In one sense, the swans stand for life-force: there hearts have not grown old, and they find the stream companionable despite its coldness. They are vigorous and powerful. This article needs additional citations for. It is about the pain of time's passing and the struggle to uphold the integrity of the soul. In short, he is aware that his life has quickly passed him by, and while nature stays the same, everything else in his life has changed.
Apparently, he's been watching these swans for quite a while âyears, even. He reminisces on the previous years, remembering the first time he had seen the swans in the water, the awe he felt when watching them take flight, and the sound of their wings beating above him. This passion and association with the heart not only links back to Maud Gonne, but also demonstrates just how much love Yeats has for Ireland. The sun, which has set, represents his youth, and it can be assumed that the poet is feeling as if the best times of his life have passed him by, and all that is left to do now is to wait for death. Analysis and Theme of the Poem Take a look at each stanza and interpret the literal meanings and the themes that emerge as we go. I believe it repesents something missing in Yates life. The lively swans movements stand out against the still setting.
This is obviously a reflection on Yeats being knocked back for the second time by the love of his life. I have looked upon those brilliant creatures, And now my heart is sore. When he was younger he was more carefree but now the flapping of the swans wings feel heavy on him. Yeats is of course not in the water and is therfore not part of everyday life. The lyrical poem includes three main subjects: setting, serving as a correlative to these feelings, Swans as the trigger, and the poet himself.
No requests for explanation or general short comments allowed. Yeats knew many of the rebels involved in the Easter Rising. Works Cited Yeats, William Butler. This poem discusses the fall of life, this is paralleled in the setting. Could it be the love of a women or the chance for love that has long since gone? He seems to dread the future and the disappointment he assumes that it will bring. Though Yeats never learned Gaelic himself, his writing at the turn of the century drew extensively from sources in Irish mythology and folklore. The narrator reflects on the changes in his life as a result of his growing age.
This poem is about Yeats' heartbreak over Maud Gonne not reciprocating his love for her. Also a potent influence on his poetry was the Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne, whom he met in 1889, a woman equally famous for her passionate nationalist politics and her beauty. Yeats was inspired to write the poem after seeing 59 wild swans at Coole Park, which was an estate owned by Lady Augusta Gregory in Ireland. Free Online Education from Top Universities Yes! Their Yeats studied at the Metropolitan School of Art. On the first level it can be understood as Yeats having a whinge.
It seems the swans are the one thing he can depend on as being the same year after year, and so he fears that one day they will leave him. For England may keep faith For all that is done and said. In stanza two, the speaker realizes that it has been 19 years since he first visited Coole Park and saw the swans. Perhaps he is remembering when he was younger and quite literally lighter, or perhaps he is remembering days when he did not live under such heavy burdens and could walk with a spring in his step. Posted on 2011-01-21 by a guest. The poet has seen these swans for 19 years. Posted on 2012-04-17 by a guest.
So much has changed in these 19 years since he first observed the swans so long ago. His elaborate iconography takes elements from Irish mythology, Greek mythology, nineteenth-century occultism which Yeats dabbled in with Madame Blavatsky and the Society of the Golden Dawn , English literature, Byzantine art, European politics, and Christian imagery, all wound together and informed with his own experience and interpretive understanding. It appears that when he first saw the swans, they did not make his heart sore. He himself was in England at the time of the Rising. Written between 1916 and early 1917, the poem was first published in the June 1917 issue of the , and became the title poem in the Yeats's 1917 and 1919 collections.
Yeats and MacBride had been fighting for the love of the beautiful actress and revolutionary Maud Gonne, whom Yeats adored, but who MacBride married. Due to Spam Posts are moderated before posted. The speaker says that it has been nineteen years since his first visit to Coole, when he first counted the swans on the lake. In this final stanza, the swans have returned to the lake and are 'drifting' along. In history, for example, as one kind of civilization grows and eventually dies, an opposite kind of civilization is born to take its place. In the autobiography that also serves as a biography, Wild Swans, by Jung Chang, this is seen.
Since he first counted the swans he has witnessed World War I, the Irish Civil War and has experienced heart-ache and loneliness. Born in Dublin, Ireland, on June 13, 1865, William Butler Yeats was the son of a well-known Irish painter, John Butler Yeats. In his poem, Yeats brings his readers to the realization that life, in all of its wonder, is fragile. Lesson Summary The famous Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote the poem 'The Wild Swans of Coole' after seeing 59 wild swans at Coole Park, the country estate of Yeats' friend Lady Augusta Gregory. The River Liffey divides Dublin; many of the rebels worked on the poorer north side of the city.