In Memory of W.B. Yeats

Auden wrote (or finished) "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" shortly after Yeats died as an elegy to Yeats (and it is one of the best 20th century elegies). However, like Yeats' "Under Ben Bulben," it's also a poem about poetry. Consider in your response how the poem addresses BOTH things.
Also, after reading "In Memory of W.B. Yeats," go back to Yeats' "Under Ben Bulben" and see if you see any similarities or hear any echoes between the two poems; if so, note those in your response.

The poem starts off with beautifully crafted imagery. It’s as though the whole world mourns Yeats. “The brooks were frozen, the air-ports almost deserted,//And snow disfigured the public statues;//The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day” It’s useful to the speaker that this death did happen in winter as it lends itself so easily to a world in mourning. The next part involving the river flowing and the wolves running however, contradicts this. This then suggests that things continued on, outright calling out that his poetry would continue on regardless of Yeats’ death. “The death of the poet was kept from his poems.”
One of the noticeable points that this and “Under Ben Bulben” seem to have in common is the commentary on calling people to the arts, something Yeats had done at other times as well and is likely an homage to him in this piece as well as a continued call.

With a farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress

A man can only do so much in his life, and should reach for greater, something I recall from “Ben Bulben.” The final lines truly call this to mind: “In the prison of his days//Teacher the free man how to praise.”

Good (and funny) on the setting/mood, and good on one of the main echos of "Ben Bulben," but don't both address and give advice to poets?
Doesn't this poem also say other, more subtle things about the poet and his work than that the work lives on, and what do you think of what this poem says of poetry?

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

After reading "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" and making some notes on it, click on this link to hear Yeats reading the poem. Focus in your response on how his reading confirms, adds to or alters your understanding of the poem.

As I read the poem, I felt it was a longing. The footnote I feel agrees with this. This is his ideal wish, to create this home for himself in Innisfree. The first stanza has him describing the place, “And a small cabin will I have there, of clay and wattles made” He even says he will have bean rows and bees, perhaps things he had growing up or that help him recall his joyful days there. The speaker feels he’ll find peace at this place, “And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,//Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the crickets sings” He feels peace can be found in this sort of place because it’s not some maddening fast paced environment. The speaker even feels pulled to this other place, as he heard the sound of the lake he missed where ever he went, sort of haunting him.

"I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core."

Listening to it, I feel my opinion and his agree on this poem. He sounds like a sad old man when he reads this poem.

No Second Troy

"No Second Troy" almost HAS to be read as authobiographical, containing pretty clear references to Maud Gonne. (Another poem Yeats wrote to/for her, which the ladies might find touching, is "The Folly of Being Comforted".) Interestingly, however, Yeats transcends the personal by identifying Maud Gonne with Helen of Troy. Focus on this in your response.

The references to Gonne are for her passion as a revolutionary activist and her strength in that. The similarities between herself and Helen of Troy make good sense when thinking of it from Yeats’ point of view. He loved her as men loved Helen, leading to the infamous war. What I suggest though, is that the speaker’s Helen is not just some great beauty, but a woman of strong passion that can make things for herself. The speaker asks, “Was there another Troy for her to burn?” which suggests many things. Would this woman be the downfall to great nations, perhaps by way of revolutional inspirations? To me, I feel she is as the title suggests. “No Second Troy” meaning she will not be one to be used and an item to be stolen.

Yes, the speaker (or Yeats) sees her this way, but Gonne also turned many other men's (and more politically involpved ones) heads.
On the title, maybe you're right, but maybe it also means she does what she does BECAUSE there is no second Troy for her to cause to be burned--that she's a Helen outside of her proper (heroic) time?
See Yeats' other poems on the Irish Rebellion--he was pretty ambivalent about it.

I enjoyed reading this poem there were times when I felt like the speaker was describing Maude and there were other times when the speaker was describing Helen. I especially felt that the first half of the poem was specifically about Maude and the second half of the poem was specifically about Helen. What do you think?

