I realized, looking through my very long posts, that each is very unique and the whole is a diverse mix of Irish writers matched with British writers that, to my knowledge, they aren't generally compared to. Which helps to prove my point even more: that nationalistic and political boundaries and hard feelings aside, the British and the Irish share a common language. And sharing a language means that the two sides must think in the same way, at least sometimes, as language forces one to think in a certain way according to its flexibility/confines. Therefore these boundaries are proved culturally porous, and as I have tried my best to prove, some of the greatest writers on both sides of the line seem to share common experiences in their writing, sometimes even expressing them in similar modes or styles.
Please understand that I do not mean to suggest that Irish literature is wholly offspring to its British counterpart. The Irish have their own accent, their own way of speaking English, not to mention different cultural traditions and idiosyncrasies that are simply not present in British literature, and I would be the first to say that the Irish deserve a proud and honored place in the study of British literature, just as the Indian, Scottish, Welsh, and any other variations deserve special places of honour. I mean to simply suggest that we recognize the effect of the British tradition on each nation's literature, welcome or unwelcome though it may be.
I hope that this helps my readers to see both British and Irish literature in a new light, and that they learn as much as I have in preparing my posts. If anyone needs me, I'll be reading Ulysses.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Deconstruction for New Meaning: Seamus Heaney's Bog Poems and Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body
Seamus Heaney is one of the most popular contemporary poets in the world, particularly in Ireland. His work exudes a more traditional, Romantic atmosphere, and he has a "wariness of modernism and...the postmodern" (Schmidt 921). Conversely, Jeanette Winterson is one of the UK's best writers and journalists, whose fame extends to the United States, with her United States debut being the novel I will be discussing, Written on the Body: a decidedly postmodern text ("Written on the Body" Winterson). It is apparent to all familiar with Virginia Woolf that Winterson is in dialogue with her, but I would also suggest that Winterson is in dialogue as well with Seamus Heaney, all critical differences aside.
In an article for the Times in March of 2006 (just in time for St. Paddy's Day) Winterson wrote an article entitled "Ireland Has Done Well to Keep Its Songs At the Heart of its Culture," in which she praises Irish poetry and culture, and questions whether the British have the same level of poetical ability. She also commends the way the Irish are cognizant of their culture: "[t]he Irish know their James Joyce and Seamus Heaney" (Winterson "Ireland"). Although she doesn't quote either, one gets the feeling that she is familiar with both. So rather than moving to Winterson's more recent work, I believe it may be better to begin with Heaney's example of around thirty years before.
Heaney was very influenced by his visits in the Danish countryside, where he saw the preserved remains of the bog bodies. The most popular bog poems seem to be those about the "Tollund Man" and the "Grauballe Man;" however, I will be focusing on three which are not as well-known and more applicable to Winterson's text: "Bog Queen," "Punishment," and "Strange Fruit."
"Bog Queen" is unique because of the first person narration used, which is not present in the other poems. The narrator is the Bog Queen herself, who enumerates on how she has become one with nature and been preserved, even as less enduring things like her clothing passed away: "[m]y body was braille/for the creeping influences" and "the illiterate roots/pondered and died/in the cavings/ of stomach and socket" (Heaney 108). As she describes her body, she is deconstructing it, in the way that she breaks it down into parts, and in the way that she has been metamorphosed by the bog, not to mention Heaney's characteristic short lines and small stanzas. This has the effect of making the reader more intimate with the narrator, and more interested in her as we grow to visualize her. Interestingly, the narration is written in such a way that the Bog Queen has a sort of dignity (perhaps pride) about her preserved self, and this serves to make the imagery much less morbid or creepy than it could have been.
In Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body, the narrator is suffering a great deal of emotional stress because s/he had found out that her/his love has cancer and has separated her/himself from her in the hopes that she will return to her husband, a doctor. To cope, s/he reads anatomy books, and a section of the text is set aside for the parts where the narrator reads a sentence from the anatomy books and then uses a prose-poem sort of style to describe his lover Louise's body; how s/he loved each part described above in the epigraph. It is like Heaney's poem in that the narration doesn't make the narrator morbid and obsessive so much as loving, giving us a new and fresh tenderness through the deconstruction (see Winterson 115-139).
