Combating the Rain: A Suite of Five Fractured Poems
“We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.” —W. Somerset Maugham
I. They Dream Spring
They dream spring Under slow, gray clouds Where the lies They tell themselves Are as wet And transparent As the rain
Where all she knows About him Is hanging From the plants She kept alive While he Was away
Too bad he goes Before strawberry season Before planting Tomatoes, cucumbers And cabbages
II. Her Words
If her words could move like the wind, They would form his face in the clouds. They would hang in the tops of the trees, Gently hovering a nest Where a mother bird sits on eggs The color of his eyes.
III. Anticipation of the Vernal Equinox
Baby will not kick her walls again Empty womb forever In a house that will not rock And groan with the new born Empty breasts not needed No new tiny lips to suck out milk Two babies came made her body Made her house ready for babies Empty tubes cut & burned Baby she is ready for Comes each month As far as the scar
IV. The Break
The zipper at the back of her neck Catches hairs That break in sharp snaps— Like his words As he jumped over the couch spitting out: ‘it’s your fucking fault’—
She knows it’s her fucking fault. If his spit could put out The fire in her head Her eyes would spew him A smoky thanks And her excuses would fall at his feet Humble ashes.
V. Between Slices of Bread
His tongue cuts Slices of meat From the hearts And livers Of those Who would love him
From between his teeth He picks pieces of flesh That pours from each victim— A stuck hog
They transcend flesh, your bones without a fire Pink’s deep blush stains beneath your skin’s decay Time’s grace will starve your marrow of desire
Fat-necked and dumb, you swagger and conspire Your spine bent twisted from the truth’s right stay They transcend flesh, your bones without a fire
Greed clicks your knuckles, limbs squinch up in ire Hips balloon and sway in worldly dismay Time’s grace will starve your marrow of desire
Your lies float like feathers whispering mire You seek black sand where you can stand and bray They transcend flesh, your bones without a fire
Your belly boasts its burden to the pyre Your brain sulks as old hungers try to play Time’s grace will starve your marrow of desire
You try to laugh but just grow thick and tire Your dreary ear turns heaven’s chimes away They transcend flesh, your bones without a fire Time’s grace will starve your marrow of desire
“I have tried to emphasize that those people, eating their potatoes in the lamplight, have dug the earth with those same hands they put in the dish, and so it speaks of manual labor and of how they have honestly earned their food.” —Vincent van Gogh
Their drama is played out in wordless harmony (like yours and mine, now that we talk no more). Their meal is a symphony of simplicity.
Their dark, luxuriant mouths and noses make me think of Africans, though these are Dutch peasants (life is tinged with Africa, my own Greek blood fairly sings of it).
This study hints at the grim blood Vincent would be shedding with the bullet. This study of poor peasants pouring their barley coffee, cutting their potatoes,
tasting silence in the dim room suffers me to know that I will go on digging deep into dirt, hoarding these words, stocking this tongue
till it tells some truth. Vincent let his blood many times before the bullet—now I bleed & sweat bullets at the brow, laboring to stretch ink
across blank pages, eating words like potatoes, mining you for some treasure I sense I lost somewhere in the dusk-tinted past—God knows how many times.
Vincent’sViewof Arles with Irises in the Foreground
To see as you do, Vincent, would give a soul a clearer heart: the trees that look like upside-down men, plunged headfirst into the earth to their waists, their leaves like women’s hair blown by the wind and the irises’ pouting lips parting for the butterflies and the bees,
the red roofs under which the harlots of Arles grind their tricks into dust, and the church tower remanding all eyes to look up at that troubled paint in the sky— those tiny strokes. your fingers, your brushes, and your burden of beauty.
1 Madame Roulin’s pudgy body fills up the chair. She’s a short-waisted dump of a woman, her hair scraped back tight away from her eyes, her eyes peer two blanks downward, her mouth matches the empty look of the eyes but adds a sour touch with those pursed lips.
The happy flowers on the wallpapered background contrast with her face. Her cold countenance makes me shudder for the pauvr’enfant in her care, she rocks the cradle with a rope.
2 This is her moment to muse about those early days in the cafes, when the soldiers and their women preened and crowed, and the hookers with their painted faces stole tips from the waitresses and then her man took her for a virgin and after little Marie died, and after he cried and went back to sea, she settled down with a cradle and a rope to keep house for other people and is well fed.