Easter 1916 & September 1913

Before you read "Easter 1916," read "September 1913." In responding to these, focus on the different views of/attitudes toward the Irish expressed in these poems, and speculate (having read the intro to Yeats in the book) about what caused this difference.
I feel that “September” could be better set to music than “Innisfree” because of the repetition of that final line. Not overly relevant, just a thought there. “September” is about what Yeats sees as a lack of passion in his countrymen. Here specifically, the speaker speaks of a lack of passion for the arts at first, with the reference to the lack of care the middle class held for the possibility of housing a collection of French impressionist painting when all that was asked for was a place to put them. Later the speaker brings in mention of prominent figures in the fight for Ireland’s freedom. He suggests that if they could go back and “call those exiles as they were” that people would still say they were made mad by “some woman’s yellow hair” lured into their behaviors by means beyond themselves. That is just dismissive and disrespectful of them, which I feel is what is being expressed in this poem. His repeated line, “Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,//It’s with O’Leary in the grave.” is I feel the simplest sum of this poem.

In “Easter” we see Yeats taking back his previous words. The speaker here talks of knowing these men, these people likely when he held the opinions expressed in “September”, but that they have since changed, “All changed, changed utterly://A terrible beauty is born.” as he repeats here. He again lists of people who fought, most who were executed, then goes on talking about the change. The speaker here sees that the people have changed; they don’t just sit idly by and allow things to happen around it.

You only get the first poem at the end--how does that refrain relate to what the speaker is saying of the Irish in the first?
Better on the second, but how would you characterize the tone of it (especially that "A terrible beauty is born")? See an attitude toward the Uprising developing between "No Second Troy" and this?
If you want a poem that REALLY should be set to music, respond to "Who Goes With Fergus." (actually, though, "Down By the Salley Gardens" is the one poem of Yeats that has most often been set to music).

Under Ben Bulben

"Under Ben Bulben" is a self-epitaph, written in anticipation of the poet's own death.It begins (first three parts) by transferring an ancient sybil (female soothsayer) to Ireland, and goes on to talk of Irish history and the Irish.
We’re set off with mystical images: Sages and the Witch of Atlas, horsemen and fairy women, a company of immortals that travels through the dawn by the mountain, Ben Bulben. I feel with this presentation, these are all the same people. The next stanza speaks of the mortality of man. The speaker suggests that no matter how a person might die, it is not death they fear, but “A brief parting from those dear” and once dead their burial carries them along to their final eternity. I find this suggestion interesting; it involves no mention of Heaven or Hell, simply eternity and what waits there, being your loved ones. The third stanza goes on to reference John Mitchel, Irish nationalist, who called men to arms with his line, “Send war in our time, O Lord!” It almost reads as standing to fight is a natural position to man,
“Know that when all words are said
And a man is fighting mad,
Something drops from eyes long blind
He complete his partial mind,
For an instant stands at ease.”
Also saying that all men feel this at some point of time, “Before he can accomplish fate//Know his work or choose his mate.”
I can see the soothsayer business in the first part, the sybil being part of the company at the start. I don’t personally know Irish mythology, but the belief that when you’re put into the ground it you pass along into eternity was also slightly mentioned in “Dead Man’s Dump”, though Rosenburg did not specify eternity, he say that the dead soldiers had returned to the earth, making me feel that the burial of a body might be a key factor in their mourning and passing process.

In part 4, the speaker addresses the Irish poet, tracing the history of art from Michaelangelo to the unsatisfactory present, which he calls upon the present Irish poet to improve.
This continues in part 5, where the speaker gives more specific direction to the Irish poets.
This section is a plee to the artists (including writers I’m sure, but here most named are especially of artistic merit) to continue creating, to make great works like Michaelanglo’s Sistine Chapel that has lasted the ages can continue to be creating and give a beautiful meaning to life and representation of a further purpose. The second artist he mentions, Quattrocento created works of dreamy images that also gave the speaker thoughts of the eternal. Then he calls up artists and poets, which both include Blake and more than one are followers of Blake, which makes good sense in this context. Blake was not only a master, but his strong faith and works of faith fit in perfectly. The speaker doesn’t just want art for art’s sake, he wants it to have meaning, to show people that there is more beyond this existence and to give a spark to life.