Another part of the novel which has interested critics like Antje Lindenmeyer is the melding of the two bodies or "selves" that the narrator perceives (see page 53). At one point, s/he sees him/herself as one with Louise, so much so that s/he cannot tell the difference between the two: "[y]ou are my blood. When I look in the mirror it's not my own face I see. Your body is twice...[c]an I tell which is which?" (Winterson 99). Heaney uses a similar element in his bog poems, particularly in "Punishment." In this poem, Heaney describes a young girl who is believed to have been killed because she was an adulteress, and he starts off with lines which signify the narrator's immersion in her: "I can feel the tug/of the halter at the nape/of her neck/ the wind on her naked front" (Heaney 112). He also uses this technique in the "Tollund Man:"[s]omething of his sad freedom/ as he rode the tumbril/should come to me, driving" (Heaney 63). Although in both instances the narrator removes himself from this element, as the lover in Winterson's text does, both exhibit a larger sense of connection which, like the deconstruction, allow readers to be more interested in the story.
Lindenmeyer is also interested in the way that the narrator sees the cancer in the story. As she explains, s/he sees Louise's body turning on itself as a "law-and-order state" would deal with a civil war or rebellion. Heaney as well sees the body in very political terms: "Punishment" has to do with the execution of the adulterous women of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), as many of the other bog poems have political overtones (see Heaney 113). However, our last poem "Strange Fruit" doesn't have as much to do with politics so much as the disruption of the narrator's connection. In Written on the Body, the narrator, while describing what the cancer is doing in Louise's body, although ostensibly still caring about Louise, does not exhibit as much of the connection as s/he did before, even though s/he wishes that s/he could climb inside her body in order to protect her (Winterson 115). Similarly, Heaney's "Strange Fruit" is the most impartial of the poems, which blithely states without very much emotion exactly how the bog person looks. There is not the pride or tenderness that is present in "Bog Queen" or "Tollund Man." However, it still continues with the theme of deconstruction present in the other poems, with her head being described as an "exhumed gourd" (Heaney 114).
In Seamus Heaney's bog poems as well as Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body, there exists a method of deconstruction for the sake of familiarization between the reader and the character. Through the minute detail, we see the narrators become bound up in the "selves" of what they describe, as well as distancing themselves a little at certain times. Despite Heaney's and Winterson's differences of style, I believe that both have some similar ways of discussing and describing the body, using deconstruction as the new method of achieving the same level of feeling.
Sources:
In an article for the Times in March of 2006 (just in time for St. Paddy's Day) Winterson wrote an article entitled "Ireland Has Done Well to Keep Its Songs At the Heart of its Culture," in which she praises Irish poetry and culture, and questions whether the British have the same level of poetical ability. She also commends the way the Irish are cognizant of their culture: "[t]he Irish know their James Joyce and Seamus Heaney" (Winterson "Ireland"). Although she doesn't quote either, one gets the feeling that she is familiar with both. So rather than moving to Winterson's more recent work, I believe it may be better to begin with Heaney's example of around thirty years before.
Heaney was very influenced by his visits in the Danish countryside, where he saw the preserved remains of the bog bodies. The most popular bog poems seem to be those about the "Tollund Man" and the "Grauballe Man;" however, I will be focusing on three which are not as well-known and more applicable to Winterson's text: "Bog Queen," "Punishment," and "Strange Fruit."
"Bog Queen" is unique because of the first person narration used, which is not present in the other poems. The narrator is the Bog Queen herself, who enumerates on how she has become one with nature and been preserved, even as less enduring things like her clothing passed away: "[m]y body was braille/for the creeping influences" and "the illiterate roots/pondered and died/in the cavings/ of stomach and socket" (Heaney 108). As she describes her body, she is deconstructing it, in the way that she breaks it down into parts, and in the way that she has been metamorphosed by the bog, not to mention Heaney's characteristic short lines and small stanzas. This has the effect of making the reader more intimate with the narrator, and more interested in her as we grow to visualize her. Interestingly, the narration is written in such a way that the Bog Queen has a sort of dignity (perhaps pride) about her preserved self, and this serves to make the imagery much less morbid or creepy than it could have been.
In Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body, the narrator is suffering a great deal of emotional stress because s/he had found out that her/his love has cancer and has separated her/himself from her in the hopes that she will return to her husband, a doctor. To cope, s/he reads anatomy books, and a section of the text is set aside for the parts where the narrator reads a sentence from the anatomy books and then uses a prose-poem sort of style to describe his lover Louise's body; how s/he loved each part described above in the epigraph. It is like Heaney's poem in that the narration doesn't make the narrator morbid and obsessive so much as loving, giving us a new and fresh tenderness through the deconstruction (see Winterson 115-139).
Another part of the novel which has interested critics like Antje Lindenmeyer is the melding of the two bodies or "selves" that the narrator perceives (see page 53). At one point, s/he sees him/herself as one with Louise, so much so that s/he cannot tell the difference between the two: "[y]ou are my blood. When I look in the mirror it's not my own face I see. Your body is twice...[c]an I tell which is which?" (Winterson 99). Heaney uses a similar element in his bog poems, particularly in "Punishment." In this poem, Heaney describes a young girl who is believed to have been killed because she was an adulteress, and he starts off with lines which signify the narrator's immersion in her: "I can feel the tug/of the halter at the nape/of her neck/ the wind on her naked front" (Heaney 112). He also uses this technique in the "Tollund Man:"[s]omething of his sad freedom/ as he rode the tumbril/should come to me, driving" (Heaney 63). Although in both instances the narrator removes himself from this element, as the lover in Winterson's text does, both exhibit a larger sense of connection which, like the deconstruction, allow readers to be more interested in the story.
Lindenmeyer is also interested in the way that the narrator sees the cancer in the story. As she explains, s/he sees Louise's body turning on itself as a "law-and-order state" would deal with a civil war or rebellion. Heaney as well sees the body in very political terms: "Punishment" has to do with the execution of the adulterous women of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), as many of the other bog poems have political overtones (see Heaney 113). However, our last poem "Strange Fruit" doesn't have as much to do with politics so much as the disruption of the narrator's connection. In Written on the Body, the narrator, while describing what the cancer is doing in Louise's body, although ostensibly still caring about Louise, does not exhibit as much of the connection as s/he did before, even though s/he wishes that s/he could climb inside her body in order to protect her (Winterson 115). Similarly, Heaney's "Strange Fruit" is the most impartial of the poems, which blithely states without very much emotion exactly how the bog person looks. There is not the pride or tenderness that is present in "Bog Queen" or "Tollund Man." However, it still continues with the theme of deconstruction present in the other poems, with her head being described as an "exhumed gourd" (Heaney 114).
In Seamus Heaney's bog poems as well as Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body, there exists a method of deconstruction for the sake of familiarization between the reader and the character. Through the minute detail, we see the narrators become bound up in the "selves" of what they describe, as well as distancing themselves a little at certain times. Despite Heaney's and Winterson's differences of style, I believe that both have some similar ways of discussing and describing the body, using deconstruction as the new method of achieving the same level of feeling.
Sources:
Heaney, Seamus. Opened
Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
1998. Print.
Lindenmeyer, Antje.
"Postmodern Concepts of the Body in Jeanette Winterson's "Written on
the Body" Antje Lindenmeyer." Feminist Review 63 (1999):
48-63. JSTOR. Web. 14 Dec. 2012.
Schmidt,
Michael. "Speaking and Speaking For." Lives of the Poets. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. 919-24. Print.
Winterson,
Jeanette. "Ireland Has Done Well to Keep Its Songs at the Heart of Its
Culture'" The Times [London] 18 Mar. 2006, Features: Books sec.: 3.
