A Personal Response to the Poetry of W.B Yeats
Of all the poets on my Leaving Cert course, WB Yeats is easily my favourite. Several aspects of his poetry appeal to me: the political / polemical dimension to his work, his use of nature as a theme and his reflection on old age, the body and the soul. Although I am at ease in engaging with Yeats themes it is also his unique craft that has an impact on me. Yeats is a poet who uses powerful metaphors and images that have a very memorable quality that in my view, makes Yeats the most quotable of poets. Finally, the one thing I love about Yeats’ poetry is its dynamic quality. Yeats sets up dynamic contrasts in every one of his poems which for me makes his poetry interesting and thought – provoking. I found these traits particularly evident in “Sailing to Byzantium”, “Easter 1916” , “September 1913”, “The Wild swans at Coole”, “Lake Isle Of Inisfree” and “The Stare’s Nest by my window."
I have a great interest in Irish history and I must say that I really love how Yeats writes political and polemical poems set in early twentieth century Ireland. This, in my view can be best seen in “September 1913”, a highly structured apostrophe where Yeats launches a powerful polemic against the merchant classes. It is a bitter invective against the working classes. Yeats condemns those who “add the half pence to the pence” and “fumble in a greasy till”. Yeats writes of how the “marrow” has been figuratively “from the bone of the country”. However in my reading, the full thrust of Yeats polemic is felt in the third stanza where Yeats presents a catalogue of Ireland’s dead heroes. The names ring out with an almost mythical force: “ For this Edward Fitzgerald died, and Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone”. This poem is in my view a memorable and thought provoking apostrophe which I feel is quite relevant in our age of rampant materialism. Yeats work is in my opini...