The Lake Isle of Innisfree

704 Words3 Pages
“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” William Butler Yeats was one of the most famous poets in British history in the 20th century. Yeats’ poems have many distinctive features of romanticism. The period is particularly associated with peace, divinity, and the beauty of nature which were also the main themes in the literature from the period. In 1923 Yeats won the Nobel Prize for Literature as the first Irishman. He was born in Ireland but he lived in many different places, for example in London. Even if he lived in different places he really loved his home country. Many of his poems were about Ireland and this one titled; “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”, (1888) could also be seen as a longing for Ireland. The poem by William Butler Yeats is composed with three stanzas and each stanza consists of four quatrains. It also has a regular rhyme scheme. The end word in the first quatrain rhymes with the end word in the third quatrain. The end word in the second quatrain rhymes with the end word in the fourth quatrain, in each stanza. We have to do with the kind of rhymes which are called alternate rhymes. Ergo the Rhyme scheme looks like this: ABAB in the first stanza, CDCD in the second stanza and EFEF in the third stanza. The first three quatrains have six stresses but the last quatrain which only has four stresses in each stanza. I will arise and go now, and go to innisfree As we can see, it has six stresses in it which is called a hexameter. And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And this quatrain has four stresses in it which is called a tetrameter. An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable is called iambic and this pattern can be seen in the abovementioned examples. This form is very simple and traditional which also reflects the place the person in the poem dreams about, which is the Innisfree. This place may be peaceful and beautiful which
Open Document