this completes the scope of the poet’s influence. Does this mean that poetry is suited to everyday lessons and life? That the poet’s role is to appeal to beauty and wisdom, youth and age? These certainly seem narrower limits to the role of poetry than ‘setting statesmen right’.

Thank you…

Words:-1658

Images:- 1