LexisNexis Academic. Web. 14 Winterson, Jeanette. "Written
on the Body, A Novel of Loss and Love, Philosophical Meditation on the Body,
Jeanette Winterson Novels, Collection of Short Stories, Poetic Novels, Magical
Fantasy." Written on the Body, A Novel of Loss and Love, Philosophical
Meditation on the Body, Jeanette Winterson Novels, Collection of Short Stories,
Poetic Novels, Magical Fantasy. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2012.
Winterson, Jeanette. Written on the Body. Vintage: New York, 1994. Print.
The Abstract Anxiety of T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats
Of all my posts, this is the one which seems like the least amount of a stretch: two modernist poets would, it would seem, have a great deal in common. Indeed they do: both are non-British writers who still manage to be respected as part of the British tradition, despite Eliot being American and Yeats Irish. Both experienced the traumatic horrors of World War I. Both chose to go by their first two initials. Okay, that last one is a little weak. But still true.
One of the things that struck me when reading some of their poetry was the way that two of their poems, Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and Yeats' "The Tower" carried overtones of a nervous anxiety which made me feel a little uneasy and confused. By looking into the texts of the poems, I hope to be able to more clearly articulate how/where this tone appears, and perhaps learn something about the poets besides.
The characterization present in both poems has probably the most pervading aspect of the anxiety. This is most obvious in "Prufrock" where our speaker is Prufrock himself, who writes this poem with the intention of winning his lady friend, but it really becomes a look into his conscious and subconscious mind, where fear, confusion, and worry take center stage. Traditionally, Prufrock would take a heroic role in this poem, but he is instead rather unorthodox. He describes himself as being bald, and dressed modestly, but after each assertion he tells us exactly what people would say of him, how they would whisper to themselves how his hair and body are thin (see Eliot lines 40-44). Prufrock is also uncomfortable around women. In a slightly odd turn, he notes the arms of women: "[a]rms that are braceleted and white and bare/([b]ut in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)" (Eliot 62-64). He also notes how those arms rest on tables and wrap shawls, and then distrustfully says "And then how should I presume?" (68). Throughout the poem this line is repeated three times, often surrounded by other questions. In fact, most of the poem consists of questions about any number of things.
Likewise, the narrator of "The Tower" seems to be nervous as well. His first lines of the poem are one question: "[w]hat shall I do with this absurdity-- O heart, O troubled heart--this caricature,/ Decrepit age that has been tied to me/ As to a dog's tail?" (1-4). He then continues by nearly stating how anxious he is: "[n]ever had I more/ excited, passionate, fantastical/ Imagination" (5-8). We see him later, in the second part, pacing the tower. As he looks round at all beneath him, he states that he would ask questions of everything he sees (see Yeats 24).
Anxiety is highlighted by the diction of both poets. "Prufrock" is famous for describing the "evening [as being] spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherised upon a table" (Eliot 2-3). Similarly, "The Tower" describes a "[t]ree, like a sooty finger, start[ing] from the earth" (Yeats 19). Also, the amount of rhyme is similar in both, although Yeats rhymes in an ABAB style rather than Eliot's AABB. The rhyming is very straight, and has a sort of sing-song effect in both poems. This element does two things: first, for me at least, it evokes an eerie feeling because of its similarity to children's rhymes; second, it seems to be an attempt on the narrator's part to place the large, unanswered questions of the poem into a frame, which might help him to understand it. There are also times in both poems where dashes are used to break off the narrator's speech. In "Prufrock," Prufrock is wondering about a discussion in which he would have "squeezed the universe into a ball/...roll[ed] it toward some overwhelming question," seeing himself as a Lazarus, "[c]ome back to tell you all, I shall tell you all--" and stops (Eliot 92-95). In "The Tower," the narrator says that Hanrahan "rose in frenzy there,/ And followed up those baying creatures towards-/ O towards I have forgotten what--enough!" (Yeats 71-3). These breaks is interesting in that it leaves the reader asking his/her own questions about what was left out, and its possible significance to the poem. Like the narrators, we now have confusing questions buzzing around our heads.
