In Memory of W.B. Yeats

I am a huge fan of poetry and have enjoyed all of it that we have read, but I have really been enjoying the poetry from Modernism.  As the literature in the course progresses further in time, the language becomes less elevated and foreign.  It becomes accessible and relatable in a way that older poetry can’t be.  Sometimes the thick language and even syntax and sentence structure can seem like an entirely different language.  I am a huge fan of sonnets and enjoy reading them annotating them and dissecting them, because when it clicks and I start putting together the puzzle pieces like I have achieved some small victory. Making sense of a difficult poem feels like I have unlocked some great secret. 

            One of my favorite poems has been “In Memory of W.B. Yeats,” by W. H. Auden.  I felt like the poem was functioning on more than one level.  Yeats was at the forefront of the literary scene for decades and was seemingly admired by Auden.  So, the poem is an elegy to a fellow and respected poet.  It is also a criticism of social behavior at the time when the world is on the brink of World War.  The poem is a compilation of three different forms within one poem.  I found the different forms satisfying on several levels.  To try to honor a poet who has made such an impact in literature with a standard elegy wouldn’t seem fitting, but the blend of different styles speaks volumes and delivers texture to what could have been a straight forward elegy. 

            The first stanza is written in third person.  It feels rather impersonal.  The speaker of the poem imagines what the last day might have been like for Yeats, “but for him it was the last afternoon as himself” (12).  He also explains that while Yeats is dying, the world keeps turning.  He describes how the water and wharf are responding to the death and gives them human like functions. The speaker is commenting on how people are acting, making the reader aware of social behavior.  The world is not screeching to a halt to acknowledge Yeats’ death, but rather still concerning itself with the same things as it did yesterday when Yeats was alive.

            We talked a lot about the lines “what instruments we have agree/The death of his death was a dark cold day. (5,6) and I thought a lot about it and I think that the speaker seems to be saying that there is no way to measure the end of the life, especially in reference to the mind and soul and influence of a poet like Yeats.  So instead, he logs it down to the tools that can be measured and what can be said, is that it is what the literal instruments can measure.  That it was a literal cold and dark day, of course then figurative meaning can be inferred.  If Yeats had ironically died on a bright, sunny summer day, it would probably read much differently. 

            In stanza four, it says “The words of a dead man/Are modified in the guts of the living” (22, 23).  I think the speaker is saying that when Yeats died, he lost his voice; fans will now interpret his work and make him what they want him to be.  And then he ends the first section by saying that few people will think of the day of Yeats death and “slightly unusual,” but few will really acknowledge the massive loss of such a literary talent.  He repeats the line about the instruments agreeing that “the day of his death was a dark cold day.”  The repetition of this line emphasizes the lack of human ability to measure the loss of human life.

            Section two of this poem takes a more traditional form of elegy.  In it, the speaker seems to be addressing Yeats directly and carefully pointing out, that Yeats is human.  And while his poetry didn’t directly change political on goings in Ireland, it will serve as a tool or instrument in expressing the charge of the time.  That while poetry survives and lasts, people don’t.  People “decay.”  Poetry survives and is important because it talks about what people don’t want to talk about or perhaps can’t really put into words.

            The third section of the poem rhymes in couplets in a sing-song way while delivering the raw negativity and social commentary.  The speaker talks about how people are “sequestered in hate and “intellectual disgrace/stares from every human face.”  The speaker is saying that humans are dark and unintelligent.  If we are rational animals then why are we “sequestered in hate?”  The very last stanza of the poem says “In the deserts of the heart/Let the healing fountain start,/In the prison of his days/Teach the free man how to praise.”  The speaker seems to be saying that to pay homage to someone that has died; perhaps it would do well to spend some time considering their world view or message. Even though Yeats is dead, people can learn from his poetry, his gift to the world.  Yeats was often concerned in his writing about human connections and political and social climate.  At a time when the world is on the brink of war and Yeats dies, the speaker is saying that people should read Yeats’ poetry, a vital instrument that just may be able to reach people by discussing the ugly truths of humanity and hopefully altering their behavior by providing some enlightenment.

 

I really love this poem and as I began to really pick it apart, I found it to be doing so much more than I have covered in this blog.  This is truly a multi-dimensional piece of work that is so intertwined and weaved so seamlessly, I find something new each time I read it!