‘Five Bells’ continues to engage readers through its poetic treatment of mortality and mourning. Does this resonate with your own interpretation? Kenneth Slessor was the poet of time, of “the cold fact of time”, as he said in describing the genesis of his wondrous poem “Five Bells”. This poem is strongly engaging through its poetic treatment of mourning, as it is notably encompasses obvious elegy elements, directed towards his dear artistic friend Joe Lynch, but as Slessor mentioned, and from what can be observed, the poem is as much about the compression of memory in time, in relation to symbolic and literal mortality. The poem offers not answers, but questions towards the meaning of existence, and is toned with a sense of failure, loss and desolation, as it seems that neither Lynch's art, nor the art of the poem, can defy death.
Therefore, the reader questions if Yeats sees himself as the lonely swan. Another thing to note is that “The Wilde Swans at Coole” was influenced by Yeats loving a woman who refused his proposals several times. Yeats uses the contrast of circular time and linear time to exhibit how his life compares and contrasts from the swans’ lives. Yeats also uses tone, the aspect of singular versus plural, time, and verb tense to showcase how he feels about his loneliness having to be tolerated. The fluctuation of tone helps the reader follow the different feelings of Yeats.
The initial, basic interpretation I took was a simple comparison between the contrasting ages of him, being an older man, and the school children within the poem. The symbolic figure of Leda, a mythological figure raped by a swan, and also makes reference to hints of Hinduism. The lonely, questioning depiction of Yeats at the beginning of the poem introduces this feeling of regret and disappointment. After researching the details within the second stanza, I have come to realize that the figure seeming to be Leda can also be interpreted as Maude Gonne, a love interest of Yeats’s past. This reference reinforces Yeats’s regret and disappointment within their relationship, reminiscing on what could have been, and the young and beautiful Maud Gonne.
In these lines, the description of the world as young, viable and lovely contrasts with the idea of being old. Therefore the narrator of the poem feels that he does not fit into the world that is full with life and youth, so he goes on his journey to the city of Byzantium that symbolizes a place where old things are valued and protected. Likewise the protagonist of the novel, Bell, finds it very hard to adapt to the current world as he states his opinion about coping with the regenerating world: “It keeps getting harder.”(McCarthy, page 40). Bell thinks that conditions are not the same as the ones when he was young. By saying, “Time is not on your side” he emphasizes that as the time passes, everything becomes unusual for him.
Thus, the poem is his perspective, his interpretation, his perception of the events of that day and consequently – as inferred within the poem-of their lives together. For this reason, it is subjective. Through the use of flashback, we are given a double perspective, one of the young, naive Ted Hughes who has limited life experiences and is about to fall in love with the young talented American writer on the photograph, and that of an older reflective poet who is influenced by the disastrous relationship that developed. The last line reveals this conflict: • At twenty-five I was dumbfounded afresh By my ignorance of the simplest things. Hughes hindsight doubtlessly creates tension within the poem - tension between what he remembers and what he has since learned.
It is clear here that the speaker finds it difficult to accept the new start or regeneration which spring offers because they find it hard to let go of the past which winter holds on to. Furthermore from a more Freudian point of view, it could be argued that Eliot is the speaker throughout, subconsciously portraying his own envy of people who are happy because he isn’t for various reasons such as a disappointing married life which isn’t the fairy-tale new life marriage is envisioned as. Eliot himself claims that The Waste Land came from the state of mind he was in caused by his marriage. There is evidence of this particularly in part lll. ‘The Fire Sermon’ where there are allusions to marriage and also of regeneration.
He reflects back on the characters he impersonated at a younger age, such as a magician. However, in direct contrast the first stanza describes turning ten as an illness which not only affects the body of a person, but also their spirit and soul. This contrast emphasizes his unhappiness with the present and the prospect of his future. His depression is further reinforced in the line “this is the beginning of sadness”. The author uses lengthy words such as “complexity” and “disfiguring” to show the slowing rhythm of the poem as he describes turning ten.
Yeats notices that there are only fifty nine swans. The lines “Upon the brimming water among the stones are nine-and-fifty swans” clearly indicates that one of the swans does not have a pair and so is by itself. In all those times he had previously visited there, the swans had been the same. He writes the poem as drastic changes are taking place in his life. It is a reflection on how that the world war one changes everything – changes what had been the ‘ natural order’.. Life changed dramatically after War World One- the social order changed, lifestyles changed, expectations changed, and most of all as a result of the many deaths caused by the war- futures changed.
W.B. Yeats poetry which is influenced by Yeats’ personal context and life experiences reflects the transcendent themes of the cyclical nature of time and the human condition, enabling contemporary audiences to resonate with his poetry today. The poems ‘The Second Coming’ (1919) and ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’ (1918) specifically reflect the effect of the cyclical nature of time on civilisation and history and humanity’s fragility and mortality. This understanding constructively shapes one’s judgement of Yeats’ his poetry as a whole. ‘The Second Coming’ (1919), written in the wake of World War One, the Irish uprising, and the Russian Bolshevik revolution prophesises the close of the Christian era and the violent birth of a new age highlighting the theme of the cyclical nature of time and civilisation.
In the context of your critical study of Yeats, to what extent does your response to the poem, The second Coming, inform you judgement of Yeats’ poetry as a whole? In your response, make detailed reference to The Second Coming and at least ONE other poem set for study. Yeats’ poetry continues to engage audiences through his discussion of the universal themes of the acquisition of knowledge and the ambiguous and conflicting notions of nature. His poems are influenced by his personal, social and political context, and his style is typical of the romantic and modernist movements respective to his context over time. However, the textual integrity of Yeats’ poetry is maintained through the common ideas present in his poetry.