E212 William Butler Yeats Study Questions

E212: British Literature since 1760

William Butler Yeats Study Questions

Al Drake | Uni Hall 329 | Th. 6:00-7:00 | ajdrake@ajdrake.com

Assigned: "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (2092), "The Second Coming" (2106), "Sailing to Byzantium" (2109), "Leda and the Swan" (2110), "Among School Children" (2111), "Byzantium" (2115), "Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop" (2116).

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree"

1. Compare this poem to a romantic nature lyric -- is there a difference in the relationship posited between nature and the speaker? Explain.

"The Second Coming"

2. What do the poem's last twelve lines suggest about poetry's power to render great events intelligible, or to relate present conditions to future possibilities? Do the last twelve lines clarify the historical situation, or obscure it?

3. What is the significance of the poem's mention of the Sphinx myth?

"Sailing to Byzantium"

4. How do you interpret the line "That is no country for old men"? To what does the word "that" refer? Why isn't "that" a place fit for a dying human being?

5. Why does the speaker need to sail to Byzantium? What must he leave behind, and what is his aim once he arrives in Byzantium?

6. Where are the "sages" in the second stanza, and what does the speaker pray for?

7. How does this poem amount to an attempt on the speaker's part to come to terms with mortality?

"Leda and the Swan"

8. How does the speaker represent the transmission of poetic insight?

9. What statement does the poem make about the origins of Greek civilization, or about the ultimate significance of Greek myth?

"Among School Children"

10. In stanzas 1-4, what does the speaker's consideration of his connection to the schoolchildren allow him to explore?

11. How do stanzas 5-7 follow up on the meditation the speaker has already offered on childhood? What's the relationship between mother and child, and the speaker describes it?

12. How is the eigth and final stanza connected to the earlier parts of the poem?

13. How does this stanza assert the speaker's dignity in the face of advancing age and death? How does the stanza employ the organic metaphor to describe the process of living, dying, and creating art?

14. What does the metaphor of dancing add to the exploration of the theme mentioned in question 4?

"Byzantium"

15. What is occurring in Byzantium, now that the speaker has arrived there, as he said he wanted to in "Sailing to Byzantium"?

16. How does the poem explore the distance between ordinary human affairs and the world of art and artistic production?

"Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop"

17. How is Crazy Jane's response an appropriate rebuke to the Bishop, who privileges heavenly things at the expense of the body?

Edition: Abrams, M.H. et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2C. Seventh edition. New York: Norton, 2000.