Image: T. S. Eliot – National Portrait Gallery, London
Life Sketch of T. S. Eliotand Poem Commentaries
T. S. Eliot remains one of the twentieth century’s most influential poets and critics. Born in the USA, he later became a British citizen, and he influenced modernist literature through his poetic innovations, cultural critiques, and dedication to forms.
Early Life and Education
Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on September 26, 1888, in St. Louis, Missouri, to a prosperous and intellectually active family [1]. His father, Henry Ware Eliot, was a successful businessman, and his mother, Charlotte Champe Stearns Eliot, was a teacher and poet.
Early in life Eliot was physically frail and exhibited introspective leanings. A hernia limited his childhood mobility; thus he was motivated to dive deeply into literature [2]. Early on, he developed a strong affection for classic and French literature, especially Dante and Baudelaire.
Eliot attended Smith Academy in St. Louis and later Milton Academy in Massachusetts. At Harvard University, he majored in philosophy and literature, [3] studying under major literary figures including Irving Babbitt and George Santayana. He earned his B.A. and M.A. at Harvard.
As Eliot’s interest in philosophy deepened, he began to study Sanskrit and Eastern philosophy; these studies helped to provide the spiritual atmosphere around his poetry. He also became acquainted with the works of F. H. Bradley, whose ideas on metaphysics impressed him strongly.
In 1910, Eliot traveled to Paris to study at the Sorbonne under Henri Bergson and others. He returned to Harvard for doctoral work but left before completing his dissertation on Bradley. His intellectual journey then led him to travel to England, where he settled permanently.
Eliot’s European education and philosophical bent became the foundation upon which he built his unique style and achievement [4]. His understanding of American pragmatism and European modernism afforded him the ability to compose a type of poetry that was intellectually rigorous, culturally resonant, and spiritually honest.
Accomplishments and Awards
T. S. Eliot became a British citizen in 1927 and was awarded the Order of Merit by King George VI in 1948 [5]. That same year, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was also awarded the Dante Prize from the Dante Society of America and received honorary doctorates from prestigious universities, including Oxford, Harvard, and the University of London [6].
Eliot’s powerful impact on literature and culture has continued to extend beyond prestigious awards. As an editor at Faber & Faber, he encouraged the careers of numerous writers, including W. H. Auden and Ted Hughes [7].
Eliot’s achievement in the field of drama is still recognized today. His plays, including Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party, have earned praise from critics as well as popular success, broadening his influence into theatrical literature.
Publications
Eliot’s first major poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” was published in 1915; the subject and style of that poem began to point to a new direction in modern poetry [8]. The poem’s fragmented, stream-of-consciousness structure and dour ironic tone surprised—even shocked and startled—many readers.
Published in 1922, his monumental poem, The Waste Land, cemented him as the primary voice of modern disillusionment with the approaching spiritual dryness [9]. Edited with the input from Ezra Pound, the poem mixes myth, earlier literary pieces, and clips from foreign languages in its depiction of the fragmentation of culture.
In “Ash Wednesday” (1930) and Four Quartets (1943), Eliot’s poetic vision put on display its maturity. These later works took on a spiritual tone, influenced by his conversion to Anglicanism in 1927 [10]. Four Quartets in particular reveals his meditative musings on time, historical progression, and soul redemption.
In addition to poetry, Eliot became a productive essayist. His work on criticism, The Sacred Wood (1920), introduced and elucidated his literary concept of the “objective correlative,” which continued to influence literary studies for decades [11].
Eliot also edited The Criterion, a ground-breaking literary journal that became a major source for modernist literature and critical thought between 1922 and 1939. His editorial prowess influenced literary conversations in Europe as well as in the USA.
Special Interests/Controversies
Eliot’s spiritual journey, resulting in his 1927 conversion to Anglo-Catholicism [12], shaped his personal life as well as his poetic perspective. He felt that Anglicanism was a stabilizing force amid decay and modern unruliness. Eliot’s social criticism, especially in Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), promoted tradition and Christian values [13].
An area of controversy [14] involves Eliot’s early poetic depictions of Jewish characters. Passages from “Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar” and other poems have led some scholars to accuse the poet of anti-Semitic sentiment.
Eliot later defended himself from such accusations, and his other defenders have argued that his work simply reflected the cultural climate of his time rather than any personal bigotry. Nevertheless, that distraction continues in certain academic enclaves, particularly those indoctrinated in political correctness and identity politics.