Both narrators describe their surroundings and its happenings in detail, even though they still have more questions than answers. These surroundings are frequently not described in pleasant ways, however. Prufrock personifies the yellow fog of the evening as though it were an animal, perhaps a dog or cat, writing that it "[l]icked its tongue into the corners of the evening" then "[l]et fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys" and in the end "falls asleep" (Eliot 17,19, 22). The narrator of "The Tower," true to Yeats' frequent inclusion of sketches of Ireland, mentions a Mrs. French whose serving-man cut the ears from a farmer and returned with them in a covered dish (see Yeats 25-32). Reading these strange descriptions, as readers we are not surprised to find that the narrators are confused, as it is an alien world that they inhabit, with a touch of cruelty.
And in case you're not willing to take my word for it, Michael Schmidt writes that Eliot's "Prufrock" is a fragmented poem, which fragmentation is only relieved by the rhyme and tone. It represents a snapshot into both the inner mind of the narrator as well as an examination of the narrator's surroundings. Most interestingly, Schmidt writes that "Prufrock" isn't even a love poem, it is an elegy: "an elegy not for what has been but for what might have been had the eloquently inadequate speaker been more equal to the social challenge of his world and more complete in himself" (Schmidt 605).
The fragmentation and strangeness of the images in the poems create a discontinuous image that is abstract; and with the undertones of an unheroic, anxious narrator, we arrive at my theme of abstract anxiety. Most critics would agree that this is due to the influence of WWI on both poets; but that could be the subject of another post entirely. Suffice to say here that T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats were affected by their times in ways they expressed in their poetry, a deep knowledge of their times and the cruelty of life: "In a minute there is time/ [f]or decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse" (Eliot 47-8).
Sources:
One of the things that struck me when reading some of their poetry was the way that two of their poems, Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and Yeats' "The Tower" carried overtones of a nervous anxiety which made me feel a little uneasy and confused. By looking into the texts of the poems, I hope to be able to more clearly articulate how/where this tone appears, and perhaps learn something about the poets besides.
The characterization present in both poems has probably the most pervading aspect of the anxiety. This is most obvious in "Prufrock" where our speaker is Prufrock himself, who writes this poem with the intention of winning his lady friend, but it really becomes a look into his conscious and subconscious mind, where fear, confusion, and worry take center stage. Traditionally, Prufrock would take a heroic role in this poem, but he is instead rather unorthodox. He describes himself as being bald, and dressed modestly, but after each assertion he tells us exactly what people would say of him, how they would whisper to themselves how his hair and body are thin (see Eliot lines 40-44). Prufrock is also uncomfortable around women. In a slightly odd turn, he notes the arms of women: "[a]rms that are braceleted and white and bare/([b]ut in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)" (Eliot 62-64). He also notes how those arms rest on tables and wrap shawls, and then distrustfully says "And then how should I presume?" (68). Throughout the poem this line is repeated three times, often surrounded by other questions. In fact, most of the poem consists of questions about any number of things.
Likewise, the narrator of "The Tower" seems to be nervous as well. His first lines of the poem are one question: "[w]hat shall I do with this absurdity-- O heart, O troubled heart--this caricature,/ Decrepit age that has been tied to me/ As to a dog's tail?" (1-4). He then continues by nearly stating how anxious he is: "[n]ever had I more/ excited, passionate, fantastical/ Imagination" (5-8). We see him later, in the second part, pacing the tower. As he looks round at all beneath him, he states that he would ask questions of everything he sees (see Yeats 24).
