1. Module B: Critical Study of Texts – Poetry of W.B. Yeats
Easter 1916

2. William Butler Yeats
1865 – 1939

3. Module B: Critical Study of Texts
BACKGROUND

4. Background
In the second stanza, Yeats names some of the revolutionaries who, in his mind, “changed utterly”. He memorialises them as the patriots of 1916 as he conveys their humanity and imperfections. Yeats illustrates the stagnant indifference and conformity in Ireland prior to the Rebellion through his description of the leading figures in the Easter Rising.

5. Background
Yeats focuses on the daily lives of the revolutionaries, contrasting their everyday existence with the cause they would end up sacrificing their lives for in the rebellion. Because they took action and passionately evoked change in Irish society, Yeats memorializes these individuals as heroes and patriots despite their personal merits prior to the Rebellion. 

6. Easter 1916
Stanza TWO

7. Stanza Two
An elegy (from the Greek word for "lament") is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.

8. Stanza Two
The second stanza is elegiac as it memorialises individuals who, in the poem, represent the revolutionaries who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Easter Rising.

9. Stanza Two
That woman's days were spent In ignorant good-will, Her nights in argument Until her voice grew shrill. What voice more sweet than hers When, young and beautiful, She rode to harriers? This man had kept a school And rode our wingèd horse; This other his helper and friend Was coming into his force; He might have won fame in the end, So sensitive his nature seemed, So daring and sweet his thought. This other man I had dreamed A drunken, vainglorious lout. He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart, Yet I number him in the song; He, too, has resigned his part In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.
Yeats keeps his ABAB rhyming scheme throughout stanza two. At the end of the stanza, as we approach the refrain, he emphasises change through a series of pauses. Here Yeats seems to be considering the worth of these “heroes” and divides the end of the poem into two couplets: “He, too has resigned his part In the casual comedy;” “He, too has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly:” These ordinary people, of dubious worth in the case of John MacBride, have “resigned” (died) and been “changed” (transformed) from people Yeats had varying respect for into something more; may be even into heroes? Yeats may be referring to the gyres in stanza two when he writes “He, too, has been changed in his turn”, that MacBride has gone through his stages and emerged, in death, as a hero; becoming more significant than the “drunken, vainglorious lout” that Yeats claims he is in line 16.

10. Stanza Two
That woman's days were spent In ignorant good-will, Her nights in argument Until her voice grew shrill. What voice more sweet than hers When, young and beautiful, She rode to harriers?

11. Stanza Two
Constance Georgine Markievicz, or Countess Markievicz, was an Irish freedom fighter, Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil politician, revolutionary nationalist, suffragette and socialist. In the new Irish government she became the minister of labour.

12. Stanza Two
An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference to a place, person, or something that happened.

13. Stanza Two
Yeats does not name Markievicz by name, but uses allusion instead. It is interesting to note that he describes her days as spent in “ignorant good will”, but reveals her passion for the revolution with “Her nights in argument”.

14. Stanza Two
That woman’s days were spent In ignorant good will, Her nights in argument Until her voice grew shrill. What voice more sweet than hers When young and beautiful, She rode to harriers?
Antithesis, literally meaning opposite, is a rhetorical device in which two opposite ideas are put together in a sentence to achieve a contrasting effect.

15. Stanza Two
The imagery of Markievicz arguing “Until her voice grew shrill” but maintaining a life of “ignorant good-will” illustrates the deceptive nature of appearances. The use of ‘shrill’ is also almost an antithesis to the beauty she possessed when she was young.

16. Stanza Two
This man had kept a school And rode our wingèd horse. This other his helper and friend Was coming into his force; He might have won fame in the end, So sensitive his nature seemed, So daring and sweet his thought.

17. Stanza Two
Patrick Pearse was an accomplished write who was editor of the Gallic League’s paper. He also founded the St. Edna’s School in Dublin. Yeats refers to Pearse in Easter 1916 as the man who “had kept a school / and rode our wingèd horse”. For Yeats, Pearse is equal to the great Greek philosophers of classical literature.

18. Stanza Two
Yeats uses an allusion and a metaphor in describing Pearse. The “wingèd horse” is a reference to the Pegasus of Greek mythology. It is also a metaphor for artistic or poetic inspiration.