Another controversial issue surrounds Eliot’s difficult marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood. Their marriage was scarred by emotional instability and illness and ended with her being institutionalized in Northumberland House [15], where in 1947 she died. Although Eliot never divorced Vivienne, he did later confess that the marriage had been a disaster.
In 1957, Eliot married Valerie Fletcher, who had been his secretary. Unlike Eliot’s first marriage, his life with Valerie proved very happy, leading to a quiet contentment for the couple. After Eliot’s death in 1965, Valerie served as curator of his literary legacy. She edited his works and letters, helping to preserve his literary reputation [16].
She approved the adaptation of “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” into the musical “Cats,” which proved a financial success for the Eliot estate as well as all involved in that Broadway project.
Despite—or maybe even because of—such personal trials and tribulations, Eliot’s work continued to address questions of identity, morality, and spiritual awakening. While the depth of his intellectual capacity remained somewhat hidden, it seemed to be veiling his personal anguish, and critics have continued to explore that issue.
Illness and Death
In later years, Eliot’s health declined as he suffered from emphysema and other health complications [17]. He died in London on January 4, 1965, at the age of seventy-six. Eliot’s ashes are interred at St. Michael’s Church in East Coker [18], the Somerset village from which his ancestors had emigrated to the USA.
Legacy
T. S. Eliot’s influence is still felt in the literary genres of poetry, criticism, and the theater. His commingling of tradition with innovation redirected the orientation of English-language literature.
By integrating metaphysical speculation with poetic form, Eliot reconstituted modern poetry. His ability to describe cultural decay while at the same time suggest spiritual awakening affords his writings lasting importance.
His poetry continues to attract interest from scholars, critics, general readers, and other poets. In a century splattered by chaos, Eliot’s voice offered—and continue to offer—a rigorous response to the chaotic leanings of modernity and life in general. Eliot remains an essential figure for study in the area of twentieth-century literary studies.
Sources
Most of the sources, which I originally used in print form, are now conveniently offered at Internet Archive.
From 1922–1928, poet William Butler Yeats served in the senate of the newly formed Irish Free State. In “Among School Children,” the poet creates a speaker who dramatizes an event from the poet/senator’s official duties—visiting a classroom of children at an Irish school.
Introduction with Text of “Among School Children”
While William Butler Yeats is without a doubt a great poet, who delved deeply into truth and tried to understand historical events, he was not always successful in understanding certain principles.
He set out on a journey of study that led him to Eastern philosophical and religious thought, but he did not quite understand the Eastern concepts that he attempted to exploit in many of his poems.
Although not among his works that directly broach the Eastern philosophical concepts, “Among School Children” is one of Yeats’ most anthologized poems. It features numerous allusions to ancient Greek mythology and philosophy. Yeats was always a thinker, even if not always a clear thinking one.
Among School Children
I I walk through the long schoolroom questioning; A kind old nun in a white hood replies; The children learn to cipher and to sing, To study reading-books and history, To cut and sew, be neat in everything In the best modern way—the children’s eyes In momentary wonder stare upon A sixty-year-old smiling public man.
II I dream of a Ledaean body, bent Above a sinking fire, a tale that she Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event That changed some childish day to tragedy— Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent Into a sphere from youthful sympathy, Or else, to alter Plato’s parable, Into the yolk and white of the one shell.
III And thinking of that fit of grief or rage I look upon one child or t’other there And wonder if she stood so at that age— For even daughters of the swan can share Something of every paddler’s heritage— And had that colour upon cheek or hair, And thereupon my heart is driven wild: She stands before me as a living child.
IV Her present image floats into the mind— Did Quattrocento finger fashion it Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind And took a mess of shadows for its meat? And I though never of Ledaean kind Had pretty plumage once—enough of that, Better to smile on all that smile, and show There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.
V What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap Honey of generation had betrayed, And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape As recollection or the drug decide, Would think her son, did she but see that shape With sixty or more winters on its head, A compensation for the pang of his birth, Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?
VI Plato thought nature but a spume that plays Upon a ghostly paradigm of things; Solider Aristotle played the taws Upon the bottom of a king of kings; World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings What a star sang and careless Muses heard: Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.
