Yeats Handout

English 203

Dr. Fike

Yeats's Romantic Legacy:

1. "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
   1. Speaker
   2. Allusions

                                                               i.      Bible:

                                                             ii.      Thoreau:

3. Imagery
4. Time
5. Insofar as the _________________ activates the _________________, the poem gives us a clear parallel to _____________________.

2. "The Song of Wandering Aengus"
   1. Shelley's
   2. Irish landscape and myth
   3. "I":___________::the maid:_________________.

POINT:  Yeats moved from early Romanticism to later disillusion, especially in terms of the physical body.

Poems about Mortality:

1. "Among School Children"
2. "Sailing to Byzantium"
3. "The Wild Swans at Coole"

Antinomies:

1. Definition:
2. Examples:
3. Poems: 

1. "The Coming of Wisdom with Time"

Though leaves are many, the root is one;

Through all the lying days of my youth

I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;

Now I may wither into the truth.

2. "Crazy Jane Talks to the Bishop"

Yeats's Use of Myth:

1. Classical myth:  "Leda and the Swan"
2. Yeats's own myth of history:  "The Second Coming"
3. Christian myth:  "The Magi"

Art:

1. "Lapis Lazuli"
2. "Sailing to Byzantium"
3. "Byzantium"