Anxiety is highlighted by the diction of both poets. "Prufrock" is famous for describing the "evening [as being] spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherised upon a table" (Eliot 2-3). Similarly, "The Tower" describes a "[t]ree, like a sooty finger, start[ing] from the earth" (Yeats 19). Also, the amount of rhyme is similar in both, although Yeats rhymes in an ABAB style rather than Eliot's AABB. The rhyming is very straight, and has a sort of sing-song effect in both poems. This element does two things: first, for me at least, it evokes an eerie feeling because of its similarity to children's rhymes; second, it seems to be an attempt on the narrator's part to place the large, unanswered questions of the poem into a frame, which might help him to understand it. There are also times in both poems where dashes are used to break off the narrator's speech. In "Prufrock," Prufrock is wondering about a discussion in which he would have "squeezed the universe into a ball/...roll[ed] it toward some overwhelming question," seeing himself as a Lazarus, "[c]ome back to tell you all, I shall tell you all--" and stops (Eliot 92-95). In "The Tower," the narrator says that Hanrahan "rose in frenzy there,/ And followed up those baying creatures towards-/ O towards I have forgotten what--enough!" (Yeats 71-3). These breaks is interesting in that it leaves the reader asking his/her own questions about what was left out, and its possible significance to the poem. Like the narrators, we now have confusing questions buzzing around our heads.
Both narrators describe their surroundings and its happenings in detail, even though they still have more questions than answers. These surroundings are frequently not described in pleasant ways, however. Prufrock personifies the yellow fog of the evening as though it were an animal, perhaps a dog or cat, writing that it "[l]icked its tongue into the corners of the evening" then "[l]et fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys" and in the end "falls asleep" (Eliot 17,19, 22). The narrator of "The Tower," true to Yeats' frequent inclusion of sketches of Ireland, mentions a Mrs. French whose serving-man cut the ears from a farmer and returned with them in a covered dish (see Yeats 25-32). Reading these strange descriptions, as readers we are not surprised to find that the narrators are confused, as it is an alien world that they inhabit, with a touch of cruelty.
And in case you're not willing to take my word for it, Michael Schmidt writes that Eliot's "Prufrock" is a fragmented poem, which fragmentation is only relieved by the rhyme and tone. It represents a snapshot into both the inner mind of the narrator as well as an examination of the narrator's surroundings. Most interestingly, Schmidt writes that "Prufrock" isn't even a love poem, it is an elegy: "an elegy not for what has been but for what might have been had the eloquently inadequate speaker been more equal to the social challenge of his world and more complete in himself" (Schmidt 605).
The fragmentation and strangeness of the images in the poems create a discontinuous image that is abstract; and with the undertones of an unheroic, anxious narrator, we arrive at my theme of abstract anxiety. Most critics would agree that this is due to the influence of WWI on both poets; but that could be the subject of another post entirely. Suffice to say here that T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats were affected by their times in ways they expressed in their poetry, a deep knowledge of their times and the cruelty of life: "In a minute there is time/ [f]or decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse" (Eliot 47-8).
Sources:
Eliot, T.S. "The Love Song of
J. Alfred Prufrock. T.S. Eliot. 1920. Prufrock and Other Observations." Bartleby.
N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2012. <http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html>.
Schmidt, Michael. "The Lighting of the Lamps." Lives of the Poets. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. 597-611. Print.
Yeats, W.B. "The Tower." W.B. Yeats: The Poems. Ed. Richard J. Finneran. New York: Macmillan, 1983. 194-19. Print.
Tintern Abbey and Innisfree: Nature Mysticism of Wordsworth and Yeats
William Butler Yeats has long been seen as a Romantic poet, for his celebration of Nature and emphasis on feeling, as well as his focus on subjects of a more "primitive" era. However, as Michael Schmidt explains, "Blake and Shelley had more impact on his beliefs and sentiments--his sense of poetic identity," etc. rather than the man who arguably created Romanticism, William Wordsworth himself (Schmidt 558). But there are many similarities between the two poets, particularly in "Tintern Abbey" and "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," where both recreate each place so that it is in dialogue with Nature and a sort of mysticism.
