I will try to blog here in a way that separates Yeats' work into three rough periods (early, middle, and late). I will attempt to describe each period, provide examples of poems from each period, and explain some of the thematic and stylistic variation from period to period.
NOTES FROM COLLECTED POEMS
Yeats' early work...
* Song of the Happy Shepherd
Seems like an example of a london influenced somewhat self-consciously romantic poem. This is from Yeats early period.
* The Stolen Child (the theme of escape)
Interesting repetition of italicized verse. This is also an early work, and makes use of Irish Mythological content (the Faeries)
* The Lake Isle of Innisfree
Also, romantic, but a romanticism of solitutde and nature-- where poet may find peace. Yeats shows his love for County Sligo. A refreshing image that may be carried back into the grey of urban Dublin.
* When you are old
Beautiful poem written to a beautiful woman (Maude Gonne) who the speaker loved, more for who she was then simply for her physical beauty...
* Who Goes With Fergus
Joyce used this at quite a few points in Ulysses... "Who will follow King Fergus to know the wisdom of nature and have the cares of the world (possibly exhorting his generation to leave off with Ireland's political struggles and look to a deeper mythical past... There is a deeper mystical meaning, a unity, within the natural world...
* The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland
Inspired image from his time in Sligo/ Yeats as in (Fergus) encouraged young Irish to return to nature... druids felt all natural things control the divine...
* The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner
Nice poem of old age/ how women don' look at him anymore, but he has the women from his past stored in memory... he 'spits in the face of time'... Perhaps having these memories is worse, or perhaps not... maybe it really does comfort him...
* To Ireland in the Coming Times
Yeats defends his poems as patriotic, in the sense that they benefit Ireland... he implores us to remember to reflect on eternal things.
* Aedh Thinks of Those Who Have Spoken Ill and Aedh Wished for the Clothes of Heaven
Aedh is one of Yeats' three archetypal/ mythological characters. Aedh is the most romantic of the three.
* No Second Troy
A poem comparing Maude Gonne to Helen of Troy... she in her nature has spurned the speaker... may lead men and be responsible for revolution...
* September 1913
Yeats criticizes employers who locked out workers in general strike... also criticizes rampant mercenary materialism. Also celebrates Irish heroes such as John O'Leary...
* AN Irish Airman Forsees His Death
Seems the story of a poor Irish soldier dying for the British Empire... probably based on Yeats' friend's death (Major Robert Gregory)-- the only child of Yeat's patron Lady Augusta Gregory (co-founder of Abbey Theatre)...
* Easer 1916
About Yeats confused feelings about Easter 1916 uprising, in which many IRA members were executed for treason..."A terrible beauty is born"/ beauty of martyrdom?
* The Second Coming
Yeat's uses Christian imagery of the apocalypse to describe conditions in post World War I Europe... I often have an image of Hitler/ Mussolini/ and fascism emerging out of world war I... something slouching toward Bethlehem...
* A Prayer for My Daughter
During a storm the speaker imagines his infant daughter's life/ and wishes for peace and happiness for her...
* Mohini Chatterjee
Seems to be a poem in which the Brahmin tries to calm someone and worries about life with talk of reincarnation and the endless circle of samsara...
Opening quote from Virginia Woolf sets tone of book:
"All human relations have shifter-- those between masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children. And when human relations change there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, politics, and literature. Let us agree to place one of those changes abut the year 1910." (from Mr. and Mrs. Bennett)
Chapter one: (pgs. 11-24) discusses ho Yeat's deviates from stereotypical/ canonical male love poet.
Chapter two: (pgs. 25-42)
Chapter three (pgs. 43-54) deals with the concept of 'liebstod' which conflates sex with death...
Chapter four (pgs. 55-72) primarily offers Yeat's view of Ireland as represented in the image of the beloved/ woman and country are symbolically linked.
Chapter five (pgs. 73-101) discusses suffrage movement during Yeats' time and his association with Maude Gonne and the love poems about her...
Chapter six (pgs. 102-120) provides much discussion of Yeats's sex life-- particularly his wife George's disappointment with Yeats...
Chapter seven (pgs. 121-139) This chapter brings together images of love and patriotism-- especially in Easter 1916...
Chapter eight (pgs. 140-164) Much focus in this chapter on Leda and the Swan, and sexuality in Ireland being repressed by previously agrarian culture and the clergy...
Chapter nine (pgs. 165-184) A very interesting portrayal of the Crazy Jane poems as "attempt to construct the erotic as a site of popular resistance", which culminated in "Crazy Jane's defiance of the Irish Episcopate..."
Chapter fourteen (pgs. 261-287) Yeats become randy in his final years...
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