Identity and Resistance in William Butler Yeatss Poetry

Identity and Resistance in William Butler Yeats’s Poetry The Celtic Tradition

Yeats and the Celtic Tradition • The Irish come from the old Celtic culture and according to Yeats the modern Irish man/woman has forgotten about their Celtic roots. Being Celtic and having that identity meant valuing life and nature. One found a sense of romanticism and heroism within nature and within one’s self. However, according to Yeats the modern Irish person has separated himself/herself from that sense of identity. The modern Irish person has also separated himself/herself from other Irish men/women. The focus now is on the individual, not people as a whole, much like in a tribal sense. Not only do the people of Ireland lack the identity they should have, but also an identity that connects them all. Yeats seeks to use poetry to embody a specific sense of identity within people that he feels was embodied within the Celtic Irish of the past, but has been lost within the modern Irish people.

• Yeats’s poem The Fisherman deals with the inability of the Irish people to form a unified national identity. Yeats within this poem has an emotional feeling of sorrowful remorse for hope. Yeats struggles with bringing awareness to the Irish people for establishing a true national identity. By this Yeats through the poem suggests, the need to seek an identity that encompasses everyone and embraces the old Irish/Celtic idea of identity. The poem indicates that (He feels not only) are the Irish people separating themselves from each other, but they are separating themselves from their ancestors. After years of advocating this within his poetry, Yeats in the poem illustrates his despair that the people of Ireland will not come to this recognition, at least in his life time. Therefore, he feels that hope for a unified Irish national identity is dead and in the poem expresses pity and regret for that ideal. • Yeats’s poem “The Fisherman” brings forth Yeats’s struggle with urging people to become aware of his sense of identity, which he wants them to take on and the sorrow he feels that the Irish are unable to do that. This poem illustrates Yeats’s frustration with the idea of hope and progression; but progression in the sense of unity not progression in the sense of technological advancement. Instead the poem embraces sorrow and despair. The first section of the poem, however, illustrates a last thread of hope. It is a faint and fleeting sense of hope. • Although I can see him still, • The freckled man who goes • To a grey place on a hill • In grey Connemara clothes (Yeats 61)

to be contd. • The first line gives the reader a sense of hope and that hope is not lost because this image the speaker envisions is still able to be seen. The imagery of grey and hills illustrates Ireland in a very natural sense. Ireland is a place of mist, rain, and bogs that creates a greyness that encompasses the land. The land is the “hills” and out of this “grey place on a hill” Ireland as a land of nature is being depicted. Yeats is referencing a natural Ireland of nature and how that notion of Ireland is fading. The line “although I can see him still, ” demonstrates that Yeats representation of this natural Ireland is faded and gone because the “him” that represents that ideal is barely able to be seen.

to be contd. • Scholar Shyamal Bagchee looks at the character of the fisherman and the representation Yeats is making with the reference to with the character of the fisherman. Yeats is using the fisherman character to represent an old Ireland before the age of technology as modern society knows it. Bagchee goes on to state, “The distinction central to the meaning of “The Fisherman” is between what Yeats elsewhere describes as the “filthy modern tide: and the noble, passionate and incorruptible Celtic character of the fisherman”(Bagchee 53). The image of the “grey Connemara clothes” is a very Irish Celtic image, but again it is a faded image. Yeats is making a clear distinction as Bagchee suggests between the Celtic Irish identity and the “filthy modern tide” Irish identity. The ‘filthy modern’ identity is the identity that does not embrace the old Irish/Celtic ways of life. Yeats is not suggesting that modern Irish people dress, talk, and live like the Irish/Celtic people of the past, at least in a physical material way. However, he is suggesting that modern Irish people have forgotten how one looks at life and the philosophy of nature. That is what he wants the people of Ireland to remember and embrace, not as individuals, but as a united nation.