VII Both nuns and mothers worship images, But those the candles light are not as those That animate a mother’s reveries, But keep a marble or a bronze repose. And yet they too break hearts—O Presences That passion, piety or affection knows, And that all heavenly glory symbolise— O self-born mockers of man’s enterprise;
VIII Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?
Reading
Commentary on “Among School Children”
William Butler Yeats served from 1922-1928 in the senate of the newly formed Irish Free State. His speaker in “Among School Children” is dramatizing what was likely an official, mandatory visit to a Catholic school.
First Stanza: An Old Man Visiting a School
I I walk through the long schoolroom questioning; A kind old nun in a white hood replies; The children learn to cipher and to sing, To study reading-books and history, To cut and sew, be neat in everything In the best modern way—the children’s eyes In momentary wonder stare upon A sixty-year-old smiling public man.
The speaker is visiting a Catholic school and “a kind old nun in a white hood” is escorting him through the “long schoolroom,” explaining the lessons that the pupils are studying.
They study math and music; they read and study history. They receive instruction in sewing, as they learn to be “neat in everything.” All this is accomplished in the “best modern way.”
The speaker then notices that the children are staring at him, who is a “sixty-year-old smiling public man.” Yeats was born is 1865; thus he would be 60 years old in 1925, which means that he is visiting this school in the third year of his service in the senate.
As a political man, he, of course, would be smiling, as he meets his public, even if they are only school age children.
Second Stanza: The Politics of Perversion
II I dream of a Ledaean body, bent Above a sinking fire, a tale that she Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event That changed some childish day to tragedy— Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent Into a sphere from youthful sympathy, Or else, to alter Plato’s parable, Into the yolk and white of the one shell.
The speaker has begun his narration in which he refers to himself as a “smiling public man.” As a political official his public must always see him smiling; thus, he keeps up the façade even as he meets with little children. He then veers off into a “dream” of a young girl whose copulation with the god Zeus has been considered a rape by some including the smiling man himself in his poem “Leda and the Swan.”
The speaker paints a drama of the event with the brush of a “body, bent / Above a sinking fire.” He adds into the mix the young girl telling “a tale” “of harsh reproof.” Or perhaps it was merely a “trivial event” but still it alters the child’s day from “childish” to “tragedy.”
He then implies a coupling by employing the images of “two natures blent” into which the swan’s semen and the girl’s ova blend into a version of “Plato’s parable” of “yolk and white of the one shell.”
Third Stanza: Rape Musing
III And thinking of that fit of grief or rage I look upon one child or t’other there And wonder if she stood so at that age— For even daughters of the swan can share Something of every paddler’s heritage— And had that colour upon cheek or hair, And thereupon my heart is driven wild: She stands before me as a living child.
The speaker then continues his musing about the rape of Leda by the Zeusian swan. While continuing to muse about that coupling, he is staring intently at “one child or t’other” as he wonders if this child’s countenance and behavior may resemble that of the young Leda. And as he thinks of this scenario, the speaker asserts that his “heart is driven wild,” observing this little girl standing in from of him “as a living child.”
Fourth Stanza: A Dream of Indulgence
IV Her present image floats into the mind— Did Quattrocento finger fashion it Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind And took a mess of shadows for its meat? And I though never of Ledaean kind Had pretty plumage once—enough of that, Better to smile on all that smile, and show There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.
The speaker then unveils an image of his own qualities, suggesting that they might change the little girl if she were impregnated with his spawn. He wonders how stately and beautiful such a creature would be if resulting from a grandiose Irish senator and little girl attending this Catholic school.
On the other hand, all these intrusive images might be resulting from nothing more than “a mess of shadows,” as he speculates. Then the speaker seems to be wrenched out of his dream as he claims he was “never of Ledaean kind,” though he once went about as a very handsome man indeed, with “pretty plumage”—akin to the Zeusian swan, no doubt!
But then “enough of that”—he must snap back into senator, public man persona, smile and show that he is still a “smiling public man” who resembles more a “comfortable kind of old scarecrow” than the dramatic features of the Ledaean scenario, including a Zeusian swan with fine feathers.
Fifth Stanza: Uncertain Future of Each Child
V What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap Honey of generation had betrayed, And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape As recollection or the drug decide, Would think her son, did she but see that shape With sixty or more winters on its head, A compensation for the pang of his birth, Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?
The speaker then instead of remaining that comfortable old scarecrow now continues to envision the result of copulation. He now imagines a “youthful mother” holding a baby.
He then wonders—through the gestation period and the difficulty of giving birth and then the reality of the child right there on her lap—if the young mother could possibly think of that child after it has lived for sixty or so years as a worthwhile accomplishment, that is, would the “pang of his birth” be worth it. After all, his future will always remain an “uncertainty.”
The speaker now is ruminating on his own uncertainty, as he has further delved dreamlike into the issue with these little girls—an issue that has inexplicably resulted in images of himself.
Sixth Stanza: The Prospect of Scaring a Bird
VI Plato thought nature but a spume that plays Upon a ghostly paradigm of things; Solider Aristotle played the taws Upon the bottom of a king of kings; World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings What a star sang and careless Muses heard: Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.
Again the speaker inserts himself into the narrative, “old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird”—the scarecrow image again. He seems to be railing against his own aging and appearance. But he nevertheless cannot leave the notion that his own hidden nature has imposed unexpected, disturbing dreams including these innocent little girls.
Thus the disgruntled speaker then enlists “Plato” again to insert suggestive words that refer to his libido, for example, “nature but a spume,” and Aristotle playing the taws “upon the bottom of a king,” along with “golden-thighed Pythagoras,” and “fingered upon a fiddle-sick.” These terms have invaded the senator’s state of mind, rendering him contemplative of the nature of hidden drives that spring up unbidden in unlikely places and events.
Seventh Stanza: Images and Worship
VII Both nuns and mothers worship images, But those the candles light are not as those That animate a mother’s reveries, But keep a marble or a bronze repose. And yet they too break hearts—O Presences That passion, piety or affection knows, And that all heavenly glory symbolise— O self-born mockers of man’s enterprise;
The speaker then draws a contrast between what a nun worships and what an ordinary mother worships. They both “worship images,” but those images are not the same. The nun worships images that are hard, harsh, and tinged with craven-spelled beings that break hearts.
Mothers, on the other hand, worship “Presences,” which inculcate passion along with piety and affection that dulls human awareness to the point that those who mock humankind are merely “self-born.”
The wisdom of the ages cannot penetrate a small school where little girls can become targets for aged men who cannot seem to control their hidden urges with which they are born and against which those mothers have no power to struggle.
Eighth Stanza: The Nature of Unity
VIII Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?
The eighth and final stanza of this poem does not rest comfortably with the first seven. It could, in fact, stand alone as its own full throated poem. It offers a melding of body and soul along with the yogic idea of the unity of knower-knowing-known.
The speaker is offering the notions that the soul need not require the body to suffer for it, that beauty need not come from despair, and that the acquisition of knowledge need not require burning the “midnight oil.”
He, thus, is implying that unity of creation is exemplified in the “chestnut tree” which features roots, leaves, blossoms, and boles, and it, therefore, remains impossible to know which part that “great rooted blossomer” actually is.
Also, when a dancer is dancing and swaying to music, and an observer looks with delight upon that dance, the rhetorical question in the final line, paradoxically asks, “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” The obvious answer, of course, forces itself upon the mind that they are, in fact, united—they are the same entity as one cannot know one from the other.
Uniting the Final Stanza
While the final stanza seems to separate itself from the rest of this poem, the uniting element is that all thoughts and all events ultimately proceed out of the mind of one Creative Force.
The speaker has been visited dreamlike by mythological characters and events that he would likely never have deliberately thought to contemplate, especially as he is performing a civic duty in a public place. Thus the question: are the speaker and his thoughts the same or are they separate entities?
If they are separate then the speaker may be filled with guilt because of his thoughts about the “living” child who stood before him, causing his heart to race. One the other hand, if it is all of one fabric and all is related, his thoughts come as naturally as a dancer dancing or as a tree being the sum of its parts.
Thus readers could take away from the poem the notion that the final stanza works to place in perspective the speaker’s possible self-judgment. He can accept his thoughts as naturally occurring. Or he can self-flagellate and likely disrupt his own ability to continue doing the work he must do.
“Perhaps the time has already come . . . when the sluggard intellectof this continent will look from under its iron lids and fill the postponed expectation of the world with something better than the exertions of mechanical skill.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar” 1837
You have mistaken the hands for the heart, The craft for the art, The brain for the mind, The plane for the destination.
The scholar schooled on Man Thinking must ask:
When the fountain replaced the quill, Did the masters tout it as the solution To all pedagogical problems? a fount of creativity?
When the ball point edged out the fountain, Did they once again shout “panacea”? Ideas become more liquid?
When typewriters lined up in classrooms, Did English professors march their students in to improve The essay? keys take on mind power?
All are fragile, who would teach and learn. But our students know the difference Between a tool and a work.
They come to us to search, if not seek, their souls. If we demand that Man Thinking is Man Computing We impede their ability to search and seek.
II. Those Who Fear Big Brother
“Let the scholar not quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient and honorable of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar” 1837
You finger the edge of the new page But refuse to read it: Maybe you can’t control the syntax, Maybe you’ll have to ask someone to help you— Someone who is not as good as you are, Some morale-less underling.
You do fine with your pen and ink— You do write type, though, if the machine Does not plug into the wall.
You suspect that invisible criminal activity Is playing in the network of the system: Whiz-kids accessing your bank accounts, Administrators processing your thoughts.
Your students laugh loud at the clever insults You spit at the machine, But they know the difference between A stagecoach and an airplane.
The speaker in William Butler Yeats’ “The Fisherman” is dramatically promoting a style of poetry that will become and remain meaningful to and beloved by the common folk.
Introduction with Text of “The Fisherman”
William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Fisherman” appears in the poet’s The Wild Swans at Coole, which was brought out in 1919. The poet’s collection features many of his most widely anthologized poems.
In “The Fisherman,” Yeats has created a speaker who is voicing a call for a genuine school of art for the common folk, an art that dramatizes the beauty and truth inherent in all great art.
The speaker is also decrying the cultural suicide being perpetrated by charlatans in art as well as their cohorts who are power-hungry politicians. He thus reveals contempt for fakes and frauds, while promoting an ideal that he strongly believes should be steering art and the cultural life of the nation.
Every nation throughout history has suffered from these same issues, as toppling governments and bloody wars testify. The poets have often spoken up, calling out names and insisting on reforms.
Despite the fact that poetry’s first function arises from personal experience, political controversy often intrudes into the realm of the personal and that is when poets are compelled to use their platform for activism.
Care must be taken, however, that the poet not become a brazen tool for propaganda. As an accomplished world poet and former Irish senator [1], Yeats possessed the acumen to broach issues of art, poetry, culture, and politics.
The former politician and literary Nobel Laureate [2] boasts numerous works that address culture and politics: “The Fisherman” remains one of the most colorful and culturally significant poems of the era.
The Fisherman
Although I can see him still, The freckled man who goes To a grey place on a hill In grey Connemara clothes At dawn to cast his flies, It’s long since I began To call up to the eyes This wise and simple man. All day I’d looked in the face What I had hoped ’twould be To write for my own race And the reality; The living men that I hate, The dead man that I loved, The craven man in his seat, The insolent unreproved, And no knave brought to book Who has won a drunken cheer, The witty man and his joke Aimed at the commonest ear, The clever man who cries The catch-cries of the clown, The beating down of the wise And great Art beaten down.
Maybe a twelvemonth since Suddenly I began, In scorn of this audience, Imagining a man And his sun-freckled face, And grey Connemara cloth, Climbing up to a place Where stone is dark under froth, And the down turn of his wrist When the flies drop in the stream: A man who does not exist, A man who is but a dream; And cried, “Before I am old I shall have written him one Poem maybe as cold And passionate as the dawn.”
Reading of “The Fisherman”
Commentary on “The Fisherman”
The speaker in William Butler Yeats’ poem is heralding a style of poetry that will be beloved by the common folk. He makes his contempt for charlatans known. He encourages the ideals that he believes must guide culture and art. Yeats was a promoter of the style of art that he thought was closest to the hearts and minds of the Irish.
First Movement: Recalling an Admired Man
Although I can see him still, The freckled man who goes To a grey place on a hill In grey Connemara clothes At dawn to cast his flies, It’s long since I began To call up to the eyes This wise and simple man.
The speaker appears to be remembering a special man whom he has respected: “[t]he freckled man” wearing “Connemara clothes.” This man has been in the habit of fishing at a “gray place on a hill.”
The speaker implies that in his mind’s eye, he can still perceive the man. And it may also be that the speaker literally meets the man occasionally in the village. However, the speaker has not as of late mused upon the man.