One of the clearest similarities between the two poems is the way in which the poet's respective place is viewed. In "Tintern Abbey," Wordsworth speaks of how beautiful it is there, where he sits under a sycamore tree and looks out at "these plots of cottage-ground, these orchard tufts" as well as "these pastoral farms,/green to the very door" (Wordsworth 11, 16-17). In this passage, he idealizes the countryside surrounding the ruined abbey, which can be seen in the way that he describes them in diminutive terms, and emphasizes the greenness and beauty of the land, even imagining that the "wreaths of smoke" he sees are due to an idealized "Hermit" living in the "houseless woods" (Wordsworth 17,20). Judging from what Wordsworth writes before and after this passage, it becomes clear that he somehow envies this Hermit his simple way of life, and he longs to remain in this near-solitude of the country. And through his imaginings, he engages a sort of mysticism that begins to surround the poem.
Yeats' poem, which in his recordings of the 1930's he called his "only well-known poem" has the same amount of idealization/ diminution present. In the second line, he writes that in Innisfree he will build a "small cabin" there and have only one hive, and nine bean-rows-- a very small life (Yeats 2-4). He goes on to reflect on how "midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,/ and evening full of the linnet's wings" (Yeats 6-8). Like Wordsworth, Yeats creates this idealized landscape where all is wholly full of the simplicity of nature; unlike the dirty city of London that both allude to.
As a child in County Sligo, Yeats had heard of Innisfree and had wanted very much to go there (whether he did or not is rather unclear in his introduction). When he was twenty-three and living in London, he was walking the Strand and happened to look in a shop window where a jet of water was balancing a ball on top. He explains that it was meant to be an advertisement for refreshing drinks, but instead it made him think of the lake waters at Innisfree, and he wrote the poem (WB Yeats). This understanding of how the poem was written adds to the last line when he says "I hear it in the deep heart's core" meaning the waters of the lake (Yeats 12). And so Innisfree is symbolic of a peace and restfulness he can find nowhere else, idealized to help us understand how he feels about it, and to contrast more vividly with the "roadway, or...the pavements grey;" a place of emptiness.
Wordsworth shares a similar longing with Yeats in the way that he describes Tintern Abbey. One of the first things he tells us is that he has been away from it five years, and it is quite apparent that he missed it. Especially when he explains that even when he was in the city, he didn't forget about it:
Like in Yeats' poem, Wordsworth appears to be longing for the peaceful, cathartic atmosphere of the abbey, a very mystical quality for an abbey to have. But Wordsworth didn't mean the abbey itself (although it does inspire his thoughts) he really meant Nature, with a capital 'N.' As Yeats' poem suggests the narrator's return to Nature, so too does this visit represent a return for Wordsworth.
For both poets, this return/visit seems to be best effected through solitude. Yeats writes that he will "live alone in the bee-loud glade," one with nature (Yeats 4). Similarly, Wordsworth frequently alludes to the benefits of solitude for the mind, even though he has a lady with him, whom he refers to as his "Sister" (121). These can be seen in passages where he adjures his sister (and his readers as well) to: "[l]et the moon/ Shine on thee in thy solitary walk" so that we may store up these memories for later times and generations to share our knowledge that only comes from Nature (134-35). In this way, Wordsworth creates a more mystical persona for Nature, as the source of a type of knowledge that cannot be taught in the universities, and one which is understood with the heart rather than the mind. Yeats' poem likewise reflects a need for such knowledge in the confines of the city.
In William Butler Yeats' "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" and William Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" there are similar themes of a love and longing for their respective subjects, and a sense that the beauty of nature unfolds something deeper than what the industrialized world can dream of; as Wordsworth says, a glimpse into "the life of things" (48).
Sources:
One of the clearest similarities between the two poems is the way in which the poet's respective place is viewed. In "Tintern Abbey," Wordsworth speaks of how beautiful it is there, where he sits under a sycamore tree and looks out at "these plots of cottage-ground, these orchard tufts" as well as "these pastoral farms,/green to the very door" (Wordsworth 11, 16-17). In this passage, he idealizes the countryside surrounding the ruined abbey, which can be seen in the way that he describes them in diminutive terms, and emphasizes the greenness and beauty of the land, even imagining that the "wreaths of smoke" he sees are due to an idealized "Hermit" living in the "houseless woods" (Wordsworth 17,20). Judging from what Wordsworth writes before and after this passage, it becomes clear that he somehow envies this Hermit his simple way of life, and he longs to remain in this near-solitude of the country. And through his imaginings, he engages a sort of mysticism that begins to surround the poem.