19. Stanza Two
A symbol is something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible.

20. Stanza Two
For Yeats the Pegasus reference may also be a symbol reflecting not only the importance of artistic or poetic inspiration, but also as a symbol for Pearse who he believed had the potential to inspire the young minds of Ireland as an artist, scholar and teacher.

21. Stanza Two
This man had kept a school And rode our wingèd horse. This other his helper and friend Was coming into his force; He might have won fame in the end, So sensitive his nature seemed, So daring and sweet his thought.

22. Stanza Two
Thomas MacDonagh was a writer as well as a friend of Pearse. He worked as a member of the teaching staff at St. Edna’s School. In addition to being a teacher, he was also involved in the fight for Irish independence. Yeats asserts his relationship with Pearse as a “helper and friend”.

23. Stanza Two
Yeats portrays these two figures favourably, but he emphasises the simplicity of their lives by referring to their skill as writers and teachers. However, there is the unmistakable suggestion of wasted talent; it is almost being said that their lives would have been more worthy remaining as teachers than by sacrificing all for a dream.

24. Stanza Two
This other man I had dreamed A drunken, vain-glorious lout. He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart, Yet I number him in the song; He, too, has resigned his part

25. Stanza Two
Major John MacBride was an Irish revolutionary and was married to Maud Gonne. He was predominantly featured in Yeats’ poetry. It is not secret that Yeats held a particular bitterness towards MacBride as a man who “had done most bitter wrong / to some who were near my heart”.

26. Stanza Two
Eventually, Yeats overcame his dislike for MacBride and immortalises him as a heroic figure of the uprising, “Yet I number him in the song; / He, too, has resigned his part”.

27. Stanza Two
This other man I had dreamed A drunken, vain-glorious lout. He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart, Yet I number him in the song; He, too, has resigned his part
Again Yeats is using antithesis as he contrasts MacBride’s personal life with his sacrifice in the rebellion; the irony was that his death and his part in this fight transformed him into a better person, someone Yeats could grudgingly respect.

28. Stanza Two
Intertextuality denotes the way in which texts (any text, not just literature) gain meaning through their referencing or evocation of other texts. texts, referencing.

29. Stanza Two
Interestingly, Yeats may also be making a connection to his poem, An Irish Airman Foresees his Death, as he hints that in death MacBride is no longer than man he was in life. He is now beyond criticism due to the ultimate sacrifice he has made.

30. Stanza Two
It is almost as though even Yeats’ feelings for MacBride have been mellowed by his martyrdom – or that death metamorphoses everything. It is almost as if a “thing dead” is an “artifice of eternity” that renders it a separate thing completely from the thing that inspired it in life (make links to Sailing to Byzantium). The dead MacBride is a symbol or a hero – it is now almost irrelevant that the living MacBride was a philanderer and possible child abuser.

31. Stanza Two
Maud Gonne is the inspiration for many of Yeats’ early poems. She was a feminist and actress she later moved on to try and release the Irish political prisoners from gaol during the Easter Rising.

32. Stanza Two
Yeats may have included Constance Markievicz as a stand-in for Maud Gonne, as he regularly castigated Gonne for her ‘shrill’ and all-consuming political activism. In fact, Gonne was not in Ireland at the time of the Easter Rising and played no part in it. One could argue that the “terrible beauty” here may also be a reference to Yeats’s endless infatuation with Gonne. His inclusion of John MacBride in stanza two might have also been to placate Gonne. This was probably a calculated move on Yeats’s part as a way of expressing generosity to his muse; in the hope of it being reciprocated later. Unlike the others, MacBride was not a symbolic waste of potential. The man had stumbled into the Easter Rising, and his presence along with Markievica’s, meant the omission of more worthy figures, such as Francis Skeffington or Roger Casement.

33. Stanza Two
James Connolly joined the British army at the age of fourteen. During the time he spent with the armed forces, Connolly educated himself as well as developing his interest in both nationalism and socialism. In the Easter Rising rebellion, Connolly was Commander-General of the Dublin Brigade.

34. Stanza Two
In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.
In the final lines of stanza two, Yeats indicates that these individuals have “Transformed utterly:”.  Through their efforts to activate a change in Ireland these figures establish their own coming-of-age. In a sense, through their sacrifice they have been made into figures of lore that do not change or alter with time; they are almost the artifices of eternity that the poet so hankers after in his later verse, as in Sailing to Byzantium and Among School Children.

