Among School Children (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: William Butler Yeats
- First Published: 1927
- Type of Work: Meditation
- Genres: Poetry, Meditation
- Subjects: Children, Twentieth century, Authors or writers, Schools or school life, Poetry or poets, Human behavior, Dancing or dancers, Life, philosophy of, Life and death, Ireland or Irish people
The Poem
William Butler Yeats’s “Among School Children” is written in eight eight-line stanzas that follow a precise rhyme scheme. Along with the straightforward title, stanza I establishes the immediate context of the action in deliberately prosaic language. The speaker is visiting a schoolroom, and “a kind old nun,” his guide for the day or perhaps the classroom teacher, is answering his matter-of-fact questions in a rapid, matter-of-fact way.
The tone and mood of the poem take a sharp turn in the couplet ending the first stanza, however; the speaker suddenly...
[The entire page is 1495 words long]