Yeats' poem, which in his recordings of the 1930's he called his "only well-known poem" has the same amount of idealization/ diminution present. In the second line, he writes that in Innisfree he will build a "small cabin" there and have only one hive, and nine bean-rows-- a very small life (Yeats 2-4). He goes on to reflect on how "midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,/ and evening full of the linnet's wings" (Yeats 6-8). Like Wordsworth, Yeats creates this idealized landscape where all is wholly full of the simplicity of nature; unlike the dirty city of London that both allude to.
As a child in County Sligo, Yeats had heard of Innisfree and had wanted very much to go there (whether he did or not is rather unclear in his introduction). When he was twenty-three and living in London, he was walking the Strand and happened to look in a shop window where a jet of water was balancing a ball on top. He explains that it was meant to be an advertisement for refreshing drinks, but instead it made him think of the lake waters at Innisfree, and he wrote the poem (WB Yeats). This understanding of how the poem was written adds to the last line when he says "I hear it in the deep heart's core" meaning the waters of the lake (Yeats 12). And so Innisfree is symbolic of a peace and restfulness he can find nowhere else, idealized to help us understand how he feels about it, and to contrast more vividly with the "roadway, or...the pavements grey;" a place of emptiness.
Wordsworth shares a similar longing with Yeats in the way that he describes Tintern Abbey. One of the first things he tells us is that he has been away from it five years, and it is quite apparent that he missed it. Especially when he explains that even when he was in the city, he didn't forget about it:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and
cities, I have owed to them
In hours of
weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the
blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing
even into my purer mind,
With
tranquil restoration (Wordsworth 26-31).Like in Yeats' poem, Wordsworth appears to be longing for the peaceful, cathartic atmosphere of the abbey, a very mystical quality for an abbey to have. But Wordsworth didn't mean the abbey itself (although it does inspire his thoughts) he really meant Nature, with a capital 'N.' As Yeats' poem suggests the narrator's return to Nature, so too does this visit represent a return for Wordsworth.
For both poets, this return/visit seems to be best effected through solitude. Yeats writes that he will "live alone in the bee-loud glade," one with nature (Yeats 4). Similarly, Wordsworth frequently alludes to the benefits of solitude for the mind, even though he has a lady with him, whom he refers to as his "Sister" (121). These can be seen in passages where he adjures his sister (and his readers as well) to: "[l]et the moon/ Shine on thee in thy solitary walk" so that we may store up these memories for later times and generations to share our knowledge that only comes from Nature (134-35). In this way, Wordsworth creates a more mystical persona for Nature, as the source of a type of knowledge that cannot be taught in the universities, and one which is understood with the heart rather than the mind. Yeats' poem likewise reflects a need for such knowledge in the confines of the city.
In William Butler Yeats' "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" and William Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" there are similar themes of a love and longing for their respective subjects, and a sense that the beauty of nature unfolds something deeper than what the industrialized world can dream of; as Wordsworth says, a glimpse into "the life of things" (48).
Sources:
WB
Yeats Reading His Own Poetry. Perf. William Butler
Yeats. 1937. CD. Youtube. Web. 15 Dec. 2012.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2FT4_UUa4I>.
Wordsworth,
William. "Composed a Few Miles from Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks
of the Wye, during a Tour July 13. 1798." The Complete Poetical Works.
London: Macmillan &, 1888. N. pag. Bartleby, July 1999. Web. 15 Dec. 2012.
Schmidt, Michael. "A Language Not to Be Betrayed." Lives of the Poets. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. 556-568.
Yeats,
W.B. "The Lake Isle of Innisfree." W.B. Yeats: The Poems. Ed.
Richard J. Finneran. New York: Macmillan, 1983. 39. Print.
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