35. Stanza Two
In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.
Yeats draws a connection between the beginning of stanza one and the end of stanza two. The “casual comedy” is a reference to life, and how undervalued it is. The revolutionaries, however, are now ennobled having sacrificed their lives for Ireland.

36. Stanza Two
In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.
All the revolutionaries, even MacBride, have been transformed into heroes and martyrs. They are now beyond the “casual comedy… Transformed utterly” and from that sacrifice they are now above the mockeries of their lives and have become of Yeats’ “terrible beauty”.

37. Stanza Two
“Yeats’s reaction can be traced in his correspondence with Lady Gregory, his sisters, and various friends. Despite initial suspicion of the rebels, Yeats sympathized with most of the principals: Thomas MacDonagh, a university lecturer and literary critic, had dedicated a book to him; Joseph Plunkett came from an affluent, cultured Dublin family; James Connolly was an actor at the Abbey Theatre; Constance Markiewicz had been born a Gore-Booth; she and her sister Eva represented, for Yeats, the country house gentry near Sligo. Most important: John MacBride was Maud Gonne’s estranged husband. At the same time, Yeats disliked Pearse—‘a man made dangerous by the Vertigo of Self Sacrifice’—and had contempt for Arthur Griffith, the leader of Sinn Féin. Accordingly, his initial stance was one of caution: ‘There is nothing to be done but to do one’s work and write letters.’ And he remained in his London flat, detached from the turmoil.” - Marjorie Perloff

38. Stanza Two
Yeats implies that the figures of the Easter Rebellion should be respected for their participation in an event that will suggest a change for Ireland even though they may not have been pleasant people.  He conveys the imagery of flawed figures as heroes to emphasise the change that has affected the lives of all the victims of the Rebellion and the citizens of Ireland as a nation.

39. Stanza Two
Assessed on their individual merits, the participants of the Easter Rebellion are one of many insignificant figures shouting to be heard until their “voice grew shrill”.  Because they took action and passionately evoked change in Irish society, Yeats memorialises these individuals as heroes and patriots despite their personal merits prior to the Rebellion.

40. Stanza Two
Without a doubt, Yeats is a master mythographer who is able to enchant his readers through his poetry to see Ireland as a beguiling and magical place. In Easter 1916, he transforms the rebels into agents of change. This change is both negative and positive, and is beyond denying most powerful in the dramatic reality of it taking place.

41. Stanza Two
“The most impressive thing about the whole poem is that the 1916 leaders are mourned most poignantly, and the sublimity of their gesture is celebrated most memorably, not when the poet is abasing himself before them, but when he implies that, all things considered, they were, not just in politics but in human terms, probably wrong.” - Donald Davie

42. Stanza Two
“Here, then, is a poem commemorating a controversial revolutionary moment that satisfied readers of the most varying persuasions. Or almost: Maud Gonne did not like it. ‘My dear Willie’, she wrote on 8 November 1916, ‘No, I don’t like your poem, it isn’t worthy of you & above all it isn’t worthy of the subject you who have studied philosophy & know something of history know quite well that sacrifice has never yet turned a heart to stone though it has immortalized many & through it alone mankind can rise to God.’ And she goes on to praise MacDonagh and Pearse as ‘men of genius’, insisting that even ‘my husband’ (MacBride) ‘has entered Eternity by the great door of sacrifice which Christ opened and has therefore atoned for all’. For Gonne, a great public poem, one that ‘our race would treasure & repeat’, must have a clear message, a clarion call to action. Perhaps this is why she herself was not capable of writing poetry, whereas Yeats understood that ‘We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.” - Majorie Perloff

43. Stanza Two
Ultimately, the interesting change in our view of the poem is the sudden inclusion of Yeats’s own personal reaction not only to the sacrifice of the rebels; but also his meditation on his relationship with Maud Gonne. It appears only Yeats could at once be capable of writing a eulogy and including his own unrequited feelings about Gonne, and his disdain for her husband, in the same poem; as if the Easter Rising and his feelings were equally important. There is something inherently selfish about Yeats’s censorship of stanza two, especially with the omission of Sir Roger Casement in favour of Markievicz and MacBride. Casement had secured German aid for the rebellion, and had supported it even when he was responsible attempting to call it off. Once again, Yeats appears to put himself before history, and people; though we still allow ourselves to be enchanted by his mythography in spite of his selfishness.

44. Stanza Two
End of Stanza Two