Finally, in part 6, the poem focuses on Yeats himself, his life, his grave and epitaph. In responding, expand on these notes, quoting to support your commentary. As I say in the schedule, we'll come back to this poem when we get to W.H. Auden's "In Memory of W.B. Yeats."
It’s rather morbid honestly, I couldn’t imaging writing something about my grave like this. I feel here again, he wishes to push for a lack of vanity in himself. He wants his grave simple, “No marble, no conventional phrase” At his grave he wants the words, “Cast a cold eye/On life, on death.//Horseman, pass by!” I feel that he is still pushing for us to think about more than just living and existing, to actually work to make something of oneself and to give a meaning to life. Also I feel he suggests we should not fear death, as possibly the speaker no longer does. By this point, I know Yeats had buried many friends, so I feel he has come to accept it in this.

On the first 3 parts, isn't Yeats' speaker actually focusing on the continuum of Irish history and culture, placing that within the context of the whole of history, and suggesting that when Irishmen dies, they become a part of that history, that culture? And isn't he tracging Irish history to his time? Doesn't this tie it better to the next part, on the history of art, placing Irish art within it?
Also, on the directions to poets, isn't he adressing Irish poets, calling on them to preserve and promote Irish culture?
Also rethink/reread the ending in this context.

The Second Coming

"The Second Coming," as I said above, illustrates Yeats' theory of history repeating itself in a rising and narrowing spiral, on different planes of reality. Use this (and the footnote) to discuss what the poem suggests (and how) about the (1919) present it represents--about the way in which the speaker sees this age as a repetition, with difference, of the advent of Christ.

His suggestion of the Second Coming at this time makes good sense. The whole of Europe is recovering from one World War and have little clue of the one to follow it soon after. Ireland itself has gone through some Hellish times by way of the rebellion shaking things up and were at that time dealing with the Anglo-Irish War itself. “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” sounds like a good way to put it. The world at Christ’s birth was also rather chaotic and much of the power (I believe, from what I recall of history) that much of the power was held by one empire (Rome) which maybe at this point he equates with England not purely because they are a super power (they took a big hit in the war and I think this is about the time America was coming into its “super power” status), but also because England has such a hold on Ireland and wishes to squash out rebellion and not allow questioning. This is a time of change, as was the time of Christ. The speaker feels like this is all building up to something, and his idea of this something is the Anti-Christ.

Decent reading of the poem's inspiration, though I think you get a bit too much into the England/America thing here. Aren't the most interesting aspects of this the view of history as a spiral and the poem's prophetic nature: the view of what's coming as the work of an antichrist (history repeating itself as tragedy)?

The Wild Swans at Coole

The "poem idea" of "The Wild Swans at Coole" is a return. In it, the speaker has returned to a place 19 years after his last visit. What has changed (in the scene and the speaker)? How does the speaker feel about this?
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It’s interesting that he visits in the fall as that is very much a time of change in itself. That isn’t actually a change for his view, however, considering his original visit was also in the fall. The primary change in the place he’s visiting is the swans. His first visit, he couldn’t count everyone before they flew off. Then this time he gets an exact point, 59, which we can assume is less considering he was able to make the point. Though perhaps the swans are also older and more subdued in age, not skitting off in fear of some stranger. The speaker sees his own aging and changing though as he considers the change in the amount of swans. He recalls that he had “trod with a lighter tread” then and now that there are fewer swans, and says that “my heart is sore” suggesting it’s simply or them, but ti is for everything, how things all change. At first I thought his wondering where the swans would go when they had left him had meant his death, giving the impression of his own immortality, but I feel now that it’s a matter of lose. He takes it well though, knowing his lose is another man’s gain, even though he might not be exactly pleased with this.

I can tell you're not up to snuff from the spelling in this, but good on that the poem is really about the speakers' sense of loss, and VERY good on the last part--minus quotes.