Monday, December 2, 2013
Easter, 1916, posted for Erica
When I was first reading Yeat’s poem “East 1916” I felt like the speaker was giving me a tour around their surroundings in order to experience what they were seeing. Last time I read a poem like this was “Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London” by Gay. Gay created a speaker to tell the reader what they were seeing as they were walking the London streets. For instance, the speaker described what commodities were sold on each particular day giving me a clear picture of what they were seeing. In Yeat’s poem, he is putting himself as an observer in the poem. Instead of concentrating on the commodities being sold, Yeats descrives the faces of the people around him. In particular, these faces are of the people who want to change the future of Ireland. I was not aware of what was going on in Ireland around that time so I did some research. The poem was written about the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916. Moreover, Great Britain had control over Ireland, but wanted to rebel against Britain with the help of their enemy Germany. Instead the British became aware of this rebellion and stopped it and executed many men. There were many negative feelings towards Britain around this time as you could all imagine. I figure that Yeats wrote this poem to inspire the young generation to make a change and stand up against the British. Anyways, the poem goes on and Yeats tries to relate to these ordinary people described in the poem. Most of them work for the higher class, tending to the wealthy. Yeats wants these people to open the eyes of Ireland from the tragedy that had occured around that time. The next stanza kind of loses me. Yeats talks about a woman, I am not sure of who in particular. Yeat’s opinion of the woman does not seem very positive. He refers to her as ignorant, and argumentative. I could only assume he is talking about a woman who is wealthy or identified as British due to the harsh feelings expressed in the poem. Then Yeats describes two men which I am still lost on who their identity is. However, the last man he speaks of I kind of had an idea of their identity. “To some who are near my heart” suggests that this man was close to someone he loved, or maybe his lover’s spouse? It is also suggested that he was part of the Easter rising and charged for some kind of crime. Like the other people mentioned before, Yeat’s tone suggests that he did not think so highly of them. Towards the end of the poem, Yeats mentions a stone symbolizing something that is hard. The heart of Ireland might now be stone by hopefully being taken over by the revolutioners. There were so many deaths around this rising, but Yeats suggests to the reader that only God can stop them. The whole point of the poem was to change the minds of the people around that time or to wake them up to the real issue that was at hand. I think Yeats did just that.
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This is another poem I enjoyed a lot. I agree with you in saying the woman that Yeats described is British due to his negative sentiment against her. As other readings have shown, people outside British culture tend to comment negatively on British culture at the time. Showing them as wealthy and culturally inept. I would also agree with your analysis of Yeats trying to use the poem to wake people to actual situation at hand going on in Ireland. I feel like when he says in the last stanza he says "We know their dream; enough", the dream is England's continued dreams of empire and total control over Ireland as well. Yeats, as well as most of the Irish people probably did not want this and Yeats is expressing this through this poem.
ReplyDeleteI really like your point about Yeats saying that only God can stop the deaths. Like Halina said in class, Yeats humanizes the martyrs in this poem, by taking them down off of their pedestal and showing their true light. The people of Ireland were turning their martyrs into god-like figures. This reminds me of the chain of being, and how people tried to overcome god and be better than him. But this poem shows that martyrs are human too, and cannot overcome God. Only God can stop the deaths from occurring.
ReplyDeleteI also think that the woman described was a martyr, and Yeats speaks negatively of her to show that he is not glorifying her like everyone else, but instead is attempting to show that she is human just like everyone else, and that people can't expect the martyrs to act like gods. Only God can be God. lol seems pretty evident, but i feel like that's what he was trying to get across.
DeleteI really love the third stanza of this poem. At first, it stuck out to me because it is the only stanza that does not end with the line "a terrible beauty is born." This change caused me to re-read the stanza several times. Each time the meaning changed, or "minute by minute" it changed. I especially love the imagery with the stream and clouds. To me, this stanza shows the emotional effects that war has on the human spirit. The men becomes stones that "trouble the living stream." There is a disconnect between the men involved in the war and the rest of the world, as the last two lines suggest: "Minute by minute they live: The stone's in the midst of all." Yeats is showing how the people effected by the war or participating in it are no longer truly living, instead they seem to be stuck as time carries on.
ReplyDeleteI also really enjoyed the third stanza of this poem and how the stone really does stand in the midst of it all. The idea of “blockage” that the stone poses on the water in the stream can also be compared to the blockage stanza three poses between stanzas two and four. Stanza three focuses on relishing nature and its beauty between the other stanzas that focus on the realism of the war in the world. Stanza three also contains an active voice compared to the passive voice of the other stanzas. In the first two and fourth stanzas, Yeats writes of past changes the rebels and leaders have been transformed by, while in the third, Yeats replaces the political changes with the active changes nature encounters daily. Stones which are unchangeable and inanimate cause a contrast with the multitude of living things surrounding it, such as the moving stream and the constant moving of the clouds. If the living stream represents ordinary life in Dublin, then the stones are the irreversible things that ordinary people cannot change. Yeats used this stanza to allow those ordinary people in Dublin to contemplate on the Easter Rising and decide for themselves what real beauty is and what the terrible beauty is.
ReplyDeleteSince I love this poem so much I wanted to express one other idea I had about this poem. Since we talked a little yesterday about Easter being a time of rebirth, new life, etc., I got on this nature kick (if you couldn't tell from my previous post above) and when comparing each stanza, started to take note of the focus on nature in the third stanza. Yeats first introduces the immobile stone, representing blockage and obstruction in life that will always affect the natural flow and order. The living stream can never rid itself of the troublesome stone and it is a permanent part of what makes that stream unique. After the stone, Yeats writes a list of living creatures, horse, rider, and birds which “minute by minute they change.” Yeats then diverts from living things to inorganic, keeping the same verb: “A shadow of cloud on the stream/ changes minute by minute.” This self-reversing word switch Yeats uses suggests that though nature’s changes can move backward or forward, they are fleeting. Yeats then returns to listing living creatures such as a horse, moor-hens, and moor-cocks, however, instead of using the word “change” he uses more “minute by minute” reports and uses “slides,” “plashes,” “dive,” and “live.” Yeats’ description of nature allows the readers to visualize the landscape the he is seeing, taking the audience from the horse to the rider to the birds, which allows us to take notice of the clouds and then the shadow of the cloud on the stream brings the readers back down so that they can closely focus on the rest of the things Yeats describes.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the comparison you made between this poem to Gay’s “Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London.” I totally agree with you that the format and themes within both poems are quite similar though I feel that this is more focused on the types of people one may find versus the types of sights.
ReplyDeleteWith that, my favorite stanza was the last stanza. This stanza marks tribute to those who sacrificed their lives and brought new life to the nation. The poet sees that their death has brought about a positive change and outlook among the fellow men and woman, and out of their sacrifice something beautiful has developed. I find this stanza to be the most relatable in that I feel this stanza follows the themes as presented behind the idea of “with every loss there is a gain.” This motto is one that I feel is important to live by, especially in the unpredictable world we live in today.
....And yes, I do realize I may have read a bit far into this one and maybe got a little too deep.
I really like this poem, particularly for the human aspect (like many other people in this class). It reminds me a bit of "Dulce Decorum Est." Although it is nowhere near as vivid in its imagery, it gives the reader a good feeling of the suffering and reality of battle. "Easter 1916," however does not occur on the battlefield, far away from home. It is occurring on the streets in front of Yeats' home, to people that Yeats knows on a very personal level. I think that it is an interesting poem to incorporate into the British Literature class because it does not actually show what it means to be a British person during this time period, but what it is to be an unwilling part of the British empire. This is significant, because Yeats, for how he would involve himself in Irish history and politics in his determined way, is often considered literature's triumph over politics. Placing a poem of his in a British Literature class such as the one that we are taking is as appropriate as it is surprising.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the explanation of A Terrible Beauty is born. That line was always lost on me until we talked about it in class. Though the deaths were tragic (...deflating death is so screwed up), they were necessary for the furthering of the cause. Without the people sacrificing themselves, without the stone in the river against the current, there could be no independence. What's most remarkable, is that no one knew if what they were doing would be continued. They knew they were entering into pretty certain death by answering the call to go fight, but they didn't know if they were the foolish ones, and once they went to die, no more would continue to fight for the cause.
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