roof345

An Explication of Multiple Poems

Category: /General/

(783 views)

0

Mr. Walter Butler Yeats is a selected poet from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His longtime love was Ms. Maude Gonne, who had been married to someone else. Still, he loved her and she was the inspiration of his poetry. In fact, she had been the subject of the lyric "When You Are Old" from the Industrial Revolution and the ottava rima "Among School Children" from the late 1920's. The following explication will canvass the similarities and differences between the two poems.
Of course, one obvious similarity is that both works of art were written by Mr. Yeats. Indeed, he dedicated them to his muse. Surely, the theme of these rhapsodies is his unconditional love for Ms. Gonne. Furthermore, the tone of the compositions is his agape for this lady. Eternal love is also his mood and he uses a variety of figurative language in order to contribute to the overall effect of the poem by pouring out his heart of hearts to the love of his life.
Another more subtle comparison, however, includes the utilization of exact and similar sounds at the end of each line. In his earlier piece, he incorporates perfect rhyme. This incorporation involves an ABBA, CDDC, and EFFE rhyme scheme. Likewise, the versification from the Harlem Renaissance primarily consists of exact rhyme and the first stanza contains various examples of this repetition. Yet the most blatant illustration appears in lines one, three, and five: questioning, sing, and everything in the very beginning of his masterpiece.
A key difference, however, is that his literary work from the Roaring Twenties encompasses slant rhyme while his creation from the 1890's does not have any of this oblique rhyme. Two exemplifications of this off rhyme manifest in the opening octave. In verses two and four, the author works with the words "replies" and "histories". On a similar note, he wraps up his introduction with "upon" and "man" in 7-8. The contrast lies with the long i verses the long e in 2 and 4 plus a dissimilar vowel sound altogether in the last couple of lines of the introductory segment.
Finally, his lyric poem from the last decade of the 1800's is actually an allusion to another lyric from the Age of Exploration. They, too, address their love interests via figures of speech and this especially includes imagery in the form of tropes in all three quatrains of "When You Are Old" (1892-1916). In the first quartet, there is symbolism and the "fire" represents love or passion. There are metaphors in the middle and final quadruplets, particularly the personification in the last heroic stanza of the persona himself. In other words, love is symbolized and personified throughout the duodecet from the finality of the 19th century as well as the sixty- four liner from the end of the 1920's.

---

Favorite Favorite  Comment Comment  Share Share