The Stolen Child by W.B. Yeats “The Stolen Child”, a poem by W.B. Yeats, can be analyzed on several levels. The poem is about a group of faeries that lure a child away from his home “to the waters and the wild”(chorus). On a more primary level the reader can see connections made between the faery world and freedom as well as a societal return to innocence. On a deeper and second level the reader can infer Yeats’ desire to see a unified Ireland of simpler times. The poem uses vivid imagery to establish both levels and leaves room for open interpretation especially with the contradictory last stanza. Nature and the land of the faeries present images of freedom throughout the first three stanzas. “There lies a leafy …show more content…
Yeats utilizes this myth to illustrate his desire for a return of innocence to society. When Ireland was primarily a pagan nation, before Catholicism and Protestantism, these myths were abundant. The image of a child, who has not yet come to realize the pains of the world, is “stolen” and brought to a world where freedom and innocence reign. Nothing can be more innocent than a child and the faeries are able to maintain that innocence through their child-like lifestyles. “Chasing frothy bubbles”(Stanza 2, line 9) and “over the young streams”(stanza 3, line 10) are both images that help portray the youthful faery world. As the reader looks deeper into the poem he/she might find alternate meanings behind the luring of the child. Yeats was a nationalist during a time of great political upheaval in Ireland. Nationalists wanted Ireland return to years before when Ireland was considered one nation. The Celtic images of the past could represent a desire to return to a time where Ireland was united. The freedom that the faery world allows is representative of the freedom that unity throughout Ireland allowed before religion and politics became large issues. Yeats purposely allows for interpretation throughout the poem especially within the last stanza. In the first three stanzas the world of the faeries is portrayed as wild and free while the world of the child
When Yeats moved back to London to pursue his interest in Arts, he met famous writers like Maud Gonne. The Poem “To Ireland in the Coming Times” is one of the poems Yeats wrote in 1892 and was published in The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends. “Know, that I would accounted
William Butler Yeats is one of the most esteemed poets in 20th century literature and is well known for his Irish poetry. While Yeats was born in Ireland, he spent most of his adolescent years in London with his family. It wasn’t until he was a teenager that he later moved back to Ireland. He attended the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin and joined the Theosophical Society soon after moving back. He was surrounded by Irish influences most of his life, but it was his commitment to those influences and his heritage that truly affected his poetry. William Butler Yeats’s poetry exemplifies how an author’s Irish identity can help create and influence his work.
In her poem “ Barn Owl”, Gwen Harwood uses many different techniques to create a poem based of life and death. By using symbolism and imagery she describes how a loss of innocents has occurred when the child rebels against their father but by doing this the child has gained maturity and undergone individual growth. In the first stanza we learn that this poem is taking place at daybreak, where a child of unknown gender and age, has crept out of the house with their fathers gun. We are unsure of why the child wants to go outside with a gun but we can assume that it was a planned event.
yeats seems forlorn in the ending because the leaving of the swans symbolize another year lost for him. he describes the swans as always coming back but he knows that one day he own't ciontinue to exsist. Their diction remains the same, yet their tones differ in the course of their last
The poem stresses the sense of sight, describing nature's first green as gold and early leaf a flower. It also describes leaves subsiding to leaves, Eden sinking to grief, and dawn
I told him it was awfully early to be disturbing folks, it‘s barely eight o’clock a the mornin‘,” said Mary O’Toole. She and Allie had formed a kinship of sorts since she had come to work for them. For all her brass and bawdiness, Mary was a sweet-tempered soul and got along well with most people. Having asked Mary what Ireland was like, Mary had obliged her question with tall-tales of Blarney Stones, Bonny Prince Charlie, and the wee ones- Leprechauns she referred to as “the little people.” - However, when she spoke of the love people held for one another and the velvety beauty of Ireland’s lush green hills and valleys, Allie could tell that Mary missed her homeland very
One of the few purposes of this scene in the play is to introduce the fairies to the audience. This is important as the fairy’s play a large role in propelling the plot forward to its conclusion. The fairies are derived from characters familiar to English folklore and are some of the most memorable characters in Shakespeare’s Midsummers Night’s Dream. Shakespeare uses poetic imagery as a way to develop the fairies characters as a group and to grant to audience greater understanding of the play. For example when the writer of this play writes in the words of a fairy: “Through bush/ through brier/ over park, over pale/ through flood/ through fire/ I do wander
While Yeats becomes conscious of the violent truth of nature which results in death, by watching the swans, he is able to comfort himself by admiring how the swans are “unwearied” and “their hearts have not grown old.” When
One major theme presented in the poem comes about when one gets an interpretation of Yeat’s true message. Although ,Yeats experiences how the thin line between the undefinable parts of life and a distant reality exists when all begins to become blurred together; no one sees the difference anymore, theme
In the first line, the word ‘many’ tells the audience that her beauty was pursued by rivals. Whereas in the third line, the word ‘one’ emphasise Yeats’ unique love towards her passionate soul. By contrasting ‘many’ and ‘one’, it conveys that other men loved ‘your’ physical appearance and it is not true love. However, ‘I’ love ‘your’ intrinsic nature and everything about ‘you’. Yeats intended to use this poem to illustrate ‘I’ am the only one who loved ‘you’ for real. Furthermore, Yeats appeals to logic by using antithetical terms, ‘false’ and ‘true’, ‘beauty’ and ‘pilgrim soul’, ‘your moments of glad grace’ and ‘the sorrows of your changing face’, pointed out how difference his love is compared with other men.
Yeats begins the poem with the first two lines painting an image of society falling apart and breaking down, one that O’Brien refers to as a “cultural breakdown.”He says, “The falcon represents those forces that function productively only when disciplined.” In order to maintain structure and to prevent the gyre from widening further, our society needs discipline, otherwise our structure, our faith, or very nature as human beings deteriorates. At this time in our society, our discipline in our faith is gone. Our discipline in our morals and ethics is gone.
Yeats displays the faeries as affectionate beings to reveal how the child was able to trust them throughout the journey. Affection is of much important to a child, and the faeries’ affection toward the child allowed them to hold authority over the child when they commanded him to come away with them. The faeries also show the child how intimate they are with one another as they are “weaving olden dances / Mingling hands and mingling glances / Till the moon has taken flight;” (17-19). They don’t just share touch with one another, but their “glances” (18) at one another represent how they choose to keep each other accountable. This kind of intimacy is something that a child desperately craves from their families. As the child witness the intimacy that the faeries are inviting him into, he becomes more inclined to delve into their community even at the cost of losing his own family in the process.
William Butler Yeats, born in Dublin, Ireland [June 13, 1865], is considered by many to be one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century. The following exposition, grounded on the hypothesis that Yeats’ poetry was resolutely influenced by the political occurrences of that time period, will give biographical information, a recounting of the political upheaval during that period, specific poetry excerpts/critical analysis and validation of hypothesis.
A discussion is made on the development of poetic voice and subject in his writing. A broad development of Yeats poetic form, style and technique will discuss in two periods and the influence of these two periods on his themes, context and subject. These points will discuss with the help of some selected poems from his poetry. After providing an analysis, I will draw appropriate conclusion.
The next stanza builds upon the idea of desensitization, into the idea of a loss of innocence with “The Rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the Rose,/ The moon doth with delight/Look round her when the heavens are bare, Waters on a starry night/Are beautiful and fair;/The sunshine is a glorious birth;/But yet I know, where’er I go,/That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. In youth there is an excitement