W.B. Yeats and his closeness to Irish people, culture and heritage
Q. W. B. Yeats' purpose was to 'write out the heart of the Irish common people.' Comment on this statement with reference to some of his poems.
Answer: W. B. Yeats was one of the most famous poets of Ireland. He tried to bring out the Irish culture, tradition, and the feelings of the common people through his writing. His statement that "I want to write the hearts of the common people of Ireland," is the essence of his entire literary life. He placed his country's struggles, folklore, and emotions in his poems.
Ireland's culture and folklore depiction
Yeats showed Irish culture and folk traditions in many of their poems. His poem "The Stolen Child" is a good example of this. In this poem, he describes the imaginative characters (such as fairies) found in Irish folklore. This poem reflects the imagination of common Irish people and the mysterious aspect of their lives. The poem shows how the child seduces the fairies. This reflects the mentality and belief of the people of that time.
Political struggle and feeling of freedom
Yeats also showed the ongoing struggle for Ireland's independence in their poems. His famous poem "Easter 1916" is a major composition in this direction. In this poem, he remembers the revolutionaries who were killed in the 1916 rebellion. This poem reflects the spirit, sacrifice and patriotism of the Irish people. The last lines of the poem "A Terrible Beauty Is Born" show how beautiful the struggle for freedom is as well as how painful.
Yeats placed the voice of common people in the poem and made their struggles immortal.
Feelings and experiences of common life
The poems of Yeats do not only have big political subjects, they also reflect the lives of common people, their dreams, sorrows and love. His poem "When You Are Old" is an emotional creation in which he has presented the effect of love and time in simple terms. In this, he says that when you get old, then you will think who loved you with your "true self".
This type of poetry brings out the spirit, loneliness and sensitivity to the past.
Depiction of nature and rural life
Another famous poem of Yeats is "The Lake Isle of Innisfree". In this, he expresses the dream of peace and simplicity of his life. This poem explains how a common man seeks peace, nature and spiritual balance. He wants to build a small house on a quiet island called Innisfree where he can live peacefully.
This poem reflects Irish rural life, association with nature, and the discovery of spiritual peace, which is part of the life of common people.
Language and style
The language of Yeats is usually simple, emotional and full of symbols. He uses words that reach the reader's heart directly instead of heavy words. He used such symbols in his poems which were associated with the thinking and culture of the common people in the Irish society.
The literature of W. B. Yeats is not just a poet's imagination, but it is a reflection of the life, culture, struggle and feelings of the common people of Ireland. He brought out the voice of the general public with his writing and immortalized their feelings. His poems still say that a true poet is the one who can adapt the soul of his society to words.
This attempt of Yeats - "Irish write the heart of the general public" - is still considered to be the biggest feature of their literature. In his words, not only is beauty, but the voice of the soul of an entire country.
*****
Read also:
👉 'Medea' | an ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides
👉 The Tempest | a true example of Shakespeare’s Last Plays
👉 Restoration Tragedy | with reference to any two dramatists
👉 Christopher Marlowe's contribution | to the development of English drama
👉 Hawk Roosting, a poem by Ted Hughes| Summary and Analysis
👉 The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles | the endings of the novel