The speaker admires the man’s simple ways. He assumes that the man is “wise and simple.” The speaker then continues to cogitate upon those very same qualities as he continues his message.
The speaker entertains a deep desire to praise the virtues of simplicity and wisdom. He has observed those qualities in the folks who are doing ordinary, simple everyday tasks.
Second Movement: Researching History
All day I’d looked in the face What I had hoped ’twould be To write for my own race And the reality; The living men that I hate, The dead man that I loved, The craven man in his seat, The insolent unreproved,
The speaker has determined that he will make a plan to write for his own people, including the real experiences they all undergo. With the plan in mind, he has begun to research the history of his nation and its people. The speaker asserts that he hopes to reveal the reality of the lived experience of his fellow citizens.
Such a reality should well acquit itself and at the same time demonstrate and dramatize the exact truths that future generations will be likely to undergo.The speaker offers a catalogue of qualities that the men who make up the current political landscape have put on display.
Some of those men will be the recipients of his ire. He brazenly states that there are living men whom he hates. He then contrasts that negative emotion with its opposite by emphasizing that there is as well the “dead man that [he] loved.”
The speaker continues in his enflamed hatred by asserting that the “craven” exist while the “insolent” remain unrestricted in their perfidy. The speaker believes that by contrasting good and evil, he can demonstrate the efficacy of the arrival of a steady virtue upon which to build a better art and poetry that can represent Irish culture more faithfully and honestly.
Third Movement: The Guilty Avoiding Justice
And no knave brought to book Who has won a drunken cheer, The witty man and his joke Aimed at the commonest ear, The clever man who cries The catch-cries of the clown, The beating down of the wise And great Art beaten down.
The speaker continues referring to the rogues and knaves, who have thus far evaded justice though guilty. The speaker loathes those frauds who have “won a drunken cheer,” even as they have remained undeserving of celebrity and honor.
The speaker makes it clear that there is a sector of despicable characters who damage, cheapen, and pile shame on the culture. The speaker accuses such unscrupulous scoundrels of attempting to destroy the art of the nation.
They, in effect, denigrate “the wise” as they dismantle the “great Art” that they have inherited. The speaker grieves that these killers of culture have succeeded in their perfidy. Thus, he is calling attention to their misdeeds. He is proposing a change in focus in order to improve values. He is not suggesting censorship of the charlatans.
Fourth Movement: Cultural Assassins
Maybe a twelvemonth since Suddenly I began, In scorn of this audience, Imagining a man And his sun-freckled face, And grey Connemara cloth, Climbing up to a place Where stone is dark under froth,
The speaker then reports that for a while he has been incubating the idea of creating an uncomplicated, “sun-freckled face”—the man in “Connemara cloth.” For his effort, he has thus far received only “scorn” from the ilk of those culture killers and unscrupulous reprobates.
Nevertheless, the speaker has been pressing on, striving to envision a simple fisherman, who “climb[s] up to a place / Where stone is dark with froth,” a natural place that continues to be pristine and still remains alluring.
The speaker is crafting a symbolic being whom he can describe and on whom he can bestow the qualities that he deems must become and remain an important part of the natural art, belonging to the people of his environs.
Fifth Movement: The Importance of Simplicity
And the down turn of his wrist When the flies drop in the stream: A man who does not exist, A man who is but a dream; And cried, “Before I am old I shall have written him one Poem maybe as cold And passionate as the dawn.”
The speaker visualizes the fisherman’s wrist movement as the man casts his line into the water. He admits that this man does not yet exist, because he is still “but a dream.” The speaker’s keen sensibility is strong enough to bring to life such a simple, rustic character. He is urged then to take all pains to bring such a character to life.
Thus, while the poet is still young enough to use his God-given imagination, he vows to take on the task of writing this fisherman into existence and to compose for the man a poem “as cold / And passionate as the dawn.”
The speaker continues to muse on simplicity. He passionately desires to create a new ideal that will produce meaningful, original, dramatic poetry.
He insists that that new poetry must be able to speak with genuine originality and that it thus should become a harbinger of the beginning of a new era in art of poetry.
The speaker hopes to accomplish all of this despite the wrong-headedness and power-grabbing of too many of the political phonies—and despite the fraudulent deceivers whose selfishness is spreading the destruction of their own culture.
