Early Yeats - Writing Prompts

1. As we discussed today at some length, Yeats formed--and projected in his work--an idea of Ireland while he was living in England, trying to make a name for himself as a writer. He created an idealized, imagined Ireland that was both an escape from industrialized, secular England and a return to the magical land of his childhood (as we discussed, Yeats was quite Romantic in this way). Declan Kiberd writes that for Yeats, Ireland "would be [. . .] the sort of place endlessly invented by exiles who fear that, if they do not give it a local habitation in words, it may entirely disappear." If your only idea of Ireland came from early Yeats, what would that place--that "habitation in words"--look like? Use examples.

2. Yeats immediately follows "The Song of the Happy Shepherd" with "The Sad Shepherd." These are the first two poems in Crossways. What is it that makes the first shepherd happy, the second sad? If the poems are meant to be read in succession (and they surely are; Yeats was a creator of books, and the order of poems is very important to the story of each book), then how does the second poem resonate with/expand upon/contradict/or illuminate the first (and vice versa)?

3. If "Down by the Sally Gardens" and "When You are Old" were part of the same story, what would the plot be?

4. In "The Two Trees," Yeats writes of "The ravens of unresting thought." In the context of the poem, where do these "ravens" come from? What might they symbolize? (Why not doves, or pigeons, for example?) And, by extension, are there other moments of "unrest" in these early poems? Where?

5. In "To Ireland in the Coming Times," Yeats writes, "While still I may, I write for you / The love I lived, the dream I knew." Talk about the idea of writing, and the importance of words, in this poem and others from the early work. How does Yeats view the act of writing? There are a lot of possible answers here, but please make specific reference to the poems.

6. In our discussion of "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," we talked about the sound and rhythm of the poem, and how Yeats uses both to mimic what he describes ("bee-loud glade," "peace comes dropping slow," "cricket sings," "lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore," etc. Plato and Aristotle called this "mimesis," or art representing nature. Point to other places in the early poems where the rhythm and sound "mime" the content of the poem. (Note: I don't expect you to be an expert on this, but it would be really cool if someone were to try this one.)

Thanks, and I'll see you on Friday. In the meantime, I'm off to drive with Fergus...