Easter 1916: An Observation • The poem Easter 1916 deals with the Irish people finally forming a unified national identity. The poem is written after the act of “Bloody Sunday” that occurred in April 1916. The “Bloody Sunday” of 1916 was a rebellion of fifteen hundred Irishmen of the Irish Republican Army and the Irish Republican Socialist Party, which took over the streets of Dublin for three days in an attempt to gain independence from England. Only sixteen Irishmen died and all of them were executed. However, those sixteen men were the leaders of many Irish parties and sacrificed themselves in order for the people of Ireland to see the need to join together as a unified nation. Easter 1916 is about the act of Ireland finally gaining a unified national identity and for Yeats regaining his hope of such an accomplishment. • Emerging into Yeats’s “Easter 1916” we see the other side of Yeats; a side that has hope and is able to finally celebrate a national identity that is unified and becoming unified. Yeats wrote to Lady Gregory saying: “I had no idea that any public event could so deeply move me”(Foster 21). The rebellion showed that Ireland can bring the people together as a whole and fight against the real enemies that seek to oppress Ireland its people. Yeats writes “Easter 1916” to a degree as a ballad for those men that lead the rebellion and puts himself among those men, it is also a poem that questions the acts of the rebellion. He does not question the ideals behind the act, nor what the rebellion achieved. However, he does question the way in which the rebellion was carried out and performed.

to be contd. • Violence is not something Yeats condoned. In later sections of Easter 1916 Yeats voices his uncertainty at gaining everything you wanted for Ireland because it was gained through the acts of violence. Michael Wood in his essay about Yeats and his outlook of violence states, “The suggestion is that the two acts of violence are intimately connected. It is because we cannot deal with the first, cannot coherently live with the news it seems to bring, that we find ourselves, in an ugly, excitable mood of fake reluctance, half-awaiting the second”(Wood 19). Wood is illustrating Yeats fear that violence will only lead to more violence. After the first act of violence towards liberation according to Yeats there will be a second. • The first section of “Easter 1916” Yeats is connecting himself with the men responsible for the 1916 Dublin rebellion. He is also setting up the notion he deems the “terrible beauty” and what exactly that is. • I have met them at close of day • Coming with vivid faces • From counter or desk among grey (Yeats 83) • In the first line the “them” refers to the leaders of the rebellion, which Yeats later names them. Right off Yeats is paving the way for the rebellion or act, which is very much a political statement surround by political issues. The “I” that starts the poem off is very much Yeats putting himself within the poem. John Wilson Foster is a scholar who looks at Yeats’s need to identify himself with “Bloody Sunday”. • “By choosing to allude rather than refer to the rebels he had met, and by pitching his allusions between the daily and the legendary, the familiar and the reverent, Yeats leaves room to insert himself into the event”(Foster 24). • By inserting himself within the poem, Yeats is inserting his notion of what an Irish person’s identity should be within 1916 Dublin rebellion. The notion of the romantic Irish/Celtic country identity is being implemented in association with the leaders of the rebellion, the same leaders that brought the Irish people to a understanding of attaining a unified national identity.

to be contd. • It is not only the act of unifying the people of Ireland Yeats wants to be associated with, but it is the notion of what that identity entails. Scholar Jalal Uddin Khan writes about Yeats and his influence and need for Irish nationalism. “Yeats’s commitment to Irish nationalism and Celtic culture was deep and unequivocal as was his opposition to Irish Unionism. However, his first priority was to have a rich and rejuvenated Irish culture rather than political freedom, unless that comes through a peaceful political dialogue”(Khan 43). Yeats wanted a unified nation that would stand up to the oppression being done to Ireland, but what he wanted even more was Ireland to claim a certain identity. Not just any unified identity, but the identity Yeats felt the Irish should have and embody. • Easter 1916 goes on to illustrate the unification of Ireland. How the Irish are no longer separated by various parties, but now are gathered together in union to tackle the issue of oppression and also to form a true national identity. In The Fisherman Yeats’s frustration for the Irish people’s inability to claim the national identity he wants them to claim is vividly painted. However, in this poem now the Irish people are embracing such an identity. • Hearts with one purpose alone • Through summer and winter seem • Enchanted to a stone • To trouble the living stream. (Yeats 85)

to be contd. • The “hearts with one purpose alone, ” is the illustration of Ireland being unified. Ireland is no longer separated by numerous ideas of nationalism and identity. Now one notion of nationalism and identity is within the Irish and has allowed them to unify ‘with one purpose alone’. The talk of ‘summer; and winter’ is Yeats connecting nature to the now formed national identity. Nature to Yeats, metaphorically speaks to the imagery of the old Celtic idea of identity. Also the word ‘through’ illustrates the connecting of the past to the present and the people to that past, a past Yeats has long tried to recapture within the Irish people. The line ‘enchanted to a stone, ’ speaks to connecting the present Irish people back to the identity of nature and romanticism. Nature and how nature is looked at was a huge part of the identity of the Irish/Celtics. Modern day Ireland moved away from the notion of nature and romanticism with the advancement of technology, but now the people of Ireland are embracing the notion of nature and the romance that notion brings.

to be cont. • The final section of Easter 1916 speaks to the uneasiness Yeats felt toward how a national identity was achieved. • Was it needless death after all? (Yeats 85) • Again, violence is an act Yeats rejected. He believed violence only created more violence. However, there was a part of him that recognized what has been achieved in history through violence. Yeats dubbed the term ‘tragic joy, ’ which adheres to attaining something through the means of violence. Jahan Ramazani looks at Yeats’s ‘tragic joy’ and that notion changes Yeats views and outlook of issues such as violence, death, and suicide. “It would be more nearly accurate to say that theory of the sublime is close to being a theory of what Yeats calls ‘tragic joy, ’ for the sublime transforms the painful spectacle of destruction and death into a joyful assertion of human freedom and transcendence”(Ramazani 163). It is this assertion of turning ‘the painful spectacle of destruction’ into a joyful transcendence that Yeats struggles with. He feels great things were attained from the 1916 Dublin rebellion, but at what cost, and was the cost truly worth it? Yeats uses his poetry to make others aware of such a question. However, by using poetry to question such an ideal Yeats is uses poetry as a tool to work out his own struggles and the struggles of • Khan also writes about the uneasiness Yeats felt and the questions he had about the rebellion and what was achieved from it. “However, the tragic event of Easter 1916 seemed to have brought back the heroism of the past, romanticizing Ireland anew and turning the earlier poetic statement, “Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, ” into an “old fashioned” cliché”(Khan 43). Khan is making the point that even though Yeats is against violence and he is uneasy about the means in which the Irish become unified and gained a national identity. It is an identity of ‘old, ’ it is the identity Yeats always wanted Ireland to regain and embrace once more. The cause for such may have been an unwanted way of attainment, but for Yeats doesn’t the end justify the means? The last few lines of the poem addresses such a question. • Now and in time to be, • Wherever green is worn, • Are changed, changed utterly; • A terrible beauty is born. (Yeats 85)

to be cont. • Yeats is using the last couple of lines to express the act of change. His uneasiness is not gone, but it is almost as if it is irrelevant. The violence has been done, the ‘terrible beauty is born, ’ and there is nothing that can be done about it. Now, it is a time for change. Yeats alludes to the possibilities that change could be a bad change when he writes ‘in time to be, ’ or it could be a change that changes the Irish and Ireland for the better. Yeats ends with “a terrible beauty is born, ” because he wants people to understand feel the terribleness of what it took to achieve a unified national identity. Yeats’s notion of ‘terrible beauty’ is also giving way to Yeats saying that good and joy can still come out of a terrible act, such as violence. • Yeats searches for an identity for the Irish people, which he uses his poetry to explore and express his sense of identity. Poetry is a tool and Yeats’s uses it to find and illustrate ideas that he believes should be the ideas that are followed. He believes this, because as a Poet he sees himself in a position that is more able to understand express ideas such as identity than others that are not a Poet; because of such people are unable to understand concepts like identity the way poets can.

Comparison • The Fisherman and Easter 1916 are used to advocate and celebrate Yeats’s sense of identity. The Fisherman is a piece that very clearly depicts his sense of identity as one that embraces the old Celtic senses of romanticism and heroism that deal with nature and its relationship to man. Where Easter 1916 depicts Yeats’s celebratory acts of the Irish finally embracing his sense of Identity, but also questioning the acts of how they came to embrace his sense of identity. • The ability to look at both poems The Fisherman and Easter 1916 allows one to understand the sense of identity Yeats pushes upon the Irish people and at the same time struggle with the acceptance of that identity. Through his poetry Yeats creates and advocates for a specific sense of an Irish identity. It is this identity that is seen in The Fisherman. Yeats feels as a Poet he knows better and that his sense of identity is the correct identity, which is evident through his anger and sorrow depicted in the poem. Easter 1916, on the other hand illustrates the embracing of Yeats’s sense of identity by the Irish people, yet he struggles with that embrace. The way his identity is attained is through an act he rejects and because of that he struggles with the act of rejecting his own sense of identity. This is important to understand because Yeats uses poetry to advocate a sense of identity, but when that sense of identity is embraced, he uses poetry to resist the embracing of that identity. In a way, it is as if Yeats struggles with his own sense of Poetry is a huge force Yeats uses to established and advocate for specific identity. Now Poetry has become a force that resists and struggles with that identity because of how it was attained. Poetry for Yeats is a way to